Aftermath

Worlds are over, no one seemed to be sure what was happening during the race. Some would say a state of chaos others speculated on strategic mayhem. The website was not very helpful, I turned to a mosaic theory of piecing tidbits of info from the site, posted pictures and tweets into my own dillusional version of what was happening. I was wrong. Now that racers and spectators have had some time to sit back and write down their thought I wanted to post info that I found interesting and eye opening to the race:

*New* World Champion's thoughts

Great thread with lots of info on Attackpoint

Friends from Blackheart in Australia

Team Orion's thoughts

Adventure world Mag article by Untamed Adventurer, check him out on twitter too, he added the first real color to the race, thanks Untamed!

Wish I had more info from my team, but at this point they I understand that they were a bit confused and obviously took them a while to figure the formatt out. They wrangled a bit of support from a local who was to suport another team, but still were left out of the information loop and learned the hard way.

************************************
Motherload...Mari's team conquers, Glenn breaks finger...good weather, everyone is OK. Nice work Mari :-)

World Champs and Motherload

Everyone is out there racing or getting ready to race!

Aaron, Aaron, Seegs and Cyril are in Portugal getting ready for the 2009 World Championships... you can follow the race here.

Down in California Glenn and Mari are getting after it on day one of the Gold Rush Motherload. There is spot tracking and a cool map overview here.

Good luck and safe travels to everyone out there gettting after it. Can't wait to follow all the action.

PQ Post Mortem

I am back into the swing of things in Seattle and have now had some time reflect on our epic adventure in South Dakota at Primal Quest...wow what a trip. I am by no means back to normal, my hands are constantly numb and my feet feel like some one hit them for the last week with a meat tenderizer. Each day I feel like I get an hour closer to making up my sleep deficit, and would estimate my current deficit at 20-30 hours. I consistently wake up in a hurry to get no where, I have an internal drive to tell Jen to hurry and get up because there is another team coming...then take a deep breath and go back to sleep.


Sleep is welcomed, but unfortunately all I can dream about at this point is paddling an inflatable kayak through 3" of water and not getting stuck in a mud flat. Ahhh, the pleasantries of a true expedition race.

I believe we officially finished 8th, but I can not tell as the leader board has not opened for me since I finished the race. I will not do an entire re-cap of the race as I am not sure I am capable, but I will mention the highlights:

-Black Hills Mountain biking and downhills on the Centennial Trail.


-Caving


-Ropes course

-Trekking through Custer National Park and seeing numerous Buffalo and Rattlesnakes

-Badlands Trekking and Thunder Storms

We spent a majority of our time competing for 3rd, 4th and 5th place. Took some risks near the end of the race by not sleeping in what we thought would be the last night, and the wheels came off the car. Two nights later we finished and all teams in our vicinity passed us with a chuckle. If you followed us on the Spot Tracker you most certainly wondered what in the world we were out there doing.?. Let me try and provide some perspective.

With 50 miles left in the last bicycle the maps made the course look like a straight forward bike home...not the case. As we exited a section of rails to trails (minus the trails, as they were not fully converted yet) it appeared we were to follow a proposed route, and we had been told before exiting the buses before the race that proposed routes should be treated as mandatory. As we began looking for the proposed route night fell and the prior night with no sleep and the 5 before that with a total of 8 hours began to catch up... we all turned into zombies and began going up and down the same ridge for 5-6 hours looking to each other for the answer. No answer was there except for the fact that we should have simply slept. Instead we night walked until the sun came up, watched Wedali (other team) solve the problem by bike whacking across the valley to where we needed to be.

Unfortunately we could not process the solution...or at least we began to but got stuck on the proposed route problem. The teams that were around us began to leave through the valley but none of them were following the proposed route, what would this lead to? Big penalties or little penalties. Cyril insisted that we go back down the mountain and follow the proposed route...so down the mountain we went again. It took us a while but we slowly moved back up on a close derivative to the proposed route only to realize we were out of food and water at 2:00pm and it was nearly 100 degrees. This was fun.

We pitched the sun shade and I made off to find some water that I had seen the night before. I had this beautiful little oasis in mind that had artisan well water, instead I found a puddle of slime water being held in puddle form by the mound of cow pies around it. I waded out into it and began filtering and treating water for the team...not mention making sure I got as much manure in my shoes and crammed into my blisters for the long trip home.

Soon enough the gang was up and we were off. Navigational confidence was low, but Cyril managed link together the route and get us out of the valley of the zombie walkers. We crested a hill and bombed down to gravel roads and civilization. Our new friend Tim closed in on us in his Lincoln navigator. Tim had been following us on the computer for days, had his wife stationed at home telling him our location and he was tracking us. As soon as we stopped on a road to inventory our gear Tim came ripping around the corner and said, "What the hell have you guys been doing over there?"

