By Peter Berridge

November 29, 2005

In previous Primal Quests, support crews served a critical function to every team, especially the elite squads whose crews operated with the efficiency of NASCAR pit mechanics. They fed, bathed and dressed their adventurers, and even played a role in plotting their travel.

All that is about to change for PQ 2006. No longer will racers be able to arrive at transition areas to find hot noodles and heapings of TLC from their support crew awaiting them. No more comfy RV’s and deluxe shelter - only their expedition racing gear boxes and the never-ending support of race management. This is true old school expedition racing.

As veteran racer Robyn Benincasa puts it, the unsupported format means “No warm people and no warm food waiting for you.” In some respects, this will diminish the morale boost that TAs usually provide.

“There is an incredible sense of community in supported racing,” explains Jim Garfield, the first U.S. athlete to be awarded a coveted Red Bull sponsorship and a competitor in Raid Gauloises stretching back to 1994. “A TA is like a combination of Woodstock, Cirque de Soleil and M.A.S.H.”

But PQ CEO Rich Brazeau believes the change will help level the playing field and reduce the overall cost for teams, especially those traveling from abroad. “Our folks will provide plenty of encouragement and support, but the teams will need to operate just as efficiently and cohesively in TA’s as they do on the course. The race can be won or lost in the TA’s” states Brazeau.

One thing is for sure, the unsupported format will certainly take teams back to the roots of adventure racing and to what it truly means to be on an expedition. Teams (and the actual transition areas) will be much more isolated than in years past, and with the added responsibility of self-sufficiency, greater time will be spent at any given TA. Simple things like drying off, warming up, eating and packing will chip away at time that could otherwise be spent resting mind and body. Even tireless diligence won’t heat the soup and pasta before you arrive, and most teams may not eat well as well, or as much, as they would have with support crews. More challenging yet will be the continuous exposure to the elements, a factor as unpredictable as the weather the mountain states are known for.

Beyond the tactical considerations, the mental aspect of racing alone but for your teammates will be paramount.

“It will be much more grueling; it’s where your mental toughness will prevail,” explains Robert Beauchamp, captain for Team BMC Racing. Beauchamp and many others speak from firsthand expedition experience and know what it is like to take on an expedition-length race with and without support crews.

AR legend Billy Mattison, captain of Team GoLite/Timberland, adds, “It makes you think more and it even makes pre-race more tiring. It favors teams that have been in the sport for a while.”

As the days wear on in this grueling race, AR newcomers may find themselves at a decided disadvantage if not properly prepared to deal with the struggle to meet cutoffs and finish the race. Mattison recalls this struggle, the transformation from team effort to individual survival, during one of his first victories at a major expedition race, Eco-Challenge Morroco in 1998. “It was almost like a bad dream. We were in first place but moving in slow motion. We couldn’t remember names; it was almost like every man for himself at the end. We pushed sleep deprivation to the limits. I’ve never been to that point since.”

Mattison and other veterans hope to use their experience as an advantage versus many of the younger, faster teams.

Collectively, most racers agree that going the unsupported route is a dose of good medicine for the sport – a bit of preventative medicine so that adventure racing does not become classified as a glorified off-road triathlon.

For this edition of Primal Quest racers must look no further than their teammates and expect nothing more than what they have provided for themselves ahead of time – the barest of essentials on an epic journey through the Mountain States Region of North America.

We are thrilled to be one of 4 Canadian teams heading for the 2006 Primal Quest. We live and play in God’s country (the Lower Mainland of British Columbia) and with a variety of athletic backgrounds and a few proven adventure racing performances we take no shame in calling ourselves weekend warriors.

November 18, 2005

As ambassadors for our sponsors and partners we bring our love for the outdoors, competitive dedication to our chosen sport, loyalty to our team, and active community involvement as race volunteers and training clinic leaders. We are all dedicated supporters of grassroots outdoor sports organizations - that is where we all started, and not all that long ago. We race and play hard and love to share our love of the outdoors with everyone else.

