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A nomadic raid on Mongolian ground!
There will be those who took part and those who didn’t!
Rostaing Mongolian Trophy… The 1st raid… You had to be there…
Invited by Jacques Rostaing to be part of the official team, made up 3 women, I went in Mongolia from August, 24th, to September, 2nd, 2012, to take part to the first Rostaing Mongolian Trophy, a 6-stages raid with a bike and a horse for 3!
From the airport, Nyamaa took care of me: a quick stop by the “Rostaing” office in the center of Ulan Bator and then all the athletes arrived and we leave to the first yurts camp. Three-hour drive in traffic jam and dust… We went past Genghis Khan huge statue, 9Km are left before discovering our camp for 3 nights: gers (Mongolian word for yurts) with bathrooms!


1st stage: Sunday, August 26th : 30Km / D+ (difference in height) 700m 25°c

Lap stages : rising profile from the start, pass crossing, long slope, climb to an OVO, quick slope with the bike on the road before attacking the last col to begin a huge slope to the “Mandal” camp. Our team is made of Mungun, Elisabeth (a French marathon runner and an experienced rider). The start is given at 11 am (5am in France, but there was no trouble with the jetlag). I add a can-rack to the bag so I wouldn’t have to carry a pocket of water on my back.
OVO : hillock of disparate stones, around one to two meters high, whose summit is generally surrounded by a recognizable blue tissue. There are meditation places with shamanic origins (even if 80% of the population is Buddhist, the Mongols stay very superstitious and are tied up to shamanism culture).
Leaving in the lead, our team was dealing pretty well with horseback riding, being with the Mongolian riders until the end of the long slope… I stay with Mungun for a little moment, as she started with the running at a high speed… She was going to overtake me in the uphill before the first col, as many raiders… When I went through the col, I savoured the landscape… We could guess a vast plain in front of us… Thinking that I was in the second part of the raiders, I am surprised to reach first the CP 2! I wait for my teammates because Mungun has to take the horse and considering the 2nd section profile (rather downward), I decide to go with her on this last section… Actually, I will wait more than an hour before being told by the organization that the horses lost themselves (anyway, the riders), including our horse… who will arrive peacefully with the guide. Elisabeth, the French marathon runner, decided to skip the CP 2 to run back to the finish… But this had to disqualify us… In raid, it is the rule! The lack of experience of the Mongolian athletes for this kind of event will save us from disqualification!! Indeed, almost 50% of the athletes will lose themselves on that stage and giving the fact that no team arrived complete at the finish line (in each team, there was at least one missing athlete at the CP 2 passing), this stage will be canceled by the organization (the year after, markers will be reinforced and the road-book will be more precise)… It will also be the only day with another French on the team. Elisabeth decided to stop the raid… Too much of an adventure (high altitude, orientation, strong competition…) The organization called a Mongolian athlete, Haliunaa, who will come the following day…

Raid’s profile:
6 stages in 6 days
One horse and one bike for 3, with possible changes every 10Km. Around 30Km per day, or 3 sections of 10Km each (2 CP). Results are made with the combination of the 3 individual times. Start: 5mn interval between the teams. Average altitude: 1500m to 200m. D+ (difference in height): 3900m (assessment). Teams of 3 athletes. Nights in traditional gers (3 camps). Horses: allocated by drawing (same horse during the whole week). Bikes (lended by the organization): semirigid BMW, tyre XS Batman (yeah yeah !!), section 1,90.