He was concerned for our health, had water and candy bars for us and was truly our trail angel. He had been helping all teams that came over the ridge and had been slowly waiting our arrival. Soon enough we felt almost normal to leave the comfortable company of Tim and push off for the finish line. Now we had 40 miles to go and we were ready for a bed. 12-15 miles later Cyril's shifting went to hell in a hand basket on a road that was filled with baby head rocks and had us carrying high speed to maintain a plane on the top of the rocks and moving fast. Cyril had his bike turned over and was looking at his derailleur when we all simultaneously noticed the snapped frame...doh! In between the rear shock mount and the front derailleur hanger, ouch.

We were at a point that we needed to bike whack again about .75 kilometer to another road for the final 30 miles in to the finish. We decided to do the bike whack and deal with the bike problem once we got there. We were again delirious and night had fallen again, time was flying we must have been having fun. Soon enough we arrived at the road and the way point and realized it was time to sleep. Along the way Cyril would fall asleep standing up, I would approach him and say, "Cyril lets go" and he would always respond by saying "where are we going?"

First I would say "The road"... "oh yeah."

Then I would say "basketball practice"... "I forgot my shoes."

"Dinner Party"..."can I go dressed like this?"

"New York"... "Good I'm hungry and they have good restaurants there"

on and on our banter went, made us all laugh a little.

Once we hit the road we crashed in a ditch about 100 meters from the way point. Our alarms all went off at 3:00am and we got up and started to get ready, soon enough we all came to the realization that we were in adventure mode and were just trying to get to the finish line before the course closed in 24 hours. 4 people, 3 working bikes, 30 miles and 24 hours...we could do this. Back to sleep and we would deal with this in the morning, our little roadside ditch was comfy.

I woke at 7:00 am and began to devise our plan. Cyril would ride my handlebars or sit on my seat so I could stand and pedal, Aaron would carry Cyril's bike on his back with the use of some tubes as a harness and Tessa could carry his pack. At 8:00 I woke the crew and started telling them what needed to be done. Soon enough a caravan of townies and race peeps joined us on the roadside with the guidance of the SPOT tracker. They all had their Coffee's and Pastries and wanted to know what our problem was...One rental bike later and we were off to the finish line.

8.5 days and my longest race ever later and I am happy to say I had a great time and that South Dakota exceeded my expectations in many ways. Despite our performance and poor placing I believe it is experiences like these that add character and put things in perspective...the next time I'm having a bad day I'll think back and remind myself that it could be worse and anything is possible when you put your mind to it...

off to Primal Quest 2009...

It has all come together and we are getting excited to get to South Dakota and have a fun and exciting race. Cyril, Aaron, Tessa and myself will be making the team up this year. The last month has been filled with trainings galore...including the following races

-Cascade Cream Puff
-Peterisoba
-Lake Tahoe Big Blue 24 hour race

I found out it was going to cost me an additional $800 to get my bike box and a bin to Rapid City on Delta Airlines so I've decided to drive. Considering the flight cost me $250, seems a bit unreasonable. I am officially boycotting Delta, until I use what ever credit they give me for cancelling my flight...how much would it have cost to ship golf clubs, or oversized golf clubs...$0.

Cyril just sent out the sponsor email below, I thought I would include it as it has good info and some interesting links in there.
*****************************************************************
Dear Sponsors, family, friends, and media;

The team is about to embark on an amazing journey through the Badlands of South Dakota as part of the mighty Primal Quest (www.ecoprimalquest.com) called “The World’s Most Challenging Human Endurance Competition.” See below for a brief description of this incredible race which is sure to make you exhausted just reading about it.

Our team profile can be found at: http://team4.ecoprimalquest.com/

You can follow the up to the minute action on the leaderboard and race map as teams will be wearing the SPOT GPS tracking devices (device only emits signal for tracking and emergencies but teams can not use the system to navigate). This year teams will also have a profile on SPOT’s new online social community providing additional team profile information and individual team tracking history allowing viewers to monitor their favorite team in real-time. Ours can be found at: http://www.spotadventures.com/user/profile?user_id=45794

As a lead up to Primal Quest, we’ve been posting training and preparation blog entries on Adventure World Magazine’s website. We will continue to do so up to race start and afterwards. Here are a few of our latest postings:
http://www.adventureworldmagazineonline.com/gear/heat-elevation-and-a-scorpion-sting-team-nuun-feedthemachine/

http://www.adventureworldmagazineonline.com/news/pq-prep-in-washington-team-nuun-feedthemachine/

http://www.adventureworldmagazineonline.com/news/primal-quest-training-in-the-mountains-bring-on-the-elevation/

nuun is the hydration drink sponsor of Primal Quest so all teams will receive tubes of nuun at the start of the race and nuun will be available at all transition areas where teams will change disciplines. In addition to team nuun-FeedTheMachine, a few other nuun sponsored teams will be on hand including team iMoat, Five Ten / Numa, and Tecnu Extreme/Staphaseptic Adventure Racing.

