I met Donncha in 2008 in the Beast of Ballyhoura. In fact, I met Donncha`s legend before I had met him. He was racing on the Irish Defense Forces adventure racing team and we were in direct competition with them for the first 4 hours of the Beast of Ballyhoura race. Since then I have raced with him, trained with him and had lots of fun experiences with him! He even cycled from Ireland to Zurich and stayed with me for a few days.

In one race we did together in Ireland I remember being freezing cold on the side of a misty mountain in Co. Down and Donncha was running around in a pair of shorts and t-shirt carrying his own bike and the bike of one of my team mates up a hill. And the most impressive thing of all is he always seems to be having fun and if he isnt, he is quiet. I never learned how to do that! 

This year he did the RAAM. Please read his blog recap on the race – and testimony to how much of an impact he has on people around him:

http://donnchacuttrissraam2011.com/2011/07/10/reflections-on-raam/

He is, simply, an inspiration. Not just because of his physical feats, but his attitude, openess and passion and enthusiasm for life and people, makes him a really extraordinary individual.

The Apex Alpine Expedition Race took place here in Interlaken last week. Silva Gerber were the eventual winners with Team Switzerland in second place and quite a gap between 2nd place and the rest of the eventual 11 full course finishers.

Here are some photos of the winning teams, us dancing and on trotty bikes and well..some Alpine Panorama.

Team Inov8 Swiss Irish AR

It was tough – and we didn’t make it, as a team. We started with the prologue on a very hot Wednesday which lasted about 6 hours and was followed by an 8km run to the start of the kayak section on the Thunersee until about 11pm then onto the bikes for 12 hours which was punctuated with a brutal, steep trek in the middle which we reached at roughly 1am. The bike course was great, there were some fabulous single trails, I will definitely go down there again soon to ride them.

By the time we had finished biking it was already Thursday at 12 Noon, we got some sleep and then decided to get back out on the course to start an punishingly long trek at about 1500. We learned that we were in 10th position and that motivated us to get moving, slowly.

Unfortunately we were caught out in bad weather on the way up to the Schilthorn hutte. Thunder, lightening and heavy hail forced us to take cover under one of our emergency shelters and waited it out then carried on. On the last leg up to the Shilthorn Bergstation I felt exhausted and knew I would need to take a breather at the station. However when we reached the CP we were informed that we would have to make it to the next ridge before daylight in order to pass. I felt as though I couldnt carry on at that moment due to a number of reasons and I told the guys on my team. At that stage there were about 6 teams at the station who had either pulled out of the race or were resting until the morning to continue.

have thought long and hard about my motivation to compete, the loyalty to my team, the consequence of my action and what the consequences would have been if we had carried on into the rough night. It would have been ok, I recovered quite quickly so physically it would have not been a problem to continue. The problem is mental – and the bottom line is, I want to enjoy racing but have the comforts of life too. I like to sleep, I like to recover I like to race hard but I dont like to rough it and sacrafice as much as required to race an expedition length race.

I really admire incredibly all of the people who compete and I really think – had they not proven it by finishing the demands of these races are inhumane. Silva Gerber and Team Switzerland slept less than 3 hours over 4.5 days and moving all the time. I fell asleep on the bike after 24 hours going uphill and we had to take an hour sleep!

Although I am sad that I didnt get to finish, that I let my team down – life is full of trials and errors and the important take-away from this experience is the new insights I have into myself as a person and athlete and that extra knowledge I have about my limits.

For now, I am recovering, enjoying life and looking forward to some shorter events. Next week I have a minor surgery to undergo and I will be out of the saddle and water for about 3 weeks but I`ll be back soon and I think the break will do me good.

Hasta Pronto!!

The World Series Apex Alpine Adventure Race starts next Wednesday in Interlaken and our team – Inov8 Swiss Irish AR will arrive over the weekend. The Irish contingency consisting of Eoin Keith and Chris Caulfield arriving from Ireland today and JD Eskelson will arrive from Germany tomorrow.

As always the build up to a race of this proportion is quite drawn out, from the first day you have 4 members of a team committed to the day before the race anything can change! We lost one of our initial team members who withdrew because some really negative experiences he had at altitude and fear of repitition. After about  weeks of searching for a replacement we finally found JD and we are very happy to have him on board. He has finished quite a lot of really long races such as Primal Quest and the American National Championships and that is a really great reassurance that we have a team that will go the distance.

The objective for our team is to finish the race and have fun participating! Just completing the full course of a World Series Race is challenging enough. We will start on Wednesday morning and expect to finish sometime on Saturday night hopefully not too late! That is almost 4 days of racing day and night.

The race promises to be fast. It is broken into the following format

We will travel to Interlaken on Monday and go through all of the gear checks on Tuesday when we also receive the maps. I am beginning to like this format more and more! In a lot of races the maps arent given out until the last minute, requiring teams to stay up late the night before they are racing, usually woken up at 4am to get a bus to the starting point and although usually super excited to race – it always means going into the race not fully rested and a little stressed.

The Apex communication to date has been superb. Condensed into  Captain Communications and sent out via email. Each team has a login area to download required documents.

Mission Navi Lights

The only unexpected news was that each team now has to have 2 x 360 deg lights for the kayaking sections, Staffan, the race organizer was just informed of this by the water police. I had forgotten that these are requirements for any watercraft on the lake in Zurich, they are required on rowing boats if you are out in the wee hours of the morning. Getting the rundumlichtern has been a little challenging! Finally Andreas was able to find a supplier here in Zurich and when I called him (much to the amusement of my eavesdropping colleagues at work) he told me he wouldnt be at the shop on Saturday but I am to go to Oberreiden (near where I live) to the swimming pool and as the head lifeguard for them and I can collect them there.