We came together this summer due to our matching competitive backgrounds, our shared enthusiasm for adventure racing and particularly in our similar motivations and outstanding desires to compete in the Primal Quest. We’ve all competed together or against each other for the past couple of years and have built an awesome team.

Tom Jarecki brought a background in ocean yacht racing, mountaineering and orienteering to adventure racing in 1999 and has never looked back. As navigator Tom has won or finished in the top 3 in many sprint and 36 hour races and added a 24^th place finish (of 42 teams that started) in the 2004 Adventure Racing World Championship Race. The Primal Quest promises to be a classic expedition race and is the perfect venue to embrace his desire to challenge his physical and mental limits. It’s all about sweat-equity, which makes a nice change from his daytime job as a software program manager.

The funny thing was that Tom was tentatively planning to enter the Raid the North Extreme race when it finally comes to the West Coast in 2006 or 2007 but no other races in the next couple of years, but when he heard that Primal Quest was coming back in 2006 and had hired Don Mann and John Howard he was hooked. Since it began Primal Quest has promised a classic expedition race and now it had backed up the promise with one of the best course directors and teamed him with one of the best of the old-school expedition racers. This race promises to be the best in a long, long time - A TOTALLY EPIC ADVENTURE. That’s what Tom’s in for.

Aimee Dunn is a former national championship-winning soccer player (and team captain) and competitive triathlete and is involved in recreational event management and activity leadership. Aimee started adventure racing 5 years ago and has competed in a variety of trail running, mountain biking, kayaking, orienteering, adventure and expedition style races. This sport has provided her with opportunities to race as both an individual and as a team member; requiring a high level of dedication and passion for the dynamic nature of competing in the wilderness terrain. On joining the team Aimee had this to say: ‘PRIMAL EXCITEMENT! I am so extremely excited about this opportunity to race with you all (words can’t describe!). Once again, I am so excited about this opportunity…WOW!’ Yup, it’s going to be good to have Aimee with us.

Mark Searman grew up playing team sports such as lacrosse and football, but soon became interested in competitive cross-country running, mountain biking and trail running. Over the past two years he has competed with top 3 results and progressed from 6-8 hour sprint races to the 36 hour Raid the North adventure race. Similarly he has progressed from half marathon competitions to ultra-marathons and is eager to continue to push his limits. If you ask anyone who knows Mark they will tell you he is an enthusiastic, funny, easy going, active twenty-something year old, who loves the outdoors. Hah, don’t be fooled. This guy is the fiercest competitor ever and since he met Gary four years ago the two have been the super-twosome, pushing each other out of bed and into the mountains for epic trail runs and scrambles. Mark is one of the most passionate outdoorsmen around and the team is lucky to have him.

Gary Robbins is a highly competitive adventure racer and ultra runner and is looking forward to doing the same on an international level in the coming years. He may not have taken a direct route into racing (pipe fitter on the North Eastern BC oil patch? commercial dive master? bell man?), but since learning of adventure racing in 1998 he always knew that he would do it, and has always had the confidence that he would do well with it when the time arrived. And he sure has with top finishes in numerous Canadian adventure racing and ultra running races in the last two years. Primal Quest is the next step and the culmination of a long-held dream to race in an epic adventure race.

Gary is highly involved in the local community through organizing trail races and running clinics and seems to have a talent for getting into the various forms of media. Gary had this to say when Tom contacted him about racing the Primal Quest together: ‘YEEESSSSSSSSS!!!!! I AM SOOOO IN, SO FREAKIN IN!!!!! It is like a dream of mine to do that! I regularly go to their website just to watch the trailers for it! HOLY CRAP - I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS!!!!!!!!! This is the ANSWER TO MY DREAMS!!!!! Watch out - he’s this excited in real life too.

