The first short leg of the course went by inconsequently as we made our way out of town, first by foot and then by ride and tie. This first leg was actually simply a prologue to the long day of racing ahead. Upon reaching the first TA teams split. We and another 19 teams headed out on a foot orienteering section, while the rest of the field started with a paddling orienteering section on a lake. We recieved that map at the TA and upon receiving the map the clock started. It was simple an hour and 15 minutes to grab as many points as possible 5 minute penalty for each minute late after 1hr 15min. Point value varied from 15 minutes to 40 minutes. There was for us however one catch. The map had no visible topographic lines. It did have shaded areas to assist with elevation change but these were an inferior tool to the contour lines that we can expect on all maps when racing in the States. I later came to find out that the land had very limited mapping and the maps we used were old Moroccan military maps.
Throwing us for a curve we spent about a half hour stumbling around before we began to figure out the maps and grabbed our first bag. Unfortunately the map, continued to add aditional challenges for us as we ended up only grabbing 2 more bags before we had to head back to try and beat the1 hr 15 minute cut off. We came in about a minute late and Julia and I both shared a bit of dissappointment with our performance on the foot o section.
Instead of getting down we took out our frustration out on the paddle. The map for the paddle was actually a satellite map from Google earth. The race organization told us that the rise in lake levels over the past few years had left other maps for paddling the lake useless. The satellite map was adequate for us as we we steam rolled the paddling portion completing the entire course and returning to the TA with ten minutes to spare.
Regaining some confidence from the paddle we headed out on the 38 km bike through the desert double track. The navigation on this portion was challenging but we performed well as teams flipped flopped positions throughout the entire ride. The riding was primarily double track trails which reminded me of some Utah riding. The scenery was primarily barren desert with a few rolling plateaus along the way. Toward the end we had a long climb up to an old historic ruin where we began another short memory based (picture orienteering section through the ruins).
This was one of many of the examples of how the race organization intertwined Morrocan culture into the race. Dodging normal tourist and gaining assistance from local people we made fairly short work of this section while still taking time to take in the historic sites.
A short 10 km bike section was all that lay between us and the end of day one. This last 10 km ride left some good route choices and are decision to navigate through some areas of flood plain and agriculture fields seemed to assist in allowing us to move in front of a couple teams.
The most frustrating part of the day came at the last point prior to the end of day 1. Located about 10 minutes from the camp we searched the bridge for the point that was located there. After looking high and low along the bridge we did not find the bridge. Assuming it had been stolen and watching teams continue on we decided to move on to the finish. At the finish we found out that the point was actually spray painted on the bridge and not knowing this we were not given credit for the point. The 30 minute penalty we recieved was a frustrating way to end the day. It was lost in translation during briefing that if no bag was seen at the point you were to look for the symbol in spray paint.
Day 1 was now behind us and we set camp and enjoyed the comradere of the race as we ate dinner under a traditional Moroccan dining tent and rested up and prepared for the second day of racing.
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