Tales from the Mid-Pack – Primal Quest 2008
Primal Quest – People ask us why we want to take 2 weeks of vacation to complete a race that covers 500 miles on foot, bike, kayak, swimming and ropes? Primal Quest or PQ has been labeled one of the hardest races in world with peers like the Iditarod, Marathon de Sables, Bad water Marathon and the Hawaiian Ironman. PQ’s attrition rate is notoriously between 25-50%. It takes some of the best, most chiseled athletes is the world and reduces them into crumpled, hobbling castoffs.
So why would someone want to complete this course that is often called a Don Mann’s ultimate suffer-fest? It takes each person through a personal journey of self discovery, breaking them down to their most primal instincts. It provides a lifetime of emotions in the span of hours and days. This race takes you to the ledge of our outer most capabilities. It takes you to a place that you never though you could reach, then allows you to go beyond. Whether the competitor finishes or not, this is one race when you look back on it, you think…..What an incredible journey. You can look back in amazement and awe at what you have just experienced. The emotion of crossing the finish line can fill the well of tears that makes you question whether you are crying because it you have just finished the hardest race in world or you are crying because the experience is done. Some people may say never again, but for the majority of us, we are asking ourselves when then next one is.
Towanda- Sepracor-RWGFinding the right team to complete a race like Primal Quest is like finding the magic ingredients to the treasured family recipe. It takes the right mix of skill, personality, and that special sauce so when it the going gets tough, the team stays strong and communicates well. It seems like an easy mix to find, but many teams have found this to be elusive. You find out the true nature of your team during times like 2 days of no sleep and a mistake is made. We are very fortunate to have found that right mix that cemented our team in trust and perseverance. Shari Hymes, who is from Sag Harbor, NY, has curly black hair and two words I would not use to describe her are quiet and shy. She is our life on the trail. Mary Scheerer, also from Sag Harbor, is less vociferous than Shari, but she is like EF Hutton, when she speaks, you need to listen. She has saved our butts on many occasions. These two ladies may be small, but they are both solid athletes through and through. They are experienced instructors from the Odyssey Adventure Racing Academy in West Virginia. Brian is our navigator who I have raced with since we first started our first AR Academy 5 years ago. He is one of those few people who have the ability to take a two dimensional map and see it in the three dimensions around him. His skills are truly exceptional and have saved our feet many extra miles. Then there is me, Keith Ash. I guess I claim to have not many redeeming skills except being able to repair feet. I can take an extreme amount of punishment and still keep going. That means I get to carry the extra gear and food.
Montana - The logistics of getting to Montana to Primal Quest was no small feat for any team. Primal Quest has one of the most rigid certification requirements of any race. Each team member had to be certified in everything from white water kayaking, climbing and wilderness first aid. In addition to certification, the gear list was extensive and growing by the day. New requirements included show shoes, river boards and don’t forget the 40 mandatory crap bags at $3 a pop or poop. While the gear was necessary for a safe race, it amounted to a UPS delight, pounds and pounds of gear to be shipped. We all met in Bozeman to start the first pre-leg of our trip, last minute shopping. Walmart was happy to see our extensive list ranging from 10 days worth of food to pop up canopies. The other major decision we made was whether we use a camper or U-haul as our base camp. We decided on a 17 ft U-haul, where everyone had one corner to organize or “dump” our gear. We hung everything from our wet suits to our various bags from cord we strung on the walls. Looking at our exhausted faces of our competitor’s support teams from loading equipment tightly into their motor homes, we decided we made the best and easiest decision for us and our support crews.
Getting to the starting line is half the battle –
These are the words I remember when I started learning about adventure racing at the AR academy. It was a true pleasure to be starting a Don Mann race at 10 am. Was Don going soft? He gave us enough time to sleep in, have a good breakfast and still have enough time to touch our gear one last time. Don’s goal was to get the money shot for the helicopter……a fly over as racers started from the base camp of Big Sky and scrambled to gain position as we climbed the 11,000 ft Lone Peak. The morning started out foggy and cool, but turned out to be a perfect morning for the summit of Lone peak.