Our Race Results 2005

• Raid the North Nelson 36 Hour, August 19/21 - 10^th team of 4 co-ed (TJ, GR, MF)
• Sea2Summit North American Stage Race Championships, September 10/11 - 11^th solo male (GR), 5^th team of 2 male (TJ)
• Mind Over Mountain Series Final, October 1^st - 2^nd team of 4 coed (AD)
• Mind Over Mountain Sechelt, July 16 - 3^rd team of 2 co-ed (AD)
• Mind Over Mountain Ucluelet, May 14- 2^nd team of 2 male (TJ)
• Mind Over Mountain Duncan, March 26 - 1^st team of 2 male (TJ), 2^nd team of 2 male (GR, MF)

Our Race Results 2004

• Adventure Racing World Championship Race, August 2-8 - 24^th (TJ)
• Raid the North 36 Hour Vernon, August 20/22 - 2^nd team of 4 co-ed (AD)
• Full Moon in June 36 Hour, June 25/27 - 3^rd team of 4 co-ed (TJ)
• West Coast 24 Hour Adventure Race, May 15/16 - 1^st team of 4 coed (TJ)
• Mind Over Mountain Ladysmith, July 24 - 3^rd team of 2 male (GR, MF)
• Mind Over Mountain Sechelt, June 12 - 2^nd team of 2 male (GR, MF)
• 2004 Iron Lung Trail Running Series Male Under 30 Champion (GR)

You can probably count the number of American adventure racing teams that have recorded top-10 finishes on foreign soil on one hand. November 18, 2005

By Brian Metzler

You can probably count the number of American adventure racing teams that have recorded top-10 finishes on foreign soil on one hand.

Obviously, a few big names of the sport come to mind: Nike/Balance Bar, GoLite/Timberland and the team formerly known as Montrail.

But what about Team Nomad? Despite a seventh-place finish at Explore Sweden (2005) and an eighth-place showing at the Southern Traverse (2003), not to mention numerous top-10 efforts in the U.S. and Canada, this unique foursome from the U.S. has gained little fanfare. That’s just fine with them. For this group of Nomads, it’s all about the adventure.

“All of us race because we really like to be outside and have fun with our friends,” says team member Grant Sisler. “We can’t afford to do a lot of races, so we pick one big one a year. Our goals are different than a lot of the other top teams, yet we always seem to do well. It’s not about winning; it’s about going to great places, meeting great people and having a great time.”

Captain Scott Berk founded Team Nomad in 1999 and raced in the Southern Traverse with Steve Putnam, Lori Du Paul, and Bruce Genereaux (who later chronicled the experience in his adventure book “Beyond the Comfort Zone”). The team’s makeup has shifted through the years, but it is still driven by a common love for the outdoors, friendly camaraderie and the fun and growth gained from the sport.

True to their name, the primary team members are spread around the country. Among those who have raced with the team in the last two years include Sisler (San Francisico, California), Berk (Maine), Scott Cole (an American living in Sweden), Jason Shibata (Colorado Springs), Cary Kinross-Wright (Golden, Colorado) and Megan Gridley (San Francisco, California).

It is Berk’s fun-loving, adventure-seeking, nomadic lifestyle that has set the tone for the team. Although he currently runs Nomad Properties (a property management company), and is creating a café called Nomad Café near his home in Maine, the team’s ace navigator has lived all over the place.

He was born in El Dorado, Arkansas, but was raised in North Africa and various places around Europe. He’s also lived in Colorado and Massachusetts in the U.S. As a jackeroo (cowboy) on a cattle station in Queensland in the mid-1990s, he followed a path similar to the lead character in “The Man From Snowy River” by climbing Mount Kosciuszko.

Berk has extensive experience in climbing, skiing, paragliding, surfing and mountaineering. While in Colorado in 1994, he became the first person to fly a non-competition paraglider from Mt. Zion in Golden, Colorado, to the north side of Boulder, 28 miles away.

