Team Profile: Gerber Gear
Posted on 11/18/05 11:55 AM| by Will
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.
