Keith Paterson – Day 1
Author: X-Pyr
Fabian Umbricht , Signature on Tp1 and Take-off.
Fabian Umbricht , Signing in at Tp1 and take-off and start of the flight to the east.
Fred Juvaux’s team, XPyr D 1
After a good night’s sleep, storing our gear at the campsite, we hit the road for the beach: now it’s really going to start. We feel it, the staff, the start, the sound, the atmosphere! My own brain is between dream (this crazy project, following Fred on this adventure with two of our friends Camille and Tweety) and reality.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1, gooo!
Race pats, mountain biking for Tweety, then Camille a little later, refreshments that are organized throughout the day, on the flat, at altitude (trail), route in suspense, adaptation on the wire. “Come on!!! To the other cross participants.
“Short day of 82kms including 20kms in paragliding” or three flights for Fred.
9:30 p.m. Pizza, melon and recycled Basque cake.
10:30 p.m. Cold shower.
11 p.m. Massage for Fred. Not bad to have a physio on the team.
11:20 p.m. To bed !
A big thank you to the Luchonnais for being present at the start, at La Rhune!!! Nouv’l’air power!!!
Xevi Bonet – Day 1
Xevi Bonet set off this morning at a trot, together with the group, from the start on the beach at Hondarribia. After a brief glide from the first turnpoint at the top of Larrún, he decided to take a route on foot to the north following the road. But seeing that the day allowed him to continue flying, he recalculated to follow a line of short climbs and glides further south, which made him position himself at the head of the group in this area of the route.
Simon Oberrauner – Day 1
It was a tough first day of racing and a great adventure. On his last flight Simon found unexpectedly good conditions, and also some unexpected thermals with lots of vultures – for sure an unforgettable moment. In the end this flight allowed for Simon to stay with the leading pack and finish day 1 with in 6th place with just under 4km behind Maxime in 1st.
Fabian Umbricht – Day 1
Fortunately, the weather turned out to be quite better than forecasted. Nonetheless, it was a hard and difficult day with lots of walking and climbs.
I got 5 flights in, ripped a break-line and made good friends with the basque farn-plants, so all in all quite the fun day.
Corpas Team – Day 1
Today at 10:00 am the race started from the beach of Hondarribia. A lot of nerves, a lot of excitement and above all a lot of desire.
As soon as the crowd starts chanting the countdown, my body starts to activate and all I can think about is getting on the first TP.
5,4,3,2,1….lets go !!! I start to run and I feel comfortable, in my rhythm and I stay in the leading group. As soon as I get to the top, Íñigo gives me the marker to sign and I’m third, a few seconds behind the first two. There’s no time to lose, I head to the take-off to do a glide, the conditions are not good and the clouds are low.
I said, a glide like all the others, now it’s time to run, hours later I arrive at Felipe’s place and drink some water, I eat a little and we set off for a possible take-off and I get ready for another flight, there’s not much to do, but I manage to get a few places ahead.
It’s too late for another flight so I walk as far as I can until it’s nine o’clock.
First day completed 58.5km, very happy with what I did today, now it’s time to regain strength, plan for tomorrow and rest.
Let the fun begin!
The first day is done! Patrick arrived fast at La Rhune and was able to get airborne for the first time at around 1pm.
A few kilometres in the air and on the road later, we are now at a good starting point for tomorrow. We are looking forward to the upcoming race days!
X-PYR: Day 1
Weather was a lot better than forecasted, and there were many happy faces on the beach.
The race started with a 18 km run up to the foot of La Rhune. I was a bit worried about this stage because of my knee issue (runners knee). It went OK until the terrain became more hilly. Downhills are no good, and I had to walk downhill and lost some ground to the rest.
I was happy when I reached the foot of La Rhune and could focus on the uphills again:)
We arrived as one of the last teams on the top of La Rhune. Still OK flying weather. Good! We decided to head northeast, glide as far as possible, and try to find new hills to launch from. This strategy turned out quite well and we had in total 4 hikes and glides that day. And we moved 10 positions up on the scoreboard. Not too bad.
All in all a OK start of the race. We logged 61 kms of running/walking/hiking, 2400 meters elevation, and most athletes were pretty close together.
We overcome the rain
The weather forecast wasn’t good for today, but we have finally overcome the rain and we have done some shorts flights which have avoid some walking km, although it has been more than 90 km… We’ll see the weather tomorrow….
X-Pyr Czech Team Tomas Matera
“We had nice day – the first day is always nice 😁
I was happy that we could at least glide to the valleys even
once I was unlucky and had to run a bit down to get from the clouds. We have finished today after 55km from the start. Approximately 60km of running and 20km of gliding bring me today on the 16th place.
Looking forward for coming days 💪”
Run‘s
On the way… X-Pyr 2022 (Hondarribia – El Port de la Selva)