Some fast notable teams to watch this year include the World Champions Orion Health, the young guns of Salomon/Crested Butte, the experienced Merrell/Zanfel Adventure, and the astute team of Bones. There are plenty more great teams competing this year and given the unpredictable nature of adventure racing, many other teams can pull an upset. nuun-FeedTheMachine finished 4th last year and we hope to even better this year.

To get a sense of Primal Quest, visit our 2008 photo galleries at: http://dartadventure.com/index.php/gallery

The race is sure to be intense to compete in and exciting to watch. If you intend to watch, send us some good vibes - we’ll need them.

Keep Exploring,
Cyril

Brief Description of Primal Quest
The race will be held from August 14 to August 23, 2009 where international co-ed teams of 4 will compete unsupported for 600 miles (965+KM) through the remote wilderness of South Dakota’s Black Hills and Badlands. The race is non-stop and requires all members to race together. If one quits, all fail. Sleeping is optional so teams trying to win push the envelop and will only sleep 2-4 hours/night out in the wilderness. Primal Quest is the longest human-powered, multi-discipline, multi-day event of its kind in the world. The demands of traditional adventure racing disciplines are represented; trekking, mountain biking, orienteering, swimming, and paddling but this year’s race will require more navigation (the entire course requires teams to navigate with map and compass. GPS are not permitted), climbing and rappelling and even cave spelunking under the Black Hills. Along the way competitors will race through lands where dinosaurs once roamed, run in the footsteps of Native American Tribes, passing herds of wild buffalo and navigate through endless towering spires, rock faces and waterways.

The Michigan Expedition Race

The Michagin Expedition race is in Day two and nuun-Feed the Machine (DART) is in first place and all notes seem to be indicating that they look strong and are having a good race...Checkpoint Zero has good coverage and the Checkpoint Tracker is proving itself as a good way to deliver real time race news to the masses.

Last ime I checked the team comprised of: Mari Chandler, Matt hayes, Glenn Rogers and Brian Schmitz had cleared the O course and CP16 . The course is comprised of 26 Checkpoints...we might see a finish tomorrow. Go team go!

************************************************

Real late update...team crossed the finish line in First to snag the first victory for nuun-Feed the Machine on 2009. Well done team!

Bitton does Abu-Dhabi Adventure Challenge

Our friend from around the world and right next door in Vancouver, Washington has posted a write up and a nice montage of photos to Wend Magazine. Thought I would show the world and let everyone know it was out there to view...happy reading.

Nice work Mikey! Seems like just yesterday we were smoking a hooka, talking about camel spiders and messed up feet on desert runs while looking out over the Persian Gulf. Well we weren't really smoking a hooka, I just thought it sounded good. They did have a hooka station for athletes each night in between stages, but for some reason the athletes did not spend a lot of their time relaxing with a fine grape tobacco hooka session.

Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge

The Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge (ADAC) has come and gone in true whirlwind fashion. This was a stellar event like no other I have competed in, for many reasons...

The race production itself was enormous and must have had a multi million dollar budget. The military convoys moving gear, catering, hookas, arabian knights pouring nightly coffees and portable showers are just a few of the finer details that were addressed by the race. Locations like remote desert islands, grassy oasis' with waterfalls and camping at the foot of the biggest sand dunes in the world were highlights. One of my favorite side amenities of the race were the persian tents with pillows that we relaxed in nightly after our meals . Smoking a race provided hooka would have been nice if smoking tobacco was in line with my race regiment, its not (yet). We got to hang with and get to know many other teams this way and also relax after a long day of racing hard.

Although we did not see the entire country, I believe we had a chance to see all that it offered geographically. Busting metropolis', remote desert Islands, Mountains of sand and beautiful country sides were the fields in which we played. Out of all of these I would say the Desert Islands most surprised me and the sand dunes amazed me with their size and beauty.

