Nearly 55 teams made their way to the picturesque Saguenay region in Northern Quebec on June 5th for the EnduranceAventure.com RAID, the first of the 2010 series. Daniel Poirier's organizing team put together a challenging course with over 16 checkpoints that had the participants run, mountain bike, kayak, swim and perform a tyrolian traverse with their bikes before reaching the finish line in the small village of Petit Saguenay in Quebec.

A tight battle took place as several teams exchanged the lead over a course that featured nearly 3000 feet of vertical gain. In the end, after a race that lasted nearly six hours, it was the experienced team of Mundial St-Raymond that crossed the line first, narrowly edging out last year's winner, Quilicot-RackUltra. Teams Xtrail Asics quickly followed, whereas the Glenners and Team Salomon rounded out the top five, crossing the line only a few minutes apart. 

The race began at 8am under a slight drizzle with all teams blasting through the first of several mountain bike legs. An early selection was made coming out of the initial transition as the top teams scattered up a steep climb and stumbled through a rushing stream to reach the first few checkpoints. Back on the bikes, the racers blitzed their way to the shore of the Saguenay Fjord for the kayaking leg. Quilicot took advantage of a swift transition and strong paddling skills to establish a five minute gap on the chasers. "We were leading after CP2 and slipped to fourth place at CP3 due to an orienteering mistake, so with 500 metres behind the team leaders we did the fastest transition we could and paddled really hard to create a gap of five minutes on the second team and 10 with the third team coming out of the water," mentions Jeff Rivest of team Quilicot-RackUltra.

Back on terra firma, the racers had to climb a three kilometre hike-a-bike section to the summit of the Fjord. "Pushing my bike up a steep hill with loose rocks sometimes under foot was really painfull for my lower back," adds Rivest. The perseverance seemed to pay off as only seconds separated the top five teams. Another severe hill climbs and descents later were enough to turn the race on its head. 

The Glenners had then moved into the lead during a river run and managed to disappear through the woods by attacking on a steep climb. Quilicot having dropped down to fourth, fought hard to climb back into second place and worked to bring the leaders back in sight. In the meantime, teams Mundial, Xtrail and Salomon kept in hot pursuit. 

The next section consisted of a tyrolian traverse with the bikes, and the first team to make it to the ropes was clearly going to have an advantage of several minutes coming out. Team Quilicot foresaw it, so they accelerated by sprinting to a nearby river crossing and pedaled up the hill. The Glenners opted instead to drop their bikes, run across the river and scramble up a near-vertical hill to the tyrolian platform. It turned out that the Glenners' strategy was riskier but slightly quicker, allowing them to zip across the river first. 

The race was far from over though, as the racers were still required to climb two more mountains. On the first, the Glenners, Quilicot and Salomon teams all veered off course, giving away their hard fought lead to team Mundial and allowing X-Trail to believe again in their podium chances.

On the last hillclimb, locally known as the Osama Bin Laden, team Mundial maintained their lead, whereas Quilicot had just enough energy to drop the Glenners before reaching the summit. X-trail made a last minute surge on the final downhill to steal the last podium spot. The exhausted Glenners crossed the finish line in fourth, narrowly edging out team Salomon. In the end, less than 10 minutes separated the top five teams, making this race one of the closest and most exciting of the EnduranceAventure.com series' 12-year history. 

A huge banquet hosted by the local municipality followed, marking a perfect ending to a memorable day in the Saguenay! The winners of the races were applauded by more than 250 locals and the evening concluded with a party including a traditional music band with eight great artists.

A special note for team Nunavik Nordic of kangigsualujjuaq of Nunavik Québec. Eric Etok 13 years old and Samuel Brission 14 years old; ran, biked and paddled as if they were being chassed by a polar bear and ended up running away with the overall victory title for Fou Raid race. Those two young guys proved that the youths of Nunavik could play a great active role in the great world of adventure and endurance sports.