In 1999, he had made the mistake of making Southern Traverse his very first adventure race. Almost predictably, it ended on a sour note as his team, called Team Nomad, dropped near the end of the first day.

“I thought it would be fun to try a big race,” Berk recalls. “In hindsight, it was not the best way to get into the sport.”

Wiser from the experience, Berk spent the next couple of years getting more race experience and improving his skills and fitness level. He met Sisler and Cole at a race in Utah and soon Team Nomad was reborn. After a strong season of racing in 2002, the trio decided it was time to try a big race. They were the first team to email their entry to Southern Traverse race director Geoff Hunt, who allowed them to wear race bib Number 1 in 2003.

Their eighth-place finish in New Zealand ranks as one of their favorite moments and solidified their passion for the sport and to continue racing together. They’re looking forward to their first Primal Quest as a unit.

“Racing makes everything else so much easier,” Sisler says. “You push your body so far, and you go through so much in a race that life in general just seems easier. Traffic, work, little things that get most people riled up, are nothing compared to falling out of a kayak into 35-degree water at 2 a.m. in Sweden after only sleeping for a couple of hours the previous two days!”

Chris Sajnog has some serious payback coming. And when the captain of Team Gerber Gear is bent on payback, it’s probably best to get out of the way.

November 18, 2005
By Gordon Wright

Chris Sajnog has some serious payback coming. And when the captain of Team Gerber Gear is bent on payback, it’s probably best to get out of the way.

A 17-year Navy veteran, Sajnog is a long-time Navy SEAL who currently holds down a position as Naval Special Warfare Motivator, essentially charged with recruiting potential SEAL team members into what is widely recognized as the world’s finest fighting force. But even being in the elite Special Forces doesn’t guarantee a win - or even a finish - in the world’s toughest adventure race.

In the 2004 Primal Quest, Chris had a less-than-stellar result due to one of his teammates quitting the race. Chris and his other two teammates wanted to continue as a three-person squad, and even tried arranging a six-person team with squads in similar straits, but it simply didn’t pan out for Gerber Blades. As the race continued without them through the Cascades and San Juan Islands, the team was relegated to a six-hour training ride and pondering the squandering of a year’s worth of training and roughly $40,000 in sunk costs.

“We had lots of energy,” recalls Sajnog, “We had been in diesel mode and all we wanted to do was keep racing.”

This year is different. “The team isn’t about gathering a bunch of really fast people,” says Sajnog, “It’s about getting along together and getting to the finish line.”

As deeply motivated as Sajnog is to finish Primal Quest, he’s just as dedicated to the Navy, where his role as Motivator brings him in contact with hundreds of young men.

“We go to high schools and events throughout the country,” says Sajnog, “We talk with young athletes, attend air shows, make speeches and presentations; basically representing the Teams and recruiting people both within and outside of the Navy.”

Gerber does most of its training as individuals, and focuses on strengthening their weaknesses and trying to work on what Sajnog says is their most important challenge, getting along with each other, a task that should be easier with their current line-up.

Joining Sajnog for the 2006 Primal Quest is long-time teammate and fellow SEAL Ron Harrison, who is a “third phase SEAL instructor, focusing on land warfare, demo(lition) and weaponry,” according to Sajnog.

Also along for the ride is Duncan Monroe, a Canadian described by Sajnog as a “little ball of fire and energy.” The two met at the World 24 Hour Mountain Bike Championshiops in British Columbia. Monroe was the course-setter for the race, which no doubt was a small factor in the two of them (plus former Gerber teammate Bernice Pierson) winning the World Championships in the Three Person Co-Ed division.

The history of military teams in adventure racing is as long as the sport itself; Eco-Challenge founder Mark Burnett raced in just the second Raid Gauloises with members of the Navy SEALs. But in general, military teams have found that adventure racing and their war-making skills are not exact analogues. They both require navigation knowledge, but UTMs are rarely used in military navigation. Long slogs on foot are common to each, but military teams tend to carry much more gear and move slower than adventure racers. And while both activities have in common a reliance on small teams, adventure racing is much more inclusive (and co-ed) than Special Forces’ top-down and all-male hierarchy.

