The La Ruta Maya Belize River Challenge starts tomorrow at 7:00 am
in San Ignacio. It finishes on Monday at the Belcan Bridge. It is a gruelling
four day event – but it can also be quite lovely as the race follows the
waterways whose confluence created the history of Belize. Last year there was
a new champion Chris Guydis. This year he’s lost the team-mates who took
him to victory, but he’s heading a new team that he hopes can surmount
a defence of last year’s victory. We visited him at his training grounds
near his home village of Boom as he put in his last practices before the race.
Jules Vasquez Reporting,
There is an unmistakable beauty to river racing: the cadence of the rowers,
the lush vegetation mirrored in the river, the sinewy muscularity of the rowers,
the contrast in scale: these sleek orange topped men, pulling against the vast
and winding waterway, the stir of ripples on the still water...all of it seems
to lend the sport an elegance and visual symmetry....but don’t get it
wrong, this isn’t about pretty pictures; it’s about winning, and
that steely determined look on the face of Chris Guydis is that of a man making
an uneasy defence of a title.
Uneasy because this ten year veteran of the Ruta Maya enters the race with
two novices on his team, Jermaine and Jerry Sanchez. The twins are 18 years
old and in prime physical condition but they’ve never participated in
the gruelling four day event. Guydis has been working with them for the past
five months, putting in 90 hours of training a month.
Chris Guydis,
“We do six hours daily for the last four months. So January we dropped 
our training a little bit so our bodies didn’t peak and then we do a lot
of running too and weightlifting also.”
He’s been teaching them the art and techniques that he’s honed
in his 8 years of racing in the Ruta Maya.
Chris Guydis,
“Condition wise I think we are in very good shape according to training
and we will be able to capture the win again.”
But this veteran knows that the race is not necessarily to the swiftest or
strongest, it usually goes to whoever gets into the best position on the first
day.
Chris Guydis,
“The most difficult stage is the first day from Cayo to Banana Bank,
that is the most gruelling part of the race because of the shoals and the rapids
and stuff like that and that is where you have to prove yourself to be in the
winning circle. If you don’t do good in that stage you’ve got to
work much harder because coming down this side the river is much deeper and
it is more advanced for the top teams who know the river. So you have to try
capture the first day and then you just sit in with them or else it is going
to be a tough race coming down.”
And the mental preparation is probably the hardest thing to impart to his two
young understudies. But if they look to him for leadership they should be all
right.
Chris Guydis,
“I’m up to it. I can’t back out now. I am the champion.
Whatever it takes to defend it, I will do that.”
And while he can say it to the camera, proving it anew to the old, old river
will be the real challenge this weekend.
On Monday morning at ten, the race leaves on its last leg for Belize
City from Burrell Boom. We will be at the finish line to see if Chris made it.
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