It's Day 4 of the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge, where the teams have moved into the long desert orienteering phase which covers 120km of open desert, with racers navigating through the night to reach the stage finish line. This was a long, demanding stage, that didn't really put any time between the top teams, as the sand is extremely hard to run in, and the leaders leave a trail that is easy to follow by those chasing them.
As of now, Team Qasar Al Sarab of New Zealand is running in first place, roughly a half-hour in front of their countrymen on Team ADCO and about 40 minutes ahead of Team Vibram - Sport 2000, who are running in third. The leaders are a very experienced team that is captained by Richard Ussher, one of the top racers in the world, who is joined by his wife Elina and Marcel Hagner. The fourth member of the team is none other than adventure racing legend Nathan Fa'ave, who has come out of retirement, and appears to be racing as well as ever.
Tomorrow the teams will get on the mountain bikes, but continue in the sand, with a relatively short, 33.7km run through the Liwa Desert. The stage will still be a demanding one, as anyone who has ever peddled on sand can tell you. The race will wrap up on Wednesday with a busy final day that will see the teams on a ropes course and another biking leg, before racing to the finish line on a final fast run.
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