Finally: the race started today!
The day started with better weather than expected, so we had our breakfast and walked to the starting place at 9am.
When the comp started at 10am, we all knew that today it was mostly about running fast and long distances and a loot of hm up and down the mountains of the Pyrenees. Due to having lack of time to arrive earlier to get some airtime before the race it was a first to fly over there!
The countdown started and off we run. 18km from the start on the flats to the first mountain and turnpoint “La Rhune”, then up appr. 800-900hm up and reached the turnpoint after 24km of running/hiking with all together app.1100hm ascent! But I have to admit, that I didn’t train myself in running on flat terrain, so it was quite hard for me, but all went good.
After reaching the top, I started my Nova Xenon and the goal was to fly as possible without hardly any thermals. Nevertheless at least it didn’t rain too much, so the sky was full of clouds and I went for landing after flying down. Again hiking up the next mountain where I managed to soar a bit and gained 70 to 80m hight – yes exactly, that was the most altitude that was possible to gain, but super important, because of that I could stay even higher than most of the other pilots and didn’t have to walk up again 250hm like the others. I just put my glider into a rosette and ran the last few meters to the top of the mountain. That allowed me to overtake the group in front of me! What a relief!
Down again, another 14km and 800hm waited for me. I stayed a bit north to the right direction for the next race day. Then I flew down the last time on the first race day. I knew that appr. 5km in front of me there was a campsite with hot showers. That was definitely the goal to reach! But after chilling a bit too much maybe, I got in a hurry and had to run the distance within 30min! So I had to run fast and hell yeahhh – I managed it to be there even 10min early!
As a reward, my supporters brought me some pizza – that was a perfect ending of the day: pizza and hot shower. Let’s see how far we get on the second race day!
If you want to get more information and some impressions during the race, follow me on Instagram: @heli_schrem_pf!
Team Heli Schrempf
