I literally jumped for joy when I saw the Grand Defi de Victoriaville on the RM calendar less than 2 weeks before the event. Five sports! None of them too hard! And there was a skate leg too. What better way to spend a late-summer Saturday, especially since they cancelled the skating at the Festival de la Santé? When I first showed up in Victoriaville, I was immediately impressed by how well the race was organised and by how many volunteers there were. In one tent, they gave us our numbers (we each got 3) and our chip, and wrote our numbers on our legs. They said all this was necessary because the timing chip only gave our final time, but since each event had more than one loop, volunteers would have to stand in the corners and count our laps. If your number was torn or hidden or muddy, you’d be considered a cheater… In another area of the park there was a climbing wall. It was raining pretty hard this Saturday September 9, and the wall was wet. I figured I’d been among the last to sign up, since I climbed almost last. I was much more nervous than I thought I would be, but I did just fine on the first wall and had enough time for 2 tries on the second. I missed two holds and so would have to start the skating 2 minutes behind the best climbers. After this was over, they got us all together for the (complicated!) instructions and the skate was off. It was raining, and the wooden bridge was downright dangerous. I did my best, knowing things were going right when I started catching the women who had no climbing penalty (marked “0” on the number). So I started the bike leg in first! Ironically enough, this was the hardest event for me. It was raining really hard and the course was very technical (singletrack, gravel, mud mud and more mud, me who’s used to sand!). One woman (with a “0”) caught me pretty quickly and we were together for a good three-quarters of an hour. Then another girl, with a 3-minute climbing penalty(!), passed us as if we were standing still! No hope of catching that one. Then the girl I was with dropped me in a rocky part, and I was in third. I swore to myself to guard that place, but… I took a wrong turn sometime in my second loop (the “do not enter” ribbon had been flattened) and got a little lost… when I got back on the course, the best climber, wearing orange and really visible, had got ahead of me. I tried to catch her, but I didn’t have it in me. Coming back from the mountain seemed to take an eternity. I really wanted to sit down in a nice kayak and take it easy, only trying to keep my fourth place. I paddled nice and easy, it was relaxing and peaceful and really the best part of the race! It finished quickly, then 4 km of running in grass and thick mud. The winner (with her “3”!) lapped me near the end, going at a good speed, and I still had 2 kilometers to run (more like stagger). The conditions were tough, but I’ve rarely seen a better-organised race. All the volunteers were nice and smiled continually even in the pouring rain. A bunch of kids (who were the corner marshals) came to talk to us afterwards, said they did all this work for our pleasure and to please come back and see them again! It was everything that was nice about small towns, or how I imagine life was before we all lived in big cities. Truly charming. I also want to thank a woman from club Stamina who cheered me on by name! She and her boyfriend (who was doing it for the 8th time!) had seen my message on the RM board. It did me a lot of good to hear someone cheer for me, especially after I’d gotten lost… A truly great event, all of you from RM should do it next year! Jay-Louise Nadeau