56 teams of 4 from all over the world lined up to start one of the world’s hardest races. In front of us was our first task, to climb from the base camp of Big Sky Resort (7550’) to the top of Lone Peak (11,138). The first stage of this climb was a true alpine ascent which included a follow the leader to the top of the ski lifts (9050’), then to travel across a snow covered ridge line, across some scree and then a final ascend to the top. This included attaching some runners to a fixed line for additional safety. The top teams raced out ahead knowing this would be the first place where a bottle neck would occur along the ridge line. The top of the lone peak provided the best views in all Montana. On a clear day, you can see the Tetons. The path back down included an incredible glissade that can be best described as a 1,000 ft slide on snow. We paced ourselves quickly to arrive at the first TA in exactly the position we wanted to be in…..the top of the last third. This would put in the exactly the right spot to gain spots as night fell and our navigation part started to kick in. 4 hours and 29 minutes to go 8 miles. This was going to be one hell of a race
Trek #1 The Mind Quest Ulta Marathon– Our first TA was in the square at the base of Big Sky resort. Team’s were quickly prepping for a 24 hour trek that would take us 45 miles from the starting line to the entry point of the duckie paddle at Sage creek. This was the first place where we could take in the awe of the country side that Montana would have to offer. We followed the Beehive Basin trail to FST 402. This route would take us to CP 4 at the intersection of FST 402 and the North Fork trail 16 Leaving CP4, our destination was to travel to Ousel falls, a highlight of this trek section. As we passed by the falls, our first night started to come up on us and we realized that navigating will become a bit more difficult.
Past CP 5, we traveled in a group that consisted of a mother, daughter team traveling next to the First Yellow mule creek that would take us into the snow country going from 6000 ft to over 9500 ft. What I remember from this section was that our feet were wet from the snow melt and would remain wet for most of the race.
Mid way through our trek, Shari broke the silence of the night with words of great concern. “Guys….I just broke my tooth.” Did she fall, did something hit her in the face? No, it was a food injury. Shari was eating a bag of M&Ms, gummy bears and Gobstoppers. Yes, we even did a pre-race briefing about the dangers in our food bags, but our first major issue was in front of us. Shari had cracked her tooth in half where one half was cutting into her nerve. The quite vociferous Shari was now silent. An indication the pain was intense. Solid foods and cold drinks now induced large shocks of pain. Faced with a race ending injury, we brainstormed to come up with a plan. This was one thing that duct tape could not fix. We called emergency headquarters to see if they could have a dentist on hand in the next TA. If that did not work, we would try to make it to the kayak, which passed through a town that would have a dentist. For now, Shari had to bear the pain. We discussed our disappointment that Don Man did not have skate’s on the mandatory list of equipment, since everything else was. We could have done our best Castaway impression of a tooth extraction with a skate. We also had a few river crossings that gave us our first taste of how cold the water really was. We worked our way through a series of mountain passes, beautiful meadows and gulches to work our way south to CP6 at the intersection of Taylor Fork rd and FST 223. You would think that a 6 mile walk down a road to TA2 would be a welcomed part of this long trek, however each pebble on the gravel road would fire a nerve ending on your foot reminding you that this was only 45 miles of 500 and the first of many treks to come.
TA2 – Sage Creek – 9:40 Tuesday Morning (6647’)
We got into the transition with one thing on our minds, we must find out if they have someone who can fix Shari’s tooth. As we roared into the TA, we assessed that they had did have someone who could help Shari with her tooth. Two of the PQ medical staff helped Shari get her tooth into a situation where she could bear to go on. Now that we knew she had a fix, it became much more fun to start teasing her about her almost “race fatal” food injury. Rule #1 – Gobstoppers is now on PQ’s Prohibited List of Foods. Our faithful support crew of Joy Marr and Bob Ash – got us fed quickly and off to the ducky section. Many of the PQ team and racers know Joy from her insanely hard course on the East Coast from the Odyssey Adventure series. Bob, dad of Keith, has recently turned into an AR junkie, whose love of the outdoors and competition made him a willing participant to sleep in a tent/Uhaul or ground for 10 days. He also was a TA volunteer for the last PQ in Utah. Her AR knowledge and gourmet cooking and his extra set of hands made them a team to be reckoned with.
The water section turned out to be one of the highlights of this race…..I say that because it was one of the only times we were off our feet. The beginning section of the river flowed from South to North starting with class 1 and 2 waves. Several teams had to wait for boats since there were not enough duckys for all the teams. The current was easily going 8- 10 miles an hour, which basically meant it would be hard for a team to overtake us during this section. Brian seemed to find every wave chain that would keep us moist.
