A day at Checkpoint 5

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following article was written by Lora Bender, a communications aide with the Eco-Challenge organization.

"Even a bad day in the bog, is better than a good day at work," says Anthony Aquino from Team High Anxiety.

Aquino was referring to his very bad day yesterday in the 2003 Eco-Challenge North American Championship.

During a mountain-biking leg of the race, Scott Powell lost a bike pedal and had to use duct tape and a found firearm shell casing to fix it, allowing him to continue for eight kilometres.

The High Anxiety team was one of many teams running far enough behind that they had to skip the third and fourth checkpoints on the kayaking leg.

High Anxiety started again at Checkpoint 5, where it continued the race as an unranked team. Checkpoint 5 was crucial to teams. The cut-off time was 12 p.m. Wednesday, and only eleven teams made the cut, allowing them to continue in the race.

"You can have a team of great athletes, but you have to work well as a team to succeed," said Wayne Cassidy from Team Hunger/30 Hour Famine.

Cassidy's team has trained 12-15 hours a week for this event and is very proud to have made the cut-off. At the Mad Moose Lodge, home of Checkpoint 5, Team GearsRacing was preparing to paddle off in their kayaks.

"The paddle was great," said Marnie McBean from Team Gearsracing.

"We flew through it, and we passed a few teams along the way. At about half way through the paddle I realized that [teammate] Paul Pageau and I were sleeping while paddling, we were very tired," McBean said.

McBean and Pageau are both Olympians. McBean is a three-time gold medalist who’s turned her attention in recent years to adventure racing events such as the Eco-Challenge.

Some Eco-Challengers got a nasty surprise at Checkpoint 5. They assumed that because there was a checkpoint, there would be a switch to another activity.

They were wrong.

After more than 10 hours of paddling, they found they had many more hours to spend on the water.

McBean referred to this as an "evil twist." Her team had already made a twelve-hour mistake on the bike leg and this was an added discouragement. Checkpoint 5 is a windswept cobblestone beach on Lake Superior, not far from where the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald sank in November 1975.

For spectators, Checkpoint 5 was definitely the place to be on Wednesday.

As teams were coming and going, competitors seemed in good spirits with few injuries.

They particularly enjoyed the home-cooked hot meals available there.

Organizers expect the race to end later today (Thursday), most likely between 10 p.m. and midnight.