Owen and Alfie
Owen, 20, a trainee pilot, and Alfie, 20, a football referee, are best friends from school with a determination and maturity rarely seen. While one wants to experience everything the race throws at them, the other only has eyes on the finish line.
Why did you want to take part in Race Across the World?
We thought we鈥檇 prepared for the trip until we realised yesterday neither of us have a watch!
Alfie: Mainly because we’re both lovers of travelling, and have done a little bit of travelling before but never done the whole backpacking, country-hopping situation. It was something that we wanted to try further down the line anyway and we thought it would be such a great experience that it would be impossible to say no to.
Owen: We wanted to do this because, as Alfie said, we wanted to go travelling and we’ve never done this sort of thing together. Also, we wanted to put our friendship to the test, see what we can achieve with it. And personally, we wanted to see how we’d deal in this sort of situation and see if we can make it to the end, and maybe even win.
Have you got a strategy going into the race?
Alfie: The strategy is, in very loose terms, earn first and race later. So, particularly in the first leg just try not to eat into our spending too much. We think that everybody in the first leg is going to be quite ‘Gung ho’ and perhaps aren’t going to have that much headspace, they’re going to be a little bit erratic, so we’re going to try and take advantage of that. But I think as soon as that klaxon goes that might all go out the window!
Owen: We also thought that strategy would be a good idea so we have a bit of extra cash if we need it to fall back on. If we do find ourselves coming last on one of the legs or at a checkpoint we will then have a bit of cash so we can leapfrog if we need it.
How have you prepared for the trip?
Alfie: We thought we’d prepared for the trip until we realised yesterday neither of us have a watch, so we have no way of telling the time – I wasn’t impressed when I found that out.
Owen: We’ve both got our iPods though, which both tell the time. Well, mine does. I’m relying on that.