I think my teams strengths lie within being able to persevere in truely nasty conditions and get going when the going is tough. We usually start OK and do better as the longer races we compete in get tougher and tougher. The ADAC was not in a format we were used to or that suited either of these strengths, so we had to dig deep and do our best to hit top speeds right out of the gate.

Out of the gates on day one the race started on Mountain bikes in an urban setting and a peleton riding through roundabouts next to palaces and through downtown Abu Dhabi. From here we paddled around an Island just off the coast. We decided to take a chance and do a small portage to skip a 200 yard jeti on the far corner of the island. We were paddling in the top 10 (the field was all very close) and it took us less than 5 minutes to get to the other side to see Team Desert Island approaching from our left in first place...and then we saw the tank trap cement structures that lined the beach we were going to get into. Scrap that plan and turn around, all of a sudden our brilliant idea turned into not such a good idea and we were back in the water about 8-9 minutes after starting our portage. The rest of the padle and the run were straight forward and we finished in about 2:45 in 15th place. Lesson learned, don't take stupid chances this early in a stage race.

Stage 2 took place on a desert island that was also a wild life refugee and as you can imagine very beautiful. The day began with a ~50K bike ride and then was followed with a paddle to another remote desert island where we would camp self sufficiently and continue on day three with an 88k paddle. The wheels came off a bit at check point one in the bike ride as 150 racers were trying to check into 2 stations...I popped out first but got caught up in a mess of competitors coming into the CP and was not sure who passed me. I saw Matt and then Glenn but no Mari. Matt was conviced that he had let Mari get in front of him and Glenn thought he held the checkpoint plug for Mari, could I have missed her? Glenn was nearly the last out of the CP with only 3 people behind him, we thought she must have been in front with the peleton which was quickly speeding away.

Plan B was to ride to the CP and wait, but we passed Mike B photographing on the way. I thought this would be a good opportunity to get some info from him. "Hey Mike did Mari pass?", I asked...he mentioned that he was pretty sure she had passed, now we were in full chase mode. The real story was that Mari was behind us trying to catch up. Her chain came off at the CP and she had spent a bit of time getting it back on...we were chasing her she was chasing us...rookie mistake. We should have stopped and waited, plain and simple. A bit of riding and a time penalty for being more than a minute apart and we crossed the line together. After changing out off the clock we started the paddle and ended up on a beautiful remote desert Island in the Persian Gulf...radical. Last time I did this, never!

The next two days were big and a bit more up our alley with a 9 hour paddle (Winners did it in just over 8 hours) and a 110km trek through the desert that took us 23.5 hours with 6 hours of mandatory rest baked in there. The Persian Gulf was astonishing and the clarity in the water was great. I'll let the pics speak for themselves here.

The last day of competition was a hill climb, followed by a mountain run, a monster rappell and a semi technical run out of the mountains. Fairly benign, however we did move from 11th place to 13th by seconds and the time penalty really kicked us in the pants in the end. Ouch...oh well, live and learn.

This was a great race and I will recomend it to any adventure racer that I know. Not only for the experience and competition but also as a great way to see the other side of the world and see what the United Arab Emirates has to offer an adventure seeker.

Big Props to Photographer Mike Bitton for taking all the excellent photo's seen here, reporting for CPZero and for being a friend in a far away place. Thanks Mikey!

Last update below...here are the limited photos that I took during the race. Usually I will take many more, but the speed of this race made taking pics less feasible.

Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge

Abu Dhabi

The hard work is all done, now its time to taper and prepare the logistics for the Abu Dhabi adventure challenge.This weekend we hit it hard and heavy starting on Thanksgiving for me. I wanted to get 4 days in a row of intense work outs, mission accomplished.

Thursday/Thanksgiving- was a 2 hour fast paced run and a 1 hour hike up to Rattlesnake

Friday- Hoops marathon

Saturday- 7:45 trail run around Garfield

Sunday- 6:11 (moving time) paddle around bainbridge Island...28.6 miles.

We are working on finalizing our gaitor set up for the desert trek (110k)...there will be lots of sand. I saw this post on Sari Anderson's blog about her gaitor set up...We are leaning towards using the lycra booties that road cyclists use to keep their feet semi warm. I tested a pair the other day on a run down at Alki and they seemed to do the job.

These pictures are actually from two weekend ago's training where we paddled around Maruy Island, portaged, and ran Dockton State Park trails where they hold the Vashon X-Terra each year. Great trails.

AR Worlds and USARA National Championships

There is soo much going on for the team right now!

