After completing the XPD Australia last year, Masha Glanville, Mark Lattanzi, Peter Spagnoli, and Noel Duffy came together over drinks and spontaneously decided to tackle the wilderness of Patagonia together.
While their collective experience in many previous races taught them to be well-prepared for the challenges ahead, they unfortunately overlooked a major detail - one that may have ultimately cost them the chance to see the finish.
Back in Punta Arenas, the team came together again over drinks to recount their adventure...
You missed the cut off at PC9. What happened?
Masha Glanville
“We got to PC 9 and were told we couldn't go any further. But we wouldn't have gone on. I lost my synthroid medication on day two. I have hypothyroidism function and my doctor said I had a couple of days to survive (without it). And I made it to day five, incredibly cold and depleted and falling asleep on the kayak, my body shutting down. So I was going down, fast. I think we would have made the cut-off time easy if I hadn't lost my synthroid medication, because we were just starting to move faster and gain our momentum.
“There was nothing that would have stopped us except for that. It was an awesome experience.”
What were some of the hardest moments during the race?
Mark Lattanzi
"Sometimes I think the hardest bit is when you're up on a ridge and you can see the topography and so you're looking at where you know the checkpoint is, and you look at the map and you say, well that's about 4, maybe 5 km from here, and five hours later, you're not there yet.. It’s just really demoralising, and you're thinking, 'We ought to be there by now!' And then you don't show up till midnight. It’s just amazing how long it takes you to go not a very long distance."
Peter Spagnoli:
"I think for me (the toughest part) was knowing that we could do it but we couldn't. It was just like, 'Well we can’t go any faster,' and we were slowing down and it was frustrating because we knew that time clock was just going. So that was kind of disappointing for me. But you've just got to go with the flow, and we'll just see what happens at the end."
Is it worth putting your body through such strain for this race?
Mark Lattanzi
“It's such a rush, mentally. Physically it’s a slog, and it’s suffering and all that, but mentally it's this challenge that you're going after and you get this high. I mean, you're like one of the explorers from the 17 and 1800s! Especially this race because nobody's been here before... well except the six teams in front of us! But you still feel like you're an explorer. And you get to a river and you realise how daunting a river crossing used to be. Now you sort of take it for granted- you can just go across a bridge. But when you're racing, its like, alright, how are we going to get across the river? And it’s not a trivial thing. Just that whole mental piece of it is so addictive.”
Masha Glanville:
“What we feel out there in 10 days is what most people feel in a decade of their lives. You compress the highest highs and the lowest lows into such a short period of time, and you learn so much about yourself, about each other, and all the things that need to get better about me personally, that it's the biggest high. And when do I get to feel it again? When do I get to go on this huge ride again?”
Were there any other extraordinary challenges you faced in this race?
Mark Lattanzi:
“We lost our maps at the beginning of the first trek! We flipped a kayak, all of our gear started to drift out to sea... I didn't have my pack set up to go in the water, but the maps were in my pocket and I lost them... So we went to the Croatian team and asked if we could look at their maps. And we just took my digital camera and took pictures of the maps. And that's what we used to navigate the entire trek! We could only see a little piece of the map every time. We would just look at it, memorize it a bit, and then trek on until we needed to look at it again. Sometimes it was hours. And it’s really kind of freeing because then you're not carrying the map anymore!”
Will you return to tackle Patagonia a second time?
Masha Glanville:
“Just to cross the finish line would be amazing... but next time, I know what I would do differently!”