2nd stage: Monday, August 27th. 30Km / D+ 1000m 20°c

Start at 12am: wonderful stage which will bring us from valley to valley… A very rolling first section on which I will run for 11Km, including 9Km on a straight line where I will be isolated…
My teammates are gone ahead, and nobody is ahead of me or behind me on more than 1Km, weird feeling of being “all alone in the world”, but no feeling of insecurity… I take back the bike at CP 1 until the finish line, it will be big dipper with “Ovo” passings at the top of the cols. The wind blows into the valleys and I am under the impression that it is turning, always staying front.
Gers, cattles, some vehicles here and there… Very few people… The CP 2, situated high up, offers a great landscape but I don’t dawdle because Mungun came back from trail to jump on the horse…
In the slope before the finish, I catch Haliunaa again and we decide to wait for Mungun to cross the line together and benefit from a 30mn time bonus. This will be the one and only time because after we will go solo to end as quickly as possible on every stage. Back to the camp by the same way in the Russian vans… Shaked like rag dolls, it will take us an hour to go back to the camp (and we will have to go back the next day at the same place, which is the start of 3rd stage). Because of the tough ground of the track, two big blisters appeared under each of my feet, yet protected by the NOK… It was 10pm, but Mungun was reactive and called Odko (her friend in the team 5, the triathlon athletes), who brought immediately some thin wood needles (like extra thin toothpick)… And she healed my feet within 2mn… Effective… She also has trouble with her feet (I have to say that she runs around 20Km each day on this raid !)… She will try the NOK crème for the rest of the raid (this product doesn’t exist there)… I also learn that cereal bar are very expensive in Mongolia… At the end of the raid, it will be Christmas…

3rd stage, Tuesday 28th 33Km / D+ 700m 24°c

8:30 in the morning. A new “white” face is in the “restaurant” ger; Alexis, journalist (very nice), from the sportsnews portal “le10sport”, is going to follow the raid until the end… One woman doctor follows the whole race… She offers massages for raiders with strong aches or muscular pain… She even speaks during the briefing to remind the athletes that security and health take precedence over performance… We pack our bags as we change camp… We go back to the finish line of yesterday… I feel sick to have been shaked because of the holes, bumps and stones of the road… Ouf, it will go away 10mn before starting…
For me, it will be 33Km on the bike. The 3rd stage starts with a descending false-flat on 10Km. We laugh about it now but it could have been dangerous because the horse kicked out Mungun on a river passing, 1Km before CP 1, and she will end that distance by running behind her horse! We cross a bridge, then go along the river again, before going into swamps and then we take the direction of the mountains (altitude 1800m) to reach another valley… This stage will gather the most beautiful landscapes and the highest difference in level, some swamps and peat bogs, river crossings (yeah yeah, my bike was carried away by the stream) and a rising false-flat to the Princess Camp, very beautiful site of traditional gers where we will eat very well!! The troubles were the mosquitos… The fire, made with cowpat, is efficient but coming too late… No way to protect ourselves, we don’t have our belongings as a van stucked into a peat bog…
The camp is quite rudimentary, but we got a warm-hearted welcome, we will even be given detergent with enamel basins to wash our clothes, stained by the peat bogs’ “red juice”… The collective showers are cold before the generator starts at the end of the afternoon… On the adventure front, we’re full! But on everyone’s opinion, this camp will be the best!! Manama, a little 7-year-old girl, plays basketball with us… I make the effort to introduce myself (Mini NirBéatrice), she smiles… Then I teach her to count in French… She’s doing pretty well… She poses for photos…
We eat with the athletes, the “canteen” ger is too small to contain the athletes and the organization, so I, the only French, sit with all the Mongols… Mungun translates for me sometimes… What a patience! It is not warm any more, once the sun is down… We light the wood-fired stove… Giving the small size of the ger, it warms very fast, even too fast as in less than 15mn the heat was around 35°c! The clothes dry quickly… Not too much space but Mungun cares about taking the bike with us in the ger… We will sleep with the ger as in the previous camp… What about the race? On the strategic front, we planned to begin fast… I finish off in 2h19, 2mn after the first competitor… We are 4th. On an orientation mistake, the Areva team will arrive 5th, after more than 5h. They give up the race after that day…