The afternoon temperature was in the 70’s with a slight breeze coming in. After about 10 miles on the river, the waves started to get more technical and much more fun. There were several class 3 and class 4 sections that could have easily tossed our boat, however with Brian in the back and our two ladies in the other boat, we enjoyed the roller coaster ride and adrenaline rush. As we started to wind up this section, we saw a PQ volunteer on the side of the road waiving his hands. We were quite perplexed since we were in the last stage of the river. He told we us we needed to pull the boats out of the water, there were problems down stream.
To our disappointment, the teams ahead of us were going from a controlled chaos situation to out right rescue. The guide had told us there was 5 simultaneous rescues going on at this time and the rest of ducky and swimming sections were being cancelled. We got picked up on the highway were we were shuttled to CP4 to start ….another trek.
TA4 – Storm Castle Trekking (elevation 5,327)During the race briefing, Chris Caul, course designer, said that we would not forget telephone ridge. Good people have been eaten up and spit out of telephone ridge. We left this TA at 8 PM on Tuesday and knew we would have to climb up to about 9,000 ft. Telephone ridge is steep climb over many downed trees in every direction. There were several teams bunched together trying to find the right saddle to make our way to the unmanned checkpoint 11. Team 29 and others chose to shoot for the ridge and make their way to the saddle this way, however not Towanda. We chose to traverse at elevation to find the saddle. There were only 2 slight challenges, the snow and the steepness of the landscape. Several times we would post hole through the snow to our knee or waist. Other times, we would slide down hoping to quickly catch a tree to stop us. At times it was harrowing, however in hindsight, we picked up 2-3 hours from the other teams. This was one of many examples why our team trusts Brian’s navigation so implicitly. He has a way of making key decisions at all the right times. It is truly a gift.
We would make our way to flatter land that was easier to traverse and soon we were treated to the lights of Bozeman. It was a pretty sight, but we had a trail to find. We looked down and to our amazement, there was a groomed trail, like a runway, leading us to where we needed to go. As always, the easy path is not always the best path. This runway was not always the safest place to be, I can’t tell you how many time we slipped on the ice that had hardened on the path. We had to use the sides, which did not always hold our weight so it became a maze of trying to step in all the places where you would not break through the hard pack and sink 3 feet. We had to drop significant elevation to get to CP 11. We knew we needed to cross the raging river to the right side of us, however if we kept traversing the hill we were on, we hoped for a snow crossing, which we finally found. We were exactly where we wanted to be and CP11 (7740’) was easily found. The next destination was Wheeler Gulch which consisted of a long down hill climb through beautiful meadows and canyon walls. At the bottom of the gulch, we ran across a raging river stream with only one visiable way of crossing, “the log of destiny”. This was a log that perched itself about 3 feet above raging water that would clearly put any victim in peril if they fell in the water. 50 yards down the stream a strainer was waiting to capture fresh victims. It was interesting to watch as teams queued up to cross the river. Teams helped each by playing life guard. On each side of the river, someone would hold a long branch out over the river in case someone fell in. We would watch teams cross the tree with varying levels of confidence. Luckily, no one fell in.
The rest of this endless trek would consist of the following the Cottonwood creek trail back up toward History Rock area. When I talk to my team and other teams, this area really becomes a blur because it consisted of traveling down several gulches and step trails, crossing streams, and climbing endlessly up to another saddle. By this time, our feet were on fire. I laughed and told my team mates my strategy was to tell my feet, “I am not listening to you, stop sending me pain signals …..suck it up and turn the pain switch off.” Brian asked if that was working. I replied, “No, but pretty soon they will realize they are being ignored and figure it out.”
After the steep descends of History rock, we decided it was time to soak our feet in the cold stream, a welcome treat. As teams like the “Too Much Fun Club” came up behind us, we tried to lure them to the stream as well. It was on to Mystic and Bear Lake. By this time, everyone was tired and hurting. We gave Mary a shot of Starbuck to help her through a tough spot. She was walking slightly behind the team.
Out of no where, there was a grey streak that shot by us, screaming. It was Mary with a new burst of energy, running through the teams ahead. Brian looks at Shari and says, “We have now found a new food group for Mary.” During this long slog, we would find a nice meadow to take a long nap, 30 minutes. Our bodies soaked up the much needed sleep, but it went from hot to cold quickly and we all woke up shivering. Time to go.
