Race Report: 2011 Baise Outdoor Quest (China) - Day 1 (2/4).

Day 1.
Start - Leye Town.
43km MTB
22km Run
incl. 140m Abseil
Finish - Shenmu Sinkhole.

Within 20 minutes of the opening ceremony all 80 competitors were lined up behind the start banner, nervous in anticipation of the start. The bike course commenced with two laps of Leye town before heading into the hills to the east. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous, but we were soon under way and I was able to settle into a good position near the front of the group. Coming into the turn at the top of the town however, some riders came down on a wet, off-camber corner, and despite being in a good position, I had no where to go and hit the ground hard on my left side. As I lay on the ground watching the peleton ride away down the road my heart sank and I just hoped my bike was in one piece.  Fortunately, the damage to my bike was confined to a dropped chain and a bent seat, both of which I was able to quickly fix and get going. My left side was pretty sore, but I kept calm and managed to slowly pull back onto the group after about 2km riding.

Rolling under the start banner - Leye town (www.8264.net)

The bike course headed almost immediately upwards out of town and I was quite worried about how much climbing power I was going to be able to generate. The strong teams started to put the hammer down and a split formed in the bunch, we were riding with the mid-pack teams Kolomb, Exustar and Czech AR. Maria was put on Pavel's tow and we were racing. The bike course had two short climbs, and then a long one (12km @ 3-4%). We made good progress and I started to feel quite good on the long climb. Pavel and I took turns towing Maria up the climbs, although Pavel had to take a larger share of the work because I was still lacking power after the crash. We powered downhill into town, with Pavel and Serge driving hard on the front.

The winning teams GPS track log.

The first run section was only 9 km and had a similar profile to the bike with a few short steep climbs and then a long steep one. I was glad to be out on the run, and my nerves settled as I got into a good rythym (albeit a lopsided one). We were about 20 minutes in when the cloud burnt off and the heat hit, HARD, going from low 20's to 35 in only a short space of time. I was focussed on the pain in my leg, and with what the team was doing but I quickly started to feel dizzy, nauseous and quite out of breath. I dropped to the back of the group, ate and drank thinking that usually solves feeling flat. However, I continued to rapidly deteriorate and was quickly unsteady on my feet. Serge told Pavel to put me on a tow.

I was so confused, could my day get any worse? How was it that a strong trail runner was falling apart despite  nailing my nutrition, not working above my limit and having felt great only 20 minutes beforehand? I soon realised however, that I was overheating. I somehow convinced Pavel to stop (under possibly the only tree in China) and I ripped my race top off, along with my undershirt. I immediately felt a little bit better, and we pushed on knowing that the rest TA was only 3-4km along the trail. I was still in a pretty bad way, and Serge more or less dragged me up the last steep hill and into the TA. In the TA I poured bottles of water over my head and inside forearms, smashed a bottle of half coke:water that I'd premixed and took a gel and some chocolate. We didn't have much time and we had to harness up for the abseil, fit our lights for the caving and re-fill our camelbacks for the next 13km run.

After a short run out of the TA we were at the abseil, an overhanging 140m direct drop into the Dacao Sinkhole. We had a wait for a few teams which didn't bother me (especially as it was timed out of the race). Pavel and Maria rapped first, then Serge and I. My day of bad luck was to continue with the sling connecting Sergey and I getting twisted into my running line below my figure 8 completely locking us up. I had the shits well and truly by this stage and let out a massive F-A-R-K which echoed around the sinkhole. I leaned back in my harness and used all of my strength to lift the 100m of double line below us up over my head to untwist the line, which worked a treat, and we quickly dropped to the base of the sinkhole. Finally, something went right.

The climb back out of the sinkhole was steep and I managed to brush my right leg through some stinging nettles. I thought at that point my day really couldn't get any worse. We took our harnesses off at the top, and continued to climb steeply for another km or so before the first downhill relief for the day. I got on a run, and started to get a bit of confidence back, after a km or so the pace was on. We held onto a good pace from here and caught and passed the Chinese team that had passed us while we were locked up on the abseil.

We were now running on some pretty remote trails and at least one of the villages we ran through was still building their first ever house out of bricks. A very humbling thought.  All of the locals would line the streets, or simply look up from their work and call out (what would be pronounced as) 'Jai-Yo, Jai-Yo' which we were told meant good work, go, go, go. This boosted my confidence a bit, and I was now running quite a good tempo on all but the steepest sections of climb.

Soon after the cave appeared in the valley below us, and we were all pretty excited to get out of the heat. I had my Ay-Up lights and went to the front to navigate our way through the cave. The Leye caves are the largest in the world with an area of over 20,000 sq. meters. Moving through the limestone caves was quite hard work with lots of scrambling, at times having to crawl through sections as wide a my shoulders. In all, we must have been in the cave for 30-50 minutes.

As we emerged from the other side, we knew we were on the final stretch for the day but also knew we had lots of climbing still to do. I was getting stronger every minute, and soon found myself at the front trying to push a good tempo. Unfortunately, Pavel was now starting to struggle with stomach problems. The last 6k followed a similar pattern, up, down, up, down, up, down. The finish seemed to take forever, and every time we climbed into a saddle we'd get exited that the finish would be on the opposite side. However, as soon as we saw the final mountain range dotted with traditional pagodas, we knew.

Crossing the finish line. Spent. (Courtesy Jocelyn)

We finished in 7:45hrs which was scaled back to 7:05 after the timed out sections were removed from our time. We were in 14th place, which was a disappointing but, given how much had gone wrong, hardly surprising. The run course had been simply brutal, 22km in about 4.5hrs, if that gives you some perspective. I was pretty disappointed with my day, I'd had more things go wrong in one day than the rest of my racing career combined and my international début had been a veritable disaster.  On the flip side, I was feeling positive that I'd finished strong and tomorrow was another day...

Hopefully, some photos will come through soon.

Guy Andrew's (Peak Adventure) Blog for Day 1
http://www.guyandrews.tv/?p=1212

Dougal Allan's (Chiru Pro) Blog for Day 1
http://www.sportzhub.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12175