4th stage: Wednesday, August 29th 29Km / D+ 200m 23°c

New “white” face, Emmanuel Langlois from France Info, will follow the race… Simple and accessible man… We quickly meet because starting is coming…
Yesterday’s stage was tough, exhausting for some of us… Today’s profile is descending false-flat, it is going to be fast… First river that I cross with the bike held in the hands… I have water on my knees, there is a little stream… I jump back on the bike and my pedal is moving… Some meters later it is on the ground!! Grrr. I even lost the screw… I try to put the pedal back, no way… Grrr! I walk for around 5mn, Odko (bike, team 5, left 5mn after me) comes… I show him my pedal at the moment he overtakes me… He stops, takes a huge stone and pushes the pedal in the axis! Thank you!! I drive back to the CP 1, around 3Km away, I have no screw and no hammer… 23Km are left… I am quite desperate, Haliunaa sees me at CP 1, very surprised because we usually see each other at the finish… I go on without pushing too hard on the left pedal… It falls several times: every time I take a stone and hit the pedal to put it back… It is the Stone Age… I can’t see any ger to find a tool… I arrive at CP 2 and ouf, there is a hammer: the driver hits madly and then I restart at full tilt until the end (around 10Km away)… I lost between 20 and 30mn… We are 4th, at 22mn from the third team! Grrr!! Photo at the finish line with the team 5… We drive in a van for 30mn to a new camp with a restaurant built with non-temporary materials…
Christian Karembeu, ambassador of the Rostaing brand, associated with Jacques Rostaing for the launch of a new luxury sportsbags brand, is coming… And not only him! The gers are not well isolated… A field mouse will pass on my head… I take my sleeping bag and my blankets and go see the organization which will negotiate a room on the first floor of the restaurant. I will be locked for the night because there is only one key so the restaurant was closed from the outside! Some gers will see many field mouses pass through… What a night!

5th stage: Thursday, August 30th 23Km / D+ 900m 25°c

Today’s stage has been shortened to 23Km but with 2 big uphills of 4 and 2Km (which also means 2 slopes, hum, hum), with a descending false-flat to a valley… Is it going to be fast, very fast… 1h16 for me! We will pass through a village with many horses, then yak herds… and mosquitos at the end… Mungun won’t be long either, running with Alexis from CP 2 to the finish line… Transfer to Ulan Bator’s suburb. We arrived at a beautiful hotel and we are in princely gers! I am still with my waders, I just put off the bike’s outfit when Mungun started preparing tea… Surrealistic moment… Then team 5 (Mungun’s friends) are coming to visit our ger, they are impressed by the beauty of the place and pose on the “throne”…
After a short walk into the leisure parc near the wonderful hotel, the afternoon is quiet among the French arrived for the business forum organised by Rostaing Mongolia (meeting forum between French and Mongolian companies)… Those French who came for the forum followed the stages and encouraged us a lot… Pleasant and convivial… The press is working (it changes me)… Emmanuel Langlois from France Info interviews me… (Not bad, huh… after France Bleu Gascogne and TV du CG40 in April, EndorphinMag.fr on France Info! What a year!!)
Dinner at the hotel restaurant… What a contrast… The athletes ask me many questions… They find that I drive well and speed with my bike… They learn fast… are already so much speeder than at the beginning of the raid… The briefing of the evening will be longer than expected as the team Areva 1 questioned a stage… The team 5 (winners of the raid) didn’t make the change of bike at the CP but 200m away… They get a 2-hours penalty… The day after, Areva 1 announces his withdrawal from the race… We are third!