The only way to describe this trek was that it was long and it had a lot of elevation gain and loss. By the time we were done, it took us almost 24 hours to cover 31 miles. My altimeter indicated we climbed 10,000 and my feet wanted someone to listen to their complaints, but no one was listening. Our bikes were a welcome site at CP12.
CP 12 – Bike from Trail Creek Rd to the Yellow Stone River (5854’) elevation
This was the first major biking section and a welcome chance to give our feet a break. We got into this TA around 4 am on Thursday and after a quick snooze, we rode 34 miles to Yellowstone river. We were looking forward to some kayak time….cool, fast moving water and some time to recover. But the water gods did not allow this break. The Yellowstone was flowing at 150% of capacity, which not only put some major obstacles in the water like trees, logs and other objects the river captured, it also had some rapids that would keep the best kayakers on their toes. This section got cancelled. In its place, they added another 100 mile bike ride along the general course of the river.
The thought of 100 miles on our bikes became a little discouraging, however when we looked at the profile of the ride, it was more or less 70 miles of flat or down hills and 30 miles of rolling hills. Most people work out months to do a century ride and then take days to recover from it. This was just one leg of many to get us closer to our next challenge, the Crazy Mountains. The highlight of this leg was a side trip to McDonalds to fill our back packs with cheeseburgers and our bike bento boxes with chicken Mcnuggets. The guy at the front counter looked at us bewildered as we asked for 80 chicken Mcnuggets split into boxes of 10 to go. This would hold us through to our next leg with a nice calorie rich treat. During this leg, we would play leap frog with Dirty Avocados for pretty much the rest of the race. They were great competitors and quickly becoming good friends. The last part of this ride was a long uphill ride to the bike drop off at the Crazy Mountains.
Leaving CP15/TA7 Otter Creek – (3994’) It was night and we were in good spirits because we only had around a 20-30 miles to go. It was mostly uphill, but after 110 miles behind us, my butt was starting to get into the complaining mood. After around 5 miles, my team heard some loud 4 letter words #$@#$#@!@#$. $%@$!!!!!! I just broke my bike seat off its post. Luckily for me, I am the racer that usually carries too much crap in my pack including duct tape. Brian, our resident engineer and problem solver made a fix by lowering the post and taping the seat to the frame and stabilizing it with a spare tire. The good news was I did not have to stand and ride for 20 miles, the bad news was the angle and height of the seat made this leg by far the most agonizing as we began our climb into the base of the Crazy Mountains.
CP16 UTA8 – Big Tiber Creek (5590’) – Entering the CrazyMountains. Encyclopedia Britannica describes the Crazy’s as a extending for 30 miles (48 km) between the Musselshell and Yellowstone rivers. The Crazies are characterized by extremely jagged summits and steep slopes. More than 30 peaks are between 10,000 and 11,000 feet (3,000 and 3,400 metres) in elevation; CrazyPeak (11,230 feet [3,423 metres]) is the highest point. The range includes some 56 alpine lakes and comprises a portion of the GallatinNational Forest.
We got into Big Timber Creek around 3 AM on Friday the 27th. After duct taping the seat to my rack in hopes they would notice, we left the warmth of the fire at the transition area and started our hike down the road. Shortly after, we set up the tent to get an hour rest before the sun came up. The tent we had barely fit 2 comfortably, let alone 4. If we all layed on our side and staggered 1 more up and the other more down, we could fit, but when you are getting 2 hours of sleep every 24 to 36 hours, you feel asleep quickly. We woke up to Shari hearing bear sniffs outside our tent…..I told her not to worry, because I put all our food in Brian’s back pack and moved it away from ours. Actually, I had not, but it seemed to get the tent stirring and up. It looked like a lot of teams were starting to attack the Crazies like us. It started with a nice trail road that led down Big Timber canyon , then turned into trails, which turned into snow covered trails. Like many of our hikes, there was one way to go and that was up. Our goal was to get to CP 17 at Campfire lake.
We would cross some incredible canyon passes and cross snow covered streams in hopes no one would fall in. There were waterfalls in the distance, it was truly God’s country. It took us a little time in this section to sniff out the right trail, however it would take us pretty close to 5,000 feet up to campfire lake. This was an unmanned check point with a flag handing on a tree. The wind was whipping and it was time to climb even further up to 10,000 ft. The climb would take us across some steep snow slopes and skree to reach a point that you felt like you were standing on top of Montana.
