A high five to High5

Well the start gun for the 2013 X-Alps goes off on Sunday 7^th July but effectively for us at Team GBR  the race began with the email to Jon about 10 days ago giving the news that we were in. One of our first tasks is to start collating the large volume of equipment needed for the event and once again, as in 2011, we are indebted to High5 for providing the sports nutrition products necessary for the race.

 

The 2011 race was, due in part to the weather, a war of attrition with all athletes having to spend whole days walking rather than flying, this took it’s toll and at the end of the race many athletes admitted to be ‘running on empty’ which had affected their performance in the later stages of the race. I (Richard) know that many of the supporters including myself struggled to get enough conventional food into the athletes to keep them going, but we were lucky, High5’s product supplemented and enhanced Jon’s diet wonderfully and as a result, whilst he may have ended every day tired and physically exhausted, he was nevertheless relatively well nourished.

 

Any shortfall in nourishment was provided by a milk based protein rich drink taken last thing at night, for most of the race we had used our supply of chocolate flavour but just 48 hours from the end of the race, disaster struck, we ran out of chocolate, Jon had to drink ‘pink milk’ I think he nearly sacked me on the spot as race supporter. Not wishing to have the same problem in 2013 I mentioned this to High5, as a result of their generosity I can confidently predict no shortfall in chocolate flavour for 2013, in fact I think we have enough for Jon to bath in…….now there’s an idea!

The Waiting is Over

Finally, finally, our friends at the X-Alps organising team have announced the athletes in the 2013 X-Alps.  And we're in!  Yeahhh!

Anyhow, training and preparation has already started but the to do list has suddenly got a lot longer!  Sadly we are the only British team in the event this time, but I am convinced that we will be, once again, one of the best prepared teams in the event.  This year two supporters are allowed so my father will be joined by Tom Payne, veteran of the 2009 race and an outstanding pilot and ultra-runner.

In the email we recieved just ahead of the announcements on www.redbullxalps.com and facebook, we were also informed that the final route will only be announced in Spring.  This means detailed route analysis will have to wait until then.  Also included in the messgae, for the first time, is the start date which will be July 7th 2013.

So now the real work begins.

One of our first jobs is to line up the support and personal sponsors we will need to make sure the team is properly prepared.  More to come on this.

I will give regular updates here on our teams preparation and training.

Thanks to all our supporters, and particularly to Clare who's enthusiasm on facebook is much appreciated!