6th stage : Friday, August 31st 23Km / D+ 400m 11°c

Last start… Under the rain, the colours aren’t shiny, the landscape is really not the same… “Arran da Marche” (take your marks, ready, go !) says Stephanie (director of the race), and the last stage begun under an increasing rain…
I’m starting with the bike, a straight rising false-flat on many kilometers before crossing the col and running from CP 2 during 8Km before the finish line… The ground is muddy, it is slipping, I am driving on the grass when 2 dogs emerged suddenly… They bark loudly and come a little too close from my calves… I yell louder, really louder… Rather worried… (24 hours later I’d lost my voice), they go away… I go through CP 1 still on watch for other potential dogs… I avoid cows and yaks standing in the middle of the road… There are 20m left before the col when Gandu, the marathon runner from team 5 (a UFO), outruns me… Once the col passed, the slope is dangerous, it’s seriously slipping… At the CP 2, I start to run, find a stick on the ground… 100m from the finish line, Mungun catches up with me on the bike, I accelerate to end the race with her, I run through a fallow with wild grass… Aah, there are stinging nettles!!! Nice played!! Nettle rash on the 2 quadri until the evening! It stings tough there!
We go through the finish line together with Mungun, we felt so cold… Haliunaa will end around 1 hour later… We leave to the Mongolia hotel, shower and light dinner before driving back to Ulan Bator… 3 hours road for around 20Km, what a traffic jam… 30mn to change clothes and then we go to the closing ceremony with many guests… A Fashion Show with Rostaing products… We go on the stage… are really 3rd… Haliunaa will arrive too late to go on the stage…
Weird gap, as this morning I was in the middle of nowhere, fighting with the stopwatch, the mud and the dogs…
Back to the Blue Sky hotel (so classy) for a few more hours before the transfer to the airport with Christian (Karembeu)…
It’s 6am, the day is rising, it’s not really hot outside… 20mn to arrive at the “Gengis Khan” airport… Just before leaving, the driver asks Christian for a photo with him, I play the photographer one last time… And you know what? The driver also asks Christian to take another photo, I pose with the driver and Christian complies… Isn’t it funny?
8 am at the airport, Mungun and Odko arrive with gifts… and especially some “Aaruul”, cheese made by Mungun’s family, a dehydrated cheese with an acid taste… We talk one last time about the raid, their adventure… From all the raiders, I was the only one with previous adventure-raid experience… They are willing to come back in 2013… They spent a nice week… It’s hard for me to leave them…

Epilogue.

On the race front: after a quick poll, it turns out that I was the only one with a previous raid experience… All of the Mongols appreciated the raid, they want to do some more… This country is suitable for biking, trekking, horse riding… This raid is atypical because of the fact that you have one bike and one horse for 3… And even if the horses didn’t want to go on at the rhythm that we expected, the horse is definitely part of a raid in this kind of country… I would also have added archery to determine the starting orders (better than drawing of lots to me). The length of the stages (around 30Km) of the Rostaing Mongolian Trophy, combined with the duration (6 days), make this raid accessible to a lot of people, the orientation part being really light thanks to the many markers established by the organization every morning…
On the playground front: the Terelj park is wonderful and the difference of height (between 1400 and 2000m) allows a sport practice for the beginners as well as the initiated persons… Even if we are sometimes alone in the middle of enormous spaces, we don’t feel insecure…
On the communication front: very few phone connections, and less for the internet, the maps are old (IGN Russian version) and they don’t allow to define the difference of height of the stages, so you have to anticipate a part of uncertainty in your effort management… Bringing a phone is not very necessary, if you are lost you’d better retrace your steps; if you are hurt, go to the next CP or wait for the vehicle which follows the race… Anyway, be patient and take a look at the landscape… Enjoy!
On the food front: it is not always adapted to the requested efforts (many soups for dinner, little carbohydrates), so don’t forget cereal bars as complements…
On the weather front: the sun was with us, the wind sometimes cold in the col crossings, the nights are cool, don’t forget your polar fleece… I didn’t have any language issue even if I was exclusively surrounded by Mongolian athletes, and with them the smiling and the looks are beyond any words…

Official results:
1st: National team of triathlon in 29h25mn06s
2nd: Ministry of Tourism team in 35h48mn47s
3rd: Rostaing official team in 37h04mn18s


Thanks to Jacques for his invitation, real opportunity to discover this atypical raid!
Thanks to the organization members: Jacques, Karine, Louis, François, Stéphanie, Tane, Baggi, Nyamaa, Jean… hyper-motivated… A huge thank you for their patience, their support, their enthusiasm, their devotion…
Thanks to the volunteers of Saint-Malo Sports Loisirs for the transfers.
Thanks to the partners: Affysport with the drink Hydrenergy4, Intersport Saint-Malo, Mulebar with its bars and gels, Okidosport for its salty and sweet bars, Oxsitis for a Camel Hydragon Lady’s 15l, Skins. Thanks to the supporters present at every CP, what an atmosphere…
Thanks to Odko for rapidly repairing my bike… Otherwise I would have ended the 23Km on foot during the 4th stage!
Thanks to Mungun and Haliunaa, my teammates, and thanks to the Mongolian athletes who always had a look or a word before, during and after the race…

Endorphinmag
October 2012