When we describe the clarity of the view to other people, it does not do it justice. It was breath taking and the reason why many of us race. It is a great way to see Montana at its best. We took in the view and there was only one way to go and that was down. The skree slopes down were steep and dangerous. A group of us traveled in a pack for safety. We slowly made our way down from skree to snow, to mud, to path to our next TA. What I remember from the last slog is limited, but we made our way to the transition area in the middle of the night. The sleep monsters were getting the best of us, especially me. I have never dreamt and walked at the same time. I was going in and out of sleep and was convinced there was a highway only a couple of yards to the right of us that would cut off several hours. I could not understand why Brian did not know this, since he owned all the land in Montana. It finally got so bad that we had to take a 15 minute nap to kick the monsters out of our house. I think a couple of teams passed us. We got up to finish the last part of this section, however the night continued to distort time and perception. This seemed like an endless death march. The lights of the TA brought on a welcomed response of relief.
CP 18/TA 9 – Cottonwood Creek – Bike to the Bridger Mountains (6000’)
We got some well needed sleep and left Cottonwood creek in the morning. As we exited out of the transition we did what we always did, check to see if anyone leap frogged us while we slept. We did not loose any places. This was going to be a 2 stage ride, with the first part of this ride, 38 miles, started with a nice down hill ride, then followed by a slow up hill slog to a remote town called Ringling (population 14 people and 28 cows.) That does not include the two CP staff. We would ride this section with the Crazy Mountains watching over us to our right. We rode with team XXX during this section,). The next 57 mile section involved a pretty steady climbs followed by rolling foot hills. The highlight of this ride was coming to 16 mile canyon road. This was a long down hill ride through beautiful slot canyons and roaring rapids. The rest of this ride was through country roads leading us to the base of the Bridger mountains. We did run across one rather large ostacle, a bull right in the middle of the road that did not want to give way. I did my best city slicker "yea ha", but that did not convince him to move. I tried to shush him away, he started to snort. He looked hungry and was licking his chops.....Shari luckily rode up and saved me from a certain goring....as she rolled closer, he decided two was one too many and walked off.
CP 20 – TA - This was a long hard ride that took its toll on many teams. We were welcomed by the site of Brian’s family who bared the greatest gifts, pizza, chicken and beer. While other teams eat protein shakes and past for energy, we gorged ourselves on a feast. As Doctor Suess would say, “it was a feast …..a feast that was better than the roast beast.” We ate, we slept, and at around 10 PM on the 29th, we attacked the base on to the Bridger Mountains. To our amazement, our spirits were high and enthusiastic. Usually at this stage of a race, one person is usually hurting or dragging, but we were all in high spirits. Keeping your feet dry is an essential part of avoiding foot problems. The path to Sacagawa has nothing close to dry. We had to cross stream after stream, as we climbed Corbly Gulch. The path was to follow closely to the stream, however we realized the most efficient way to stay on the path was to stay in the stream. We heard this route proved to be tricky for many teams, especially at night. We ran across one team, Sawbones, who pitched a tent and had a roaring fire going. I looked a Brian in jealousy, “We never light a fire.” “Yea yea”, he replied, “Maybe if we were faster on our bikes, trekking and transitions, we will think about it. Let’s get going”.
We pointed our feet up the hill and kept the warm thoughts of the fire as the amber light slowly left our site and was replaced with the chilling night breeze. We made our way to the top where we caught site of another team, Dirty Avocados. We chased them for less than an hour, we had to catch them. My competitive nature got me and broke rule #1 “Rule #1 - race your own race, not someone else’s”. This would take us past the path to the ridge. We also made our only major navigational error, which took us down the wrong mountain ridge. We caught it fairly quickly and recovered. We decided to go on the downward marked path versus the ridge. This would lead us on switch back after switch back, snow field after snow field. We needed to buckle down, because this was going to be one long ass hard hike. We kept looking to the ridge to see if we could see other teams. In our hearts, we worried that the ridge was faster and we would be passed all day. It did not help that we saw many teams up there. We may never know if this was the right decision, however midway through the lower trek, we decided to climb to the top of the ridge. We found a saddle to shoot for and climbed through a steep, nasty scree field. It took every once of energy to push our sorry asses to the top, but slowly we made it and we were now on the ridge. The good news was that it would be faster than the switch backs, the bad news is that there is no water on top of the ridge. This was a section I got worried on, because I became what I believe was hyponeutremic. This condition is when a person has over hydrated. Their body feels like they are dehydrated. Too much water without the proper balance of salt and electrolytes can lead to convulsing, unconsciousness and death, none of which I was excited about. It took me the better part of a day to figure out what was the matter and it took the rest of the day to get it back under control. The worst part of this condition is your mouth feels like it is bone dry and you have an unquenchable thirst. Thank God for great team members who helped shared their water, bitch at me for being stupid and even help melt some of the snow to help get me through this. I prayed for no micro organisms.
