Raid du St-Laurent AR in beautiful Rimouski, QC

2 Day Stage Race by Alex Provost

Destined to race with a legend

Raid du St-Laurent has become an important rendez-vous on the AR scene in the north-east, it’s where the season begins in Québec and It’s always great to connect with this vibrant adventure racing community. 

I have mixed emotions with stage racing. It’s great, you sleep in a bed at night and rest for the next day. But then you have to fool redo the logistics and live the start line anxiety over again. Got to choose your poison.

I was supposed to race with AR legend JY Dionne, but unfortunately, he was sidelined with injury shortly before the race. That created an opportunity for OCR legend Ryan Atkins to step in. One way or another, I was going to race with a legend.

Day 1 – We started as expected, not crazy hard, but pretty damn hard so we would get away from everyone. I know I tend to make mistakes when there are other teams around, so better be out front and do our thing. Amazing day out as Ryan and I got to learn how to work together and our efficiency improved all day. We had a few small whopdidlidoos here and there but nothing major. Riding through the maple tree forest on a parallel feature cost us a few minutes but was pretty cool! We did not know our ranking, but we were confident that we were in the lead. The course was awesome with classic bushwacks and stunning views of the Appalachian Mountains.

We hopped onto the kayak for the last section and eventually realized that we would be short on time for the last CP. How could that be?? Well, the cutoffs were very tight at this race… and being late at the finish would cost us more than the one point of that last CP. We got to the finish and soon went straight to the “Cantssine” as we say in Québec for a well-deserved club sandwich before heading back to our classy motel in Val-D’Irène.

Bike fix/repack/prepare maps/cold shower/get the bins ready later, we finally got to bed. The volleyball tournament partiers did not. Somehow, no one had told them about this amazing ARWS race going on in their community and that racers had to be up at 4am to race another 11h race the next day. Dahh.

Day 1 result: We were in the lead by 3pts. Good start!

Learning to let go

Day 2 – Start line at 6am on beautiful Lac Matapedia for another AR day. With again tight cutoffs for the day, we had elected to drop the 3 eastern most CPs of the kayak section. Yes, the first leg of the race. Bold move to begin the day with, and quite honestly a very hard decision to make when all you know in life is gunning for CPs like mad dogs. But it was the logical move given our lead. That extra 1h30 would essentially allow us to cruise along the trek and the bike without the added pressure. And so, we let go of 3 CPs about one hour into the race. Hard. But we quickly moved onto the TA where we got the trekking map. We quickly crafted what we thought was the best route and off we went. The morning breeze was good, we felt alive and our rhythm picked up gradually. And just like that, we were back in the zone, running everything we could and clocking CPs like candies.

Hoping onto the bike felt good after 3h25m of bush run. Ryan gapped me a few times on the hills, but I climbed at my own rhythm and we moved very well. Having Ryan taking care of punching CPs allowed me to focus on nav, just a few seconds here and there to play around with the map and decide where to go next makes a huge difference. The roads and trails were great and we had a lot of fun riding through cut blocks.

We cleared the trek and bike and reached the finish line at 15h59, with about 1h31min to spare.

At the finish line we felt good about our choice to skip 3 CPs in the morning kayak, as it ensured we reached our goal of winning the nice Jackalope trophy for the overall. Letting go was the way to go.

First race with Ryan, hopefully not the last.

Getting the job done always feels good.

Bob the Beaver and Jackalope.

Crucial gear used: I don’t race much with the USWE Pace because I often use the bigger Hajker Pro, but this time the Pace vest was bang on point. I love being able to handle the middle buckle with one hand and have everything handy in front made my day. And it’s so comfy and light that it doesn’t even feel like you have a pack on you. USWE rocks!