DART-nuun (Seegs, Cyril, Rinn and Matzke) just crossed the finish line in 6th place yesterday in Brazil at the AR World Championships. Placing 6th among one of the toughest fields to to the line is very respectful and our team is extatic. Can't wait to get the details and pictures! Of course we will some how find it within ourselves to strive for some type of improvement, but not just yet as the team should revel in their great accomplishment.

There are some good articles on Sleepmonsters and Ecomotion did a good job of having somewhat infrequent updates. Seegs mom updated her site with some good nuggets of info. I loved this article on sleepmonsters as I could see it unfolding... It was also nice to see Orion have another good race and edge out Nike...this seemed like an impossible task for quite a while. The Orion team is filled with good individuals and they deserve the title.

Back to the US...Glenn, Sean and Mari are on the race course in Georgia at the USARA National Championships and are driven to give it their all. Sounds like they came off the prologue in first and are off on a 24 hour escapade in the south. You can follow them here and hopefully the updates keep rolling in!

Go team!!!

Upstate Adventure Race

Well, I finally received my bikebox from UPS and dug my camera out so I could let the photos do the talking. Up above is a quick stop to one of our great sponsors manufacturing plant in South Carolina, not too far from the race HQ.

The Upstate Adventure Race 2008 has come and gone and we were able to pull off a victory. Glenn posted a race report here on the CheckpointZero team blog so I'll let you get the non finer details from there.

From my memory the race went more like...canoe, bike, run, give mari my pack, bike, run, get towed by mari, run some more, bike, get a little tired, run some more, get towed by mari, finish. Ahhh what a race. As well as a great race it was fun to experience a race in another region, meet a lot of new people and see the hills of the Carolinas. The trees were showing all colors and around every turn there was something new to see.

One of the mandatory pieces of gear was a flare for each person...we were not allowed to fly with flares so we thought we would get them the day before the race, this is what Mari carried throughout the race:

We thought we should get a flare with a little umph, I think this one did the trick. The picture below was taken on the first trek as we were approaching Pinnacle Peak in Table Rock state park. The morning fog had just burned off and it turned into a beautiful day.

We are now trying to figure out Abu Dahbi and Portugal and how to make one happen...I guess it is a good predicament to be in. In the mean time our DART brotheren are in Brazil at the Adventure Racing World Championships, currently in 7th place and within striking distance of the top 5...I've been getting my info from the ecomotion site and sleepmonsters, just can't seem to get enough data! Go DART-nuun!

Victory in Moab!

Well you might have seen the updates online but here is the behind the scenes scoop from the transitions. Congratulations to Mari, Glenn, Sean and Matt for a great race!!!! Great crew work out there Jill and Tom!!!! and way to get after it team :-)

From JPC out of the transitions:

*******************
2nd update:

When we had notice Matt quiet and not eating in the last TA we decided to revamp the food. We went and got blueberries, Watermelon, strawberries. We had fresh deli meat. Sandwhiches and avacodo turkey wraps more coke and double the water and a few sugar salty treats. It was while they were in the hot rocks and the repell which made the big chief look like a pebble. As we were heading back to set up camp an ambulance came. It was a sick feeling. The first hour out of the race we already had a team lose their girl to a dislocated shoulder. As we got in to the TA we found out a volunteer was either heat exhaustion or heat stroke. The team that lost their girl that was continuing their race stopped and worked with the race emt, search and rescue and the ambulance crew to get him out and we were all able to watch them repel down to him and 12 people carried him out and he was throwing up all the way to the ambulance. Simultaneously we heard another racer was sick do severe hydration and their team dropped. Oh did I mention the race director broke his collar bone setting up the course? The thing we were greatful for is when our team went out they had triple the water. So we saw the leading come in and they didn't look so well. Then ten minutes later here comes Dart Nuun. We had set up an oasis at the TA but Matt was pail. We walked him to the river and had him put his feet and hands in the water. Then we sat down with legs in. We put a wet jersey on the back of his neck and began hand feeding him turkey avacodo wraps with a cool refreshing drinks. I could tell he started to feel good he started making jokes and kept saying he loved the wraps. We go back up to the TA. Glen is all calm. Zen like. He is reading the maps like the news paper and Laughing and eating. Sean looks like he just got back from Hawaii. Before they left too we sprayed them all down with spf 30. Mary was big smiles enjoying the fruit. She is so strong even out on the course glens drinking her coke etc. She is ribbing glen while she is lubing all the chains and eating. Sean is happy and we got Matt back. I put on eminem ' you got one shot' was playing loudly from my ipod when dart began singing and heading out taking the lead. Boulder had a long nav error and a long TA. Today is a different story and I'm sending that text next. 24 hours to go Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

**********************

3rd and final update:

