One of highlights of the Primal Quest Expedition Adventure Race is its ropes course; big, exposed, airy and difficult.  In the 2006 Utah race, the course consisted of 6 miles of rope at 5 separate locations, involving ascending, rappelling and traversing thousands of feet of vertical rock walls, canyons and desert towers.  This was without a doubt, the world’s largest ropes course ever constructed.  Only 24 teams completed the entire ropes section.  Many called it the best part of the race while others called it the scariest thing they had ever done!

The 2008 ropes course in Montana presented new challenges with 5.7 free climbing and wild, via ferrata type ridge ascents up slender spires in a wild setting.  Top teams proclaimed this was the most varied and awesome ropes course ever constructed, thus with this encouragement future races will take these trends to new heights, demanding greater skill levels and including more free climbing.  The folks at Primal Quest want to help prepare you for these challenges.

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Last week we brought you Part 1 of Adventure Racing 101 from Robin Benincasa, captain of Team Merrell Zanfel. Now we have Part 2, and the last of Robyn’s wonderful tips for Primal Quest success that have included her thoughts on Teamwork and Navigation as well.

Adventure Racing 101
Part 2

Mountain Biking

Most people considering an adventure race are pretty familiar with mountain biking and what it takes to train for it, so I wont spend a lot of time here.  I’ll just cover a few tips that are adventure racing specific:

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I believe that there are three common languages in the world today: love, mathematics, and music.  When it comes to how these dialects influence my motivation for training it comes down to understanding how each of these languages touch my life.

First there is love.  When I decided to make public this DMB project with people, my greatest concern is how those around me would interpret my actions.  There are those around me who just don’t understand why I would choose to punish myself in such a way that takes great courage, dedication and a touch of insanity (their words, not mine).  I believe that most of those who read this face the same questions about what adventure racing is and why we, as racers, choose to put ourselves through this kind of abuse.  It affects everyone around us; our loved ones especially.  I was truly amazed by the response I got from my family and friends when I told them my plans.  They were ecstatic and utterly supportive.  So when it comes to my love for the sport and the loving support from those around me, I have that in spades.

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I was sitting on an airplane fairly recently contemplating the fresh wounds on my legs and the grin on my face as I flagged the flight attendant for an over-priced beer.  The thoughts were the unusual way in which I had met Kim Jones through one of those “six degrees of separation” moments that went something like this;

1. Bought new Kona PhD bicycle
2. Registered bike at www.konabikes.com
3. Found that Kona has registered MTB parks worldwide
4. Clicked web link for bike park in Wales
5. Clicked web link local bike shop
6. Clicked web link to Mountain Bike Wales (www.mountainbikewales.co.uk)

And that is how I found myself knee deep in a Welsh bog, filling my shoes with all kinds of primordial ooze, bonking hard whilst gasping, head in hands in 2°C (35.6°F) temperatures with clear skies, bright sunshine, and grinning from ear to ear.  I never thought it was possible to bonk with a smile on my face.  Kim Jones and Wales taught me that.

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Robyn Benincasa, captain of Team Merrell Zanfel, returns with still more tips for Primal Quest success. In her first articles we took a look at her thoughts on Teamwork and Navigation, and this time out we take a look at her thoughts on the sport as a whole with Part 1 of a two part series called “Adventure Racing 101″.

Adventure Racing 101
“You Know You Wanna Try It….

Ok, you know darn well you’ve been wanting to try “that crazy Adventure Racing stuff” for a while now.  And this is your  quit-being-afraid-and-get-out-there official quick start guide! One word of advice before we start.  Run! NOW!  Before it’s too late!  Adventure Racing is the most addictive sport you will ever try, and once you get sucked in, there’s no going back.  So you may as well sell your aero bars, completely clear out your garage to make space for scads of new gear, cut back on your hours at work, give away your tangerine speedo, invest in some duct tape, and call all your closest pals-’cause you’re about to enter a world where anything and everything is possible, your course is often limited only by your imagination,  and you will learn way more than you ever wanted to know about yourself and your teammates, for better and for worse.   And you may never want to come back.   Still in?  Do I hear a “heck yeah!”?  Ok, let’s do it.  But when you find yourself eventually standing at the start of the Primal Quest or the Raid Gauloises questioning your sanity, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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It would only be prudent of me before I go any further in this DMB Project to make a complete and thorough assessment of my current physical capabilities.  I have done that this week and have come to a rather distressing conclusion; I am in denial.

When it comes to physical ability, I was dealt with the “average” card; average cardiovascular, average agility, average strength, average skills.  Now, so far in my life I have been satisfied with that because when you are average and you exceed in anything, then it is considered an exceptional effort or amazing feat.  Maybe this was by design that I never chose to excel in the world of sport.  I can specifically remember the moment when I was in the sixth grade and I was standing on the sidelines at my junior high school football game.  I had been asked by the coach to be a part of the team (I think he was half blind), and instead of saying yes and feeling proud of being asked in the first place, for some reason I was cautious.  I once heard that caution is the better side of valor and for some reason at this moment I had no aspirations for valor.

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