Competitor Blog - Team MindOverMountain.com v.3
Posted on 12/27/05 12:17 PM| by Will
December 27, 2005
Oh my goodness, what a shocking month it has been. I’m assuming that most of you are settling into the winter grind (good grief, even the wet coast has been frozen since the end of November and our local ski hills enjoyed their earliest start in decades) and it’s been a relief to get past the shortest day of the year. The big news for our team is that I’ve regretfully made the difficult decision to withdraw myself, but NOT the team, from the Primal Quest. This is a strictly personal decision based on the evaluation of how much time I would be taking from my family over the next year and also, thanks to a financial opportunity that didn’t come through, how much the financial commitment to the race would delay various family goals (yes, it’s true, I do have goals for other things beyond adventure racing). In the interest of remaining a committed husband and father I have decided to back away from my enthusiasm for the Primal Quest and dedicate myself to my family first.
MindOverMountain.com is still in the Primal Quest with Gary Robbins, Aimee Dunn, and Mark Fearman representing us in the race, with Daniel Havens, John Baron and now me as alternates. I really appreciate the comments and support from my team and will continue to be involved with leading the team in other events in 2006. Gary Robbins has taken over as Primal Quest team captain and the team is evaluating my replacement for primary navigation duties.
I am retaining my role leading team MindOverMountain.com through 2006 and beyond and managing race entries, training, and sponsorships, so you’ll still definitely see me at Mind Over Mountain, Trioba, and possibly the Full Moon in June and Raid the North BC races in 2006. As an added bonus, I’ll be doing at least one or two adventure races with my family again!
The decision itself wasn’t that tough to make - it is definitely the right thing to do for everyone except my ego and possibly the rest of the team - but accepting the consequences of the decision has been tough. I feel a little dumb for having come this far before facing reality, but my enthusiasm for the Primal Quest is undiminished and I’m vowing to try again in the future. I’ll let Gary speak for himself in the rest of this entry.
LLTNT (still!)
Tom Jarecki
They say the hardest part of an Adventure Race is just getting to the starting line…our team is quickly learning this to be very true.
The New Year is not even upon us and we have already lost our team navigator! This is a double loss, since Tom Jarecki was also our team captain, team web logger for Primal Quest, and the only team member with any Expedition Race experience!!
Tom’s decision was a tough one to make and the entire team supports him in this. He will still continue to be a big part of our team, but unfortunately won’t be able to join us in Primal Quest.
This is where I step in: my name is Gary Robbins and I have been nominated to fulfill Tom’s duties…all, that is, except for the navigation…we’d be on course for a month if I were leading us.
“Sorry guys, our maps must be wrong, there are funny little squiggly lines all over them?”
Thankfully we have an alternate racer who is able to step in and guide us through this race. However, he also has no expedition race experience, so we are now a team consisting of complete rookies!
I was forced to do some math as we were presenting our team video to Primal Quest, (the math portion of my brain has been on a permanent vacation and seemed to be suffering from serious heat stroke as I called upon it to once again function). I made a list and checked it twice, and was shocked to have calculated my total Adventure Racing experience to date, as a grand total of just 700km. Primal Quest alone will more than double my total racing experience! I have to throw in my two Ultra Runs just to eclipse the 800km mark…HELP!!!
See, I don’t come from a seriously competitive background like many in this sport. As many of you were competing and training over the last ten years, I was drinking, partying and traveling.
It was only in March of 2004 that Mark Fearman and I decided to give adventure racing and trail running a go. We showed up to a local fun run where you can select your distance on a 15km course. Fifteen kilometers would be more than I had run in 2 years, so Mark and I threw our names down and showed up the morning of. We met a group of very established and accomplished Vancouver Ultra Runners and before we knew it they had ‘tricked’ us into doing a second lap. Neither Mark nor I had ever run 30km in our lives, in fact before that fateful day, I had only run more than 10km three times in my entire life.
By the time the day was out, we had both suffered hallucinations, cramping and pure physical exhaustion…but something inside of us, somewhere deep, deep down inside, absolutely loved the pain and suffering we had endured. Hell, the longest run of my life before that day was just 20km. I upped that by 50% - what could our bodies withstand with some continual punishment?
By the time 2004 had ended, Mark and I had completed our first Ultra Run of 67km (just three months prior I had absolutely no idea what an Ultra even was), and I had somehow managed to win a trail racing series (well, my age group at least). We had competed in three adventure races, two sprint races and one stage race, having fared well in all of them. When the dust had settled and the injuries had recuperated, we had time to reflect on what a year it had been. We decided on the spot that we would do an Expedition Adventure Race, as soon as our bodies and bank accounts would allow!
During our first year of competing we met Aimee Dunn, who is now our teammate for Primal Quest. When Aimee was in her late teens and early twenties she was a competitive soccer player and triathlete. During the last few years she had been competing in adventure racing more for fun, due to work commitments. When I proposed Primal Quest to her she nearly hit the roof! Then she went about baking muffins, cookies and cupcakes to celebrate.
Aimee, you see, has a bit of an affliction. She cannot show up to a training session without some form of homemade baked good. She is well deserving of her nickname, Betty Crocker. I am convinced that our team will be the only one showing up to the start of PQ having gained weight through training.
Our team is spread out over a few hundred kilometers, which I realize in comparison to many teams is like sharing a bathroom together. Aimee and I being the closest in distance means I get to indulge in the greatest consumption of baked goods. This past weekend Aimee showed up carrying a pumpkin/almond cheesecake…I tell you she’s a sick girl!
On my suggestion we headed out to do some snowshoe running. I live in Squamish, B.C. and am blessed with variety of terrain. I am a five minute walk from a river that feeds into the ocean, a nice deep ‘Sound’, called Howe Sound, which generally gives great paddling conditions. I have mountain bike and running trails out my back door. “The Chief”- the most recognizable climbing rock in Canada - is basically nearby and it generally rains in town and snows on the mountains during the winter months. Squamish had been aptly named “The Outdoor Recreation Capital of Canada.” In small print somewhere it must also say, “and a great place to train for PQ.”
The snowshoe running was great, the pumpkin/almond cheesecake even better. Aimee was off to drive home and I was just getting started on my cross-training for the day…it was Saturday night.
While most people my age are off to some sort of social arrangement centered around beer, I am concentrating on how to best utilize my time - how to multi-task, as it were. We are Canadian, and Saturday night means Hockey Night in Canada. I refuse to miss this event, as it has been ingrained in me since childhood. I guess it rivals Sunday football in the States, or soccer in pretty much the rest of the world.What better way to take in the event than to set up my bike trainer and start peddling. I quickly discovered that one water bottle holder is actually designed to hold the remote control for the television, so as to allow channel surfing during commercials. The second water bottle holder seemed perfectly shaped to accept a beer bottle…who knew?
I immediately got to work, for my team was playing one of the best in the league that evening, and they would need all of my peddle power to succeed. We were inextricably linked, for as I peddled faster, they skated faster, and as I struggled to keep pace, so too did they. I rode for the entire game, all three hours of it, and am pleased to say that I helped the Edmonton Oilers defeat the nasty Vancouver Canucks.
Sure I live just an hour out of Vancouver, and Edmonton is thousands of driving kilometers away, but I am a dedicated fan and have never turned my back on the team that Wayne Gretzky made famous throughout the eighties. One day we will win the Stanley Cup again and when we do, I will be pleased to say that I contributed to that victory by sweating out every second of it on my bike trainer in my living room, while trying my damndest to condition my ass for Primal Quest!
Gary Robbins,
Team Captain for MindOverMountain.com