Our team decided to rest. Glen was real sick. It was dark and cold and it was probably the best time to sleep. They needed the van which left Tom in I in a wind storm without sleep. They requested to be woken at 240am which was to 2 hours after they settled in. Then we woke them I was worried they wouldn't want to get out of the warm car and begin to race. However we woke them up and had caffeine drinks and food ready. Glen still didn't want to eat but was fired up to race. Matt looked like a little kid blinking his eyes open. The first thing he said may I please have an avacodo? Mary didn't get much sleep and Sean said his sleep was solid. Glen asked me to run with them to check out in case I needed to grab any maps. So all six of us ran about 100 and it was really fun running them out. Tom was running as well with a bloody nose due to altitude. Matt double checked glens work and they were off. Boulder didn't rest and took a two hour lead. Glen said the caught them on the field. So why they were out for near 12 hours the boulders TA was generous and let me use their fire to make soup when we all heard word one of their teammates got cold exhaustion. I asked like hypothermia and they said worse. Next thing I know they were bringing a racer with an IV down from the mountains transporting him to a vehicle. He looked ash grey. I couldn't help from my eyes watering. We want a win from competition not another team injured. It was a real sad moment. Our team came in and Glen, Matt, Mary and Sean looked real healthy and strong. Don another teams support said 'wow your team looks like soldiers' soon our team was told about Boulder and their moods flattened. Glen said he said he would have helped had he known. On their way out Matt rode his bike and team in tow and shook the team members hand and said thanks for a good race and I'm sorry about your teammate. Matt and our whole team are fine upstanding individuals. Sean before boulder accident wanted me to call rvg and say 'we are like everyone else. We would our pants on one leg at a time. But when we have our pants on we win adventure races. '
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Moab revisited, Xstream Expedition

Another national expedition race put on by the folks at Gravity Play, known as the Adventure Xstream Expedition. We've raced in Moab before, beat Nike and then got disqualified for not staying on the recomended route...that is neither here nor there, just flashing back ;-)

The team is in full force racing in Moab, where among other things teams have started to drop like flies because of the heat. The mercury reached 95F today and a couple of teams succombed to the heat, sound familiar? I had a heat stroke in Primal Quest in Moab when we entered Pritchett canyon, the EMT that stayed when I took his spot told my team that it was 122F where the helicopter landed. Moab is a hot place. Well we are back at it, I'm in an air conditioned car heading to Momar in Cumberland, while the real tough guys are dealing with the heat in Moab!


The team is comprised of Glenn Rogers, Sean Clancy, Mari Chandler and Matt Hayes. Powerhouse squad with a lot of potential. The website is fairly informational, but is missing a key ingredient to an expedition race...the leaderboard! This is what I know from our superstar support personell, JPC...translation is tough, but she is on her iPhone and probably has little time to type.


****************************************************
We are second. Our TA is half the time of the first place. The 2 hour lead is do to a flat in the beginning and a bike front wheel and a 10 minute lead on the water that one we had a three minute TA. Good eats to go and everything is clean. They look strong. Glen gets a little out there but his team is keeping him in line. We have motivation to have fast healthy strong TA. Matt is quieter. Mary is an amazing person. Sean is great in TA but need lots of water food and special drinks. Mary is so organized. Everybodies personality works well. Lots of laughing. Only I lost it was glens last bomb in the hotel. I had to puke three times. He is a great guy in some ways. Ha. Tom is solid TA support. A few really behind people and race director my TA angle came out. He constantly let's me know updates. And TA time for leader. We cut in half. They are strong and will catch them
***************************************************
Did she say puke? Those bean/bologna/cheez whiz burritos will do that to you ;-) Stay tough JPC and Tom!


Here is the gang getting ready to rumble on the boats.

PQ Updates from the field

While the team is racing I am lucky enough to get an occasional call from Ryan Fleming for team updates. I will post them and any other updates I receive along the way here as I get them...not sure how many more I will get.
*************************************
I'm officially signing off for a couple of days....headed down to Oakridge, OR for the Cascade Cream Puff. Go team go!!!!


************************************
Friday-June 27
(called 5:10pm) Support personell are in Bozeman, just got done doing laundry for the team and restocking. In the last TA Aaron and Aaron were very strong and suggested that they might try and get one more hour of sleep 2 TA's from here and then go for the big push. Cyril is feeling better and they left very rested.

Ryan did not know who had tendonitis on Peakadventure, he said Travelcountry left and came back as one of their team mates has bronchitis and needs to rest up, that are going to continue.

