German team Herbertz had never taken part in an expedition race before heading for Chilean Patagonia in February – yet they took on an accomplished field and a challenging route through the plains and mountains of Tierra del Fuego and raced to an impressive joint third place in the 2010 Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race. Here’s how they did it…
Q: What was your motivation to participate in the race?
Melanie Hohenester: “I was curious about the end of the world. I wanted to confront conditions that you can’t find where I am living and see what I could stand, not only my body but also my mind, and another motivation was the landscape. In a race like this you have a total different experience than you have as a tourist that can go back to the hotel in the evening. You’re exposed to the conditions around you in a different manner.”
Q: Did you think it would be that hard?
Thoralf Berg: “I read in the internet that it’s going be hard, but I didn’t expect it to be this hard! I didn’t expect trails all the time, but I didn’t expect that there are no trails at all! We crossed forests and swamps all the time without any hint of a trail, that was unbelievable!”
Pierre Eyen: “I only knew I was coming ten days before the race and in those ten days I had to prepare everything: vacations, equipment, family. I didn’t have the time to prepare myself, I just took a short look on the internet and thought: hey this is fun, all sport disciplines that I like. My problem during the race was the bike section. I wasn’t prepared for such long distances.”
Q: What do you think about the performance of Helly Hansen-Prunesco?
Marc Pschebizin: “I want to congratulate them. We didn’t think they could be so fast, we looked at the timetables at the checkpoints and wondered how they were already one day ahead! But they are a very experienced long distance team while three of us never did a race like this in our lives, so I think our performance was good.”
Q: What was their big advantage?
MP: “They had their experience from last year’s race, so they knew what to put in their backpacks and I think this made a big difference. When we saw them for the first time, we were surprised how small their backpacks were. And they didn’t have much sleep. For us, it got harder to get up from day to day. I had to wake everybody up because we didn’t hear our two alarm clocks.”
Q: How was the experience within the team?
TB: “I’m usually an individual sportsman and it’s different to be in a team, you have to help the others. Pierre needed help during the bike, I needed help during the trekking. I was thinking of giving up because I had pain with every step I did, and we ran out of food, but the team convinced me to go on. If I had been alone, I would have definitely given up!”
PE: “For me it was the first time with this team and at the beginning I was concerned about being able to compete because they are all strong athletes. But what I’ve learnt is that it is not about how fast you progress but that you progress at all and stay together as a team.”
Q: What did you talk about as a team during the race?
MP: “We talked a lot about beavers, marshes and peat bog. But in general you’re busy with yourself. Everybody’s concentrating; there are not a lot of conversations.”
Q: What does Chilean Patagonia mean to you now?
MP: “It’s one of the most beautiful places on earth. You can’t compare it to anything in Europe. In Europe, there are so many people, so many roads, here you’re really isolated. There are not many people around here, just pure nature! The weather conditions are pretty hard, and the weather changes all the time. And for a race it’s a real tough location.”
Q: What would you change if you participate again in the WPER?
MP: “We would prepare better. It’s better to know at least half a year before who’s going to be in your team and everybody should know what to expect. Apart from this I would bring less equipment, for example I would just bring one tent instead of two, so you lose less heat. Another point is the journey. You should arrive here in time. Our journey was really tough.”
MH: “That’s true. I hadn’t slept for three days before the race. That’s annoying. But you can’t anticipate that one aeroplane would get a broken window and that you then wouldn’t catch your connecting flight!”
Q: On a difficulty scale from 1 to 10, with 10 the hardest, how would you categorize the Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race?
MP: “Ten”
TB: “Ten”
PE: “Ten”
MH: “Even I would give this race a ten!”