FIOLA:  “Gruezi, I am agent 2009495r, Mission 360 deg navi light, please deliver goods”

BADIMEISTER: “Was? Kai anig…Ich ha nöd? Kai Anglisch…”

Inov8 Swiss

Bill Wilkins in Silvaplana has been supporting the team for the Apex. We would like to thank him for his support! He has been hard at work creating a blog and trying to increase awareness of the Inov8 brand in Switzerland – please like the Facebook page if you get the chance – www.facebook.com/inov8swiss you will find a nice community of fans passionate about trail and adventure running in Switzerland and the page will be updated with sponsored runners race reports and brand news.

So. If you have made it to here then you are committed! To stay in touch with the Apex and race developments we can be followed from the website:

www.theapexrace.com

Live Tracking on Google Maps

Live Video Streaming

Reason 1

I fell in love…

I returned from Ecuador wiped out. I had a never ending cold. I blame it partly on a long journey home from Ecuador, not enough sleep and a very heavy workload with a strategy presentation to prepare the week I arrived back. It was H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E and the only thing that got me through it was the thought that at the end of every day I had someone to hold me up…

Reason 2

Its no longer about the bike….cause I have a NEW ONE! No more excuses. I can no longer blame my bad riding on the beat up, uncomfortable piece of …. that I have been riding for the last few years. I have a new mean racing machine.

R.I.P Quest – The Moser is taking over:

So now what to do?

I have been training more consistently over the last couple of weeks. Getting back to my usual 15+ hours a week of riding and running mostly. But I have been fitting most of it in on the way to work and during lunch.

Andreas lives up the side of a big hill…and no matter where I ride to his from (my house or town) it raises the heart rate. My motivation to see him very often outweighs the motivation I have to go climbing on my bike (well, that might all change now too!) – I have no choice! So the miles have been adding up. For example last Saturday I was on a “day off” and ended up doing 60km on my bike – just riding around (in the sun : ) and to his house and town a few times.

Its nice to look out from this terrace when I get there:

The hilly lunch run have been quite lung and leg busting. There is a loop near work that I like to do but I really have to push hard to get it done in an hour. So thats a nice little goal to have (the fear of being late for meetings). My workmates must hate me though – eating lunch at my desk…

I figure that if I cant get long training sessions in, I might as well make the shorter ones really hard. The only consequence then, being I need more time to recover afterwards.

A bit like this guy:

On the days I dont run there is always the option of taking my lunch to the lake – just across the road from work:

The Apex is on the horizon. We have a little problem with our team but hopefully we will be able to fix that soon. For Easter I will do a little training camp near Muotathal at about 1600mtrs – running and biking mostly. Then there will be 4 weeks until racing. Still time to really get up to full fitness.

I hope!

Sitting here in Banos, Ecuador 3 days after the end of our Huairasinchi attempt and I still feel a little numb about the race and how it turned out for us.

We have gone over the decision we made to use our radio on Sunday morning to call the rescue team of the race over and over again and we still feel that we had no other option at that time. We often take big risks as adventure racers but one risk I and I hope the team I race with, will never take, is compromise someones safety and health.

Huairasinschi began on Saturday morning with a bike stage of about 25 km.

The Start

A slight detour on the bike section

We fared ok on the bikes and came in at about 11am to transition to change into our trekking gear, load up on fuel and embark on what we knew was going to be a punishing 40km trek, the hardest stage of the race, through part of the Ecuadorean Sierra.

Stunning Scenery

We made a mistake with navigation though the first valley of the stage which cost us about one hour. But we were moving well, comfortably and felt as though we were advancing on some teams ahead of us after the bike stage.

Dizziness up high

It was this guys birthday...whoever he is...

However, about 2 hours before we reached CP 2, after 5 hours of trekking in the rain and cold, Lars, our captain and principal navigator began to feel very dizzy and nauseous.

Often we feel bad during treks in AR. Low blood sugar can be a big culprit. But this time it was the altitude. We all felt its effects, we were all dizzy but able to continue, but Lars was not getting any better. We plugged on through some really tough terrain including bush so overgrown that we had to go on all fours for about an hour…

Machete...anyone?

and river crossings up to our waists until we reached checkpoint 4 at about 20.15 – 45 mins inside the cut off. We carried on into the night determined to finish the stage and trek through a long valley of moorland to a pass leading up to CP 5, 6 and 7, again at altitude.

Lars river crossing CP4

We continued into the night. It was 7pm. It took us about 5 hours to advance only 5km due to the fact that the valley floor was a mess of mangrove, moorland, trees, high bush and sticky muddy trail and river crossings. At about 11pm we decided to climb up and traverse one of the spurs that would bring us to the pass we needed to reach in order to get to CP 5. However at 12pm Lars said he needed to rest, he couldnt continue. We finally found a place that was less steep than the surrounding hill (it was all very steep) and we took out our bivvy bags and set up camp

Cup of Tea? Anyone?

I got really cold and at about 6am I made the guys get up to move on so we could warm up.  Lars was still really pale, with low blood pressure, a high pulse and contracted pupils. After climbing about 100 mtrs Lars began to puke. His altitude sickness had now hit an all time low. We decided to call the organization after a long discussion. We couldnt go up, and we needed to in order to reach CP5, if we went down and back towards CP4 there would be no one there, 5 hours away. We didnt have much choice. To carry on and push Lars would have meant putting his health at risk.

A very low moment….

Morten, Lars, Fiola as we opened the Radio to call the organizationDescending into the valley after calling the organization