Gerber Blades has learned many of these lessons, and now has only to get to through the course intact to achieve redemption.

Part One By Tom Jarecki

*Editor’s Note: For the 2006 Primal Quest, we have invited a small number of athletes to submit blogs to us regarding their training and preparation for the race. The views expressed are that of the author alone and do not reflect the views of race management.

We welcome you to follow Tom Jarecki and his newly-formed Team MindOverMountain.com as they gear up for one of the most difficult races in the world.

In which Team MindOverMountain.com is Formed, and Excitement Expressed

Potluck and Television = Early Training

“WE’RE IN, WE’RE IN, WE’RE IN!!!!!” (repeat, till you get slapped)

I registered for the Primal Quest lottery on a whim and with a prayer - a whim due to not having a team or finances, and a prayer due to, well, everything. When I had heard that Primal Quest was coming back in 2006 and had hired Don Mann and John Howard to manage and design the course I was hooked. This race promised to be the best in a long, long time - a totally epic adventure. That’s what I’m in for - Yeah baby! Other than my family and my faith this would be the most important thing in my life in the coming year.

Then, OH MY GOD - WE’RE IN!!!!!! My whole office heard all about it when I got the phone call and I confess to not doing much real work at all for the rest of the day. The first challenge was breaking the news to my wife and telling her how much it would cost (thank you to Canada’s petro-dollar, otherwise that would have been the deal breaker - as it is, good thing we have no couch). Telling my boss was even more fun - I still owe the company several days of vacation from this past season and won’t be able to accrue enough by June. I work as a Program Manager for a software development company, which means I spend all day on my butt staring at and swearing at a computer screen. Luckily our release schedule shows a gap May to August - just perfect for that last intense push to the race. Quality training, not quantity, that’s my mantra.

So far so good, but who am I going to race with? Choosing prospects for the team was a balancing act of reasonable physical and technical skills with an all-consuming passion for expedition racing. Skills and physical ability can be trained, but what’s in the head determines everything else. There’s enough blood, sweat and tears in getting to the start line of a big race that the last thing anyone on the team needs is to be out of step with the others.

I had the great fortune to meet up with Gary Robbins and Mark Fearman during the summer when I navigated their team in a Raid the North race. These guys are nuts for adventure racing and though being new to the sport, are competitive athletes and skilled outdoorsmen.

I sent Gary an email asking if he and Mark would be interested - this is what I got back: “YEEESSSSSSSSS!!!!! I AM SOOOO IN, SO FREAKIN IN!!!!! It is like a dream of mine to do that! I regularly go to their website just to watch the trailers for it! HOLY CRAP - I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS!!!!!!!!! This is the ANSWER TO MY DREAMS!!!!!”

I called him up a day later and had to turn the volume down on my phone - yup, he’s got the right excitement. Mark is quieter on the outside but apparently he spent the week floating on cloud 9 - “I’ve planned to compete in an expedition race for years and still can’t believe that I’m going to be racing in the BEST DAMN RACE ON THE PLANET”.

Through Gary I was introduced to Aimee Dunn, who had happened to tell Gary a year ago that her dream is to race an expedition race, and her reaction was, “PRIMAL EXCITEMENT! I am so extremely excited about this opportunity to race with you all (words can’t describe!). Once again, I am so excited about this opportunity…WOW, this is unbelievably GREAT!”

You go, girl. Aimee is a fierce competitor and national champion soccer player and since starting adventure racing a few years ago has racked up a bunch of top finishes - we’re lucky to have her.