(called at 10:00am):
The team slept in teh field on the bike last night a little bit and are in transition now. They plan on sleeping 3 hours. Bones left before they got there and MOAT was in the transition. Overall they are doing OK and hopefully the sleep will get them back to moving at top speed.


************************************
Thursday-June 26 (called at 8:10pm):
At 7:00pm Montana time the team got back on their bikes after a long night and day through the Crazy Mountains and a lengthy transition. Evidently Cyril had a very rough night and was not able to eat much. Matzke's ankle seems to be doing ok, he came into transition without the brace on, not sure if that was because he could not fit into it or not. Rinn and Mari are doing good. Fleming pumped the team with lots of food and liquids, Cyril slept for 45 minutes and then support got the team back on their way before the gap between DART-nuun and Bones got too big. They are in route to CP 19 right now....go gettum gang!

************************************
Wednesday-June 25:
Just got this photo and a couple more from Mike Bitton on scene in Montana... click on the picture to see a couple of shots from TA#3.

Photo compliments of photographer extraordinaire and DART-nuun friend Mike Bitton

(June 25) Day 3: The team was in transition for ~2.5-3 hours after CP13, Ryan called and let me know that the team was sleeping for over 2 hours. The overall sleep strategy will be to sleep a lot up front and mostly in transition because the sleep is much better and temperatures are extremely low at night, which makes it hard to sleep. The team will most likely push through this bike (CP16) and the next trek, which Ryan thinks will be one of the tougher sections of the race, before they sleep again.

Matzke rolled an ankle on this trek and it has been wrapped/taped. Hopefully the time on the bike will help a bit.

Overall the team is happy and knows that there is a lot of racing left. They want to be pushing through the end and have good positive attitudes right now.

**********************************
June (24) Day 2: Riverboarding was absolutely insane. Rinn got sucked into a hole and held under water for quite some time. He lost his board and the team spent 1-1.5 hours on the bank recovering his gear and getting back into the swing of things. Still positive they transitioned fast and moved out

Primal Quest 2008 is on its way!

The race started yesterday and is looking to be another crusher. I will be posting links to media that DART-nuun pops up in at the DART-nuun news blog on Checkpoint Zero.

Here are a list of places I am getting info from:

-Primal Quest

-Checkpoint Zero

-Sleep Monsters

-Bitton Blog

Anyone have more news sources?

To GPS or not to GPS

My buddy Mikey Bitton is on scene for Checkpoint Zero covering Primal Quest and one of his most recent posts called out the question about whether or not the presence of GPS at PQ was a good thing...he mentioned me particularly because of my incident in Moab and the rescue that was involved.

Here is a link to the post where Mike writes, "Mann said he thinks VanGorder, who doctors later said was dehydrated and overheated, might have died if he'd fallen on a more remote part of the Utah course. I've got a call in to Ryan in Seattle to see how he feels about this. I'm actually more interested in the opinion of his wife, Jennifer VanGorder. Her husband survived Primal Quest Utah because the rescue team knew exactly where he was. What would Jen say about Mann's PQ Montana decision?"

****************************************

Although Mikey is more interested in Jen's opinion (I am too) I thought it was worth while to post my thoughts as well.

I've done more than a handful of expeditions since I suffered a heat stroke in Moab, including Ecomotion in Brazil, XPD Australia, Baja Travesia and Raid the North in Prince Rupert. All races have been in remote regions and I felt as safe as can be in all of them because of the people I choose to race with, who by the way are the main reason for why I survived a heat stroke in Moab (thanks team).

Whether I am out with my team mates for a weekend excursion or in the middle of a race in a far off land I choose to be there with them because I feel safe being able to rely on them when I need help. I guess I would call them my first line of defense. I know that my team mates have spent the time to prepare themselves to handle almost any situation that can be thrown at them and it's nice to be able to fall back on them.

Raid the North and Baja Travesia in particular had GPS on the mandatory gear list and used a sealed priority mail bag to keep it dry and also to verify teams had not used their gps at the end of the race. Teams that used the gps couldnot place in front of teams that had not used it. I felt this never hindered the spirit of the event and the reliance of tru navigation, but also made some of the beginner teams feel a bit more confident in taking the steps necessary to navigate their way through the rugged adventure.

I don't think that the inclusion of GPS in this years Primal Quest changes the stigma or stature of the event and I respect the fact that race management is taking steps to add another level of safety. Teams that need to rely on this as their second line of defense will be glad that their friends and them can utilize it and those that don't can continue to race the night away without any of technologies help. My only thought is that I hope that the time penalty laid out by race management is material enough to make teams think twice about using the GPS if they really don't need it.