After the ridge trail we started to descend toward the M trail, a steep rock path down toward Bozeman. The interesting thing about the M trail is that it is marked by a huge M that was man made in stone. It is so large you can see it from miles away and most likely from an airplane as you travel over it. You would think trekking downhill would be easier than uphill, however it taxes a whole new set of muscles and with sore feet makes it more difficult. You could tell that everyone was in pain in their own ways. This was a time where we all had to dig in to that place deep in the sole.
At the end of the trail, we had a 2 paths to choose, the steep quick path to the bottom or the longer path at a less steep descent. We chose unwisely and took the steeper, shorter path to the bottom. Let’s just say there was an old lady with a walker that got down faster than us. The steep path was at a ridiculous angle with lot’s of loose rock. In our prime, we could have aced it, today, we turtled it all the way down.
The CP was a site for sore eyes. We were hoping for some water or some kind of treat or surprise at the end of this hellacious hike, however we were not only laughed at and sent on our way to the TA, which was another 3 miles in town. It turned out to be another death march.
TA – CP 23 – Gallatin Recreational Area – 4,691
We were greeted again by our faithful support crew who knew just what to do. They had drinks in hand, food ready and a surprise. Brian’s family had brought us 9 pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, however they were upset because we were late and it had half melted. To our delight, that translated to Ben and Jerry’s milk shakes. Never have I thought to put down a whole pint of ice cream, however I found myself sitting like Gollum, holding my pint calling it “My precious”. We were desperate for sleep, so we chose to sleep until morning and get a fresh ride for our last push through biking, ropes, orienteering and one last hike.
While we were happy to be off our feet, PQ always finds a way to get that stick in the eye. This turned out to be a 7 hour bike ride of climb, climb, climb. We climbed to a quaint little cabin where we ran across another team GCAR. The trail would continue to climb through snow, which turned some parts of this ride into a bike push. The highlight of the biking was a pretty technical, steep ride down. I by no means am a good technical rider, but I was feeling pretty confident and was the first to take this wet, rocky trail down. I kept repeating to my self,” you are floating on the wind, like a leaf”, but reality set in and my speed was going faster than my skills and soon found myself floating like that leaf, but without my bike. When I collected my sorry ass, I checked my head, body and appendages to make sure they were all in working order. My team mates sailed by me and told me to stop playing in the mud and come on….I collected myself and tied again. I slowly gained my confidence back again and once again, I was handled a face full of humble pie and mud in the mouth as a laid on the ground again. This shook my confidence to the core, so I attacked the rest of this downhill with hesitancy and concern.
Note to self…..ride your mountain bike down some steep mountains. It was a treat to everyone else on my team to run this tremendous trail. 8 hours later, we made it into our next TA.
CP 25 Storm Castle
This was a strategic time for us…..we had some decisions we needed to make, do we do the orienteering? Do we do the last trek? The one thing we did know was we needed to get to the climbing section before anyone else. This would definitely be the bottle neck. We knew that no one had gone out ahead of us for over a couple of hours, so our race was to the ropes. We knew that this section would take 8 hours and if we got to the ropes first, most teams behind us would not have enough time to finish the last trek and would have to skip it. This strategy could ensure us a 20-25th place finish. The climb site was a 3 mile hike. At the last part of the hike, we made it to the ropes before a couple of teams. Since they were only running one set of ropes, this would be great for us. The first pitch was a free climb where we had to find hand holds to make our way up over 100 feet of rock that seems to pitch out to certain places. Our team made our way up slowly but diligently up the first pitch. As we started up the second ascend, a storm started to roll in. This became troublesome because Shari was on an exposed part of the rock, ascending with two trekking poles sticking out of the back of her pack, essentially two lighting rods. The lightening was getting closer and closer and even hitting a couple hundred meters away. Shari could feel the hair literally rose on her arm. The climbing teams went into action to get everyone securely off the rocks. There were many tense moments. The decision was to close down this section, however we did not know for how long. We waited on the rock for over 3 hours sitting in the rain before they closed this section, the orienteering section and the rappel site down for good. We were very disappointed. There were many issues we needed to sort out, most of all, finding Shari. None of the climb guides knew where she was. We felt that she probably went back to the TA with another team, however that is the worst feeling to not know where your team mate is and if she was ok. We were sooooooo relieved to see her at the TA. She was “Shaken, but not stirred”.