So our team’s together and it’s totally a Sea to Sky Experience: Mark lives in Whistler and works as a fine dining server, Gary lives in Squamish and works in Whistler as a bell man, Aimee is an outdoor event planner and lives in North Vancouver, and I live in Ladner and work in downtown Vancouver. Sea level living and a winter full of rain and snow isn’t going to be the most specific training environment for Primal Quest but it sure is steep throughout Sea to Sky. Well, OK, I’m the odd one out - Ladner is not steep - the average elevation within 10 km of my house is 1 metre above sea level and my hill training consists of 100 repeats on the local overpass. That’s why we’re practicing towing!

With 8 months to go now we’ve spent the last month chasing potential sponsors and integrating our individual training into our team schedule and the race countdown. The web is a wonderful thing and it means that via email and an online group (thanks, Yahoo) we can do almost everything remotely. Still, we need face time to learn to love each other through thick and thin. For our first official all-member team meeting last Friday in Squamish we planned a potluck dinner (pasta and spinach salad, preceded and followed by chocolate cupcakes with pink icing provided by Aimee, aka Betty [Crocker]) - followed by discussion on progress with sponsor seeking (going quite well with some product arriving already), planning our technical skills training (how to not get thrown by a wild mustang, how to swim white water without getting caught in a strainer, how to climb up a thousand feet of rope, etc) and finally watching the full PQ 2004 OLN show in one sitting.

Since Gary was our host he planned the training, which would take us by bike from sea level to around 1,500 metres along logging road and ATV trail to the Elfin Lakes hut in Garibaldi Park. From there we would drop our bikes and scramble another 1,200 metres to the top of Diamond Head. All in all a 70 km route that had to be completed by 8 am since I had to get back to Ladner by 10 am to coach my son’s soccer team.

The best laid plans of mice and men and all that meant that we didn’t start watching the race show until 11 pm, so we opted for the CBS version. Totally pumped for the race, and with tears flowing freely. Of course we had great weather all the previous week but on Friday morning a savage storm front moved through the area with lots of rain and wind. So at 12:30 am we’re preparing for our ride and run with the rain absolutely pouring down. No worries, we’re tough adventure racers - let’s go.

Little did we know that the freezing level had been quite low so by the time we got to 1,200 metres elevation on the trail to the Red Heather hut we were ankle deep in snow and our bikes were totally unmanageable. So we dumped the bikes early (at least at 3 am in the backcountry in the middle of a storm there is no need to lock bikes up), laced on our runners and headed up the trail. By the time we reached Red Heather hut at 1,450 metres the snow was knee deep and beautiful. Can you say snowball fight and snow angels?

At this point our progress was pretty slow and we decided to turn around. Now we’re headed SW straight into the storm and visibility was poor, to say the least. On bikes it was even more exciting when you’d run through a cloud bank at 40 km/hr and have your headlamp blind you to everything around. Who says that endurance sports don’t generate adrenalin?

By the time we made it back to Gary’s place 6 hours, 40 km, and 1,450 metres of elevation gain and loss, it was pouring rain again and 7 am. After a quick clean up and a joyous group hug Aimee and I are off to brave the most dangerous part of any adventure race - the drive home. With the help of Tim Hortons (a Canadian icon - think of a combination of Starbucks and Crispy Creme, frequented by everyone from long distance truckers, sleepy commuters, families on the way to the ski hills and mountain bike parks, and the Canadian Prime Minister) and a short nap on the side of the highway half way home, we made it safely back to Vancouver.

I had time for another 30 minutes of sleep, then it was into a full day of being a dad to a 4.5 year old boy (his soccer game went well - each team scored a bunch of goals, nobody but the kids keep track of the score, and no injuries beyond momentary tears) and a 7 year old daughter (play date, gymnastics, and spelling practice) and continuing the renovations in the kids’ rooms that we’d started the previous weekend. I know they say you can’t train sleep deprivation - I say just try having young kids and leading a normal life as well as training for adventure racing.

LLTNT

Tom Jarecki

Team MindOverMountain.com