I'm looking forward to seeing this years event go down as another epic adventure and will be sending all the mojo I can to my buddies on DART-nuun. Go team go!!!

nuun celebrates

I guess they are recognizing a couple of different reasons to celebrate in the nuun family. First off they are launching a great new product called "U" and secondly they posted a great picture of Aaron, Jen and Cyril to say congrats to both teams that tied for first place in Baja....very cool. Check it out here!

Stay hydrated!

DART takes 1st and 2nd at the 2008 Baja Travesia

The race is over! The two DART teams finished together after a tough battle. I still have not received the inside scoop yet, but when I get the details about the finish I will be sure to post them. Congrats DART-nuun NW Kayaks and DART-nuun!

What a great race to watch, wish I was there (not for the attempt at paddling, looked sketch) and am already pondering the possibility of 3 DART-nuun teams competing at the next Baja Travesia.

Here is a video of DART-nuun on the rally car section...

DART-nuun currenlty holding 1st and 2nd

The Baja Travesia website has been putting out great info and the race is heating up! Currently DART-nuun NW Kayaks (Glenn, Sean and Mari) is leading with DART-nuun (Cyril, Aaron, Jen)in hot pursuit. The rest of the top 5 is rounded out by Kayak Lake Mead, Dancing Pandas, Dirty Avo's and Bosi Columbia is up there too.

If you have not checked out the race site yet, check it out....there are great videos, photos on Sleep monsters and many other features worth checking out.

Baja Travesia!

Baja Travesia kicked off this morning at 11:30 am in San Felipe, Mexico. Our team is two time defending champs and are looking to three peat. The race this year is flip flopped with the race starting in San Felipe and ending in Ensenada.

A little history on the race...this is the third year that the travesia has been produced by adventure racer extraordinaires Paul Romero and Karen Lundgren. These guys have been everywhere that the AR scene could lead you and won some of the toughest races on the planet. They produce a racers race and don't hold anyones hand through their adventures.

Of course this is a double edged sword, as we found ourselves 1/3 of a mile off the coast after our boat sunk and our family style walkie talkies didn't reach the safety boats that we did not see all race, in the end we relied on our own skills to stay safe and we realize that you need to have the proper skills before you insert yourself into a potentially harmful situation.

Anyways, We are pumped to have two teams in the race and are looking forward to watching the gps trackers and getting updated from the travesia site and also Sleep Monsters. One of the everlasting ARquestions will be answered one way or another... Will the damn GPS trackers work? Sleep monster devices have a good track record. Lets keep our fingers crossed for good data.

Here's some beta on the course from the site.


The course summary is:
Paddleboard relay: 5 km
Trek: 30 km
Rally cars (time neutral): 25 km
Trek: 30 km, ascending a canyon some 7000’
Bike: 91 km a big downhill along amazing remote single-track
Trek: 26 km another canyon
Bike: 60 km another big downhill
Trek: 25 km
Bike: 35 km
Kayak: 17 km to Ensenada
TOTAL: 349 km

Raid the North Extreme, adventure racing at its greatest gets showtime in Canada

I wanted to pass along components of a message I got from Brian Tasaka, producer of the Momar adventure races in and around B.C. If you have not raced a Momar yet, put it on your list of sprint races...

"Hello Adventure Racers,

Be sure to tune in for the television premiere of Raid the North Extreme this Saturday night at 9:00pm. This one hour special will feature our own Team Helly Hansen / MOMAR as they battle the wild wilderness of the Queen Charlotte Islands and Prince Rupert, BC.
This broadcast is a first in Canada. For the first time, the mystique, excitement, wilderness, intensity and human drama of this incredible sport will reach Canadian homes on a national network in prime time.

"This type of coverage is ideal for this event," says race director Geoff Langford. "There are incredible stories of determination and team dynamics that a broader audience will be fascinated by, and we put competitors in places that require aerial, high-definition shots to truly capture the immensity of it all. Viewers watching prime time Global will be blown away by this sport, this part of the country, and the entire experience."

Watch team members Gary Robbins, Todd Nowack, Megan Rose, and Christiian Pillar as they take on 500km of unforgiving terrain in the heart of North Coast.
The show airs in HD on Global, Saturday, January 12, at 9:00pm.
For more information, go to http://www.blogger.com/www.raidthenorthextreme.com."

*****
Would be nice if we get the show down here, but I will be one step removed since I am cable less...Some one tape it or record it to DVD for me! I posted our pictures from the event below and here is a link to the posting I made with the DART video . Happy Viewing!

Raid the North Extreme 2007