What do you get when you combine a guy in a skirt keeping a mid-life promise to himself and the World’s Most Challenging Human Endurance Competition?

You get the exploits of Todd Phillips; medical volunteer from Primal Quest’s past, chemical weