Most teams will begin their travel to Portugal within the next few days in preparation for the AR World Championship event. We caught up with Cyanosis team captain Nicholas Mulder before their departure. This will be there first World Championship race since 2005. Ryno Griesel, Debbie Gerrand, and Clinton Mackintosh make of the rest of the team. Here is what he had to say as they prepare to return to the ARWC stage.

Have you raced at World’s before? If so, how did you do?

Nicholas: Cyanosis made its debut at World’s in New Zealand’s Southern Traverse in 2005. Unfortunately, until now we have not had the finances and logistics in place to attend any others. We had a very interesting race… it was a big eye opener for us. We finally missed a cut-off on Day 4, but over those days we learned almost everything about racing at the international level.

What is the origin of the team’s name?

Nicholas: The ‘Cyanosis’ team name came to be in 2004 when we formed the original team. At that stage, almost all the squad members had jobs in the medical field, so there was a quite a bit of fondness for this medical term. We thought it would be an interesting and unique team name.

How psyched are you to race in Portugal this year?

Nicholas: We are very psyched! The team has put a lot of effort into building up for this race. We’ve participated in the last two Portugal XPD races in 2007 and 2008 specifically in preparation for the World Champs this year.

What other international races have you competed in? How are they different?

Nicholas: Since our formation in 2004, the team has participated in the Artic Team Challenge in Greenland (big WOW!), Southern Traverse in New Zealand, Primal Quest Utah in 2006, the Bull of Africa in 2004, 2005 and 2007 and then twice at Portugal XPD. Needless to say they are ALL diffferent. We’ve raced in the deserts in Utah, on the Greenland glaciers, through dense New Zealand bush and then finally through the beautiful village countryside of Portugal. One thing always remains the same though… the beauty and the beast of sleep deprivation!

What is your team doing to prepare for the big race?

Nicholas: The team has spent quite a long time training and racing together over the last few years. The team has raced in Portugal in 2007 and 2008 so that we are fully prepared for this year’s World Champs.

Speaking of training, do you have a coach, log your training, or use any gadgets (heart rate monitor, power meter, etc)?

Nicholas: No, none of the above. The team trains on ‘feel’. Nothing scientific, just a lot of listening to your body. As a well-bonded team, we are also more than ready to offer team members lots of advice and comment.

Now we’re getting to the good stuff! How about footcare during a race?

Nicholas: Each person has their own strategies, but we seem to have very few concerns or problems compared to other teams.

In a longer race you’ll surely need to catch a bit of sleep; can you talk about your sleep strategy?

Nicholas: Unfortunately we have got a big problem of not finding enough time in races to sleep! We always go in with the best of intentions to get good sleep, but it never seems to work out that way. Last year in Portugal, the team slept less than 4 hours during the 5 day race.

We’ll make our decision on which sleep strategy to take when we see the course layout. Given that it’s winter-time in Portugal however, we’ll probably be aiming at getting all of our sleep in warm transitions, hopefully 2 or so hours per night.

If we looked inside your race backpack in Portugal, what would be surprised to find?

Nicholas: The children’s pool ring?

How do you stay focussed and motivated during a long race?

Nicholas: We don’t. You can’t stay fully focused for 5 straight days. There are stages when the team loses focus and the speed drops and other stages when motivation is rock bottom. The trick is to recognize these points as soon as possible, see them for what they are and then try and change the team psychology as quickly as possible.

Photos courtesy of Michael Feistel