We all regrouped at the TA and had to rethink our strategy which was now blown to hell. The last thing we wanted to do was another trek section, however this was a defining point for our team. One of our team mates had a blister so bad it went to the tendon. Our options were 1.) do the trek and bike or 2) skip the trek, take the time penalty and do the last bike in the morning. This was a moment that defines us a team. Two wanted to do the trek, two wanted to skip it. One person was injured and in great pain. After much discussion, the team made the decision to skip the trek. Once the decision was made, there was no hard feelings or regret. We see so many teams that have challenges with communication or make decision but hold grudges against the others. I am fortunate enough to find a team that has 3 core strengths – 1.) We communicate well. We can say what we mean and mean what we say. We don’t have to worry about hurting the others feelings. 2.) We support each other – through highs and lows, we help each other, we push each other and balance off of each other, 3.) We have a good time and put this into perspective, this is race, not brain surgery, no one is going to die today, so don’t take it too serious, have fun. We made the decision that was best for the team and we moved on.
Final Bike Leg –
We looked at the profile of this last bike leg, it did not look too bad, 58 miles 3,000 feet of climb. I don’t know whether it was the exhaustion of that this leg or it was one continuous uphill climb, however it seemed endless. We started the ride at 9:45. My body was tired and drained and I wanted this to be over. I shift my mind out of my body and starting to think about the race behind us.
The days have seemed to mold together and I could not believe this was day 8. I could not believe that our bodies had not failed us, that we had the energy and fortitude to cover the distance that spans from falls of Niagara, New York to Annapolis, Md and still do 3 marathons. I reflected on the beauty of Montana as a state that I would never have wanted to visit, but my heart longs for a trip back to show the beauty to my 3 women at home. I thought of the tremendous strength of my team mates. Shari – With her tooth injury, she endured pain that would take most normal athletes out. She hates it when I say this, but she is my Robin Bennincasa. I have leaned on her in more races than I can remember and she is nothing less than a superb all around athlete and a great friend. Mary – She also amazes me. She is coming up on a big birthday and let’s say it is not 40. As a competitive athlete, she has a core base that sustains her indefinitely. I can only hope to have her depth when I am _____> Brian – not only do I trust his navigation implicitly, but he is also a team mate that seems to be about as consistent as they come. I always worry about the day he wakes up and realizes he can be on any elite teams and compete at a level I can only watch. I value his loyalty and most of all his friendship. We have been racing together since our first race out of the academy and hope we will continue to race a long time together.
The last push through Montana took us through some of the most breathtaking back country. We were passing by the ranches of the rich and famous on our last push to finish. It was a hard push, but we could see the finish – Big Sky Resort. We were flagged to follow a Uhaul truck to the finish.
The emotions of the race started to well up in my body. All the pain, suffering and agony were wiped away by feelings of elation, accomplishment and pride that we have just tackled one of the hardest races in the world and finished it. The best part was finishing this race with people that I will call friends for life. When you spend 10 days with 4 people, you get to know them in ways few people do. The four of us crossed the finish line hand in hand. You could see the pride beaming in Brian’s family watching him cross that line. Shari and Mary – this was another great experience for the best of friends to share. For me, it was the great joy of sharing this moment with my Dad. He has been my inspiration throughout my life and to share times like this is what life is about. Without our tremendous support crew of Bob and Joy, we never would have made it.
As we walked away from the finish line, the smiles would not leave for days and the stories will only get bigger and bigger as time goes by. For some people, this was a race against competitors, for us, this was a journey of self discovery, friendship and perseverence.
As the night came and we got the feeling of our first warm bed in 9 days, I remember looking up at the ceiling trying to absorb the journey we had just been on. I would think of the great friends I got to share this experience with. I would think of the beautiful Montana skies that we were soon going to be leaving. The last thoughts before falling into a deep sleep were of my three beautiful women that looked so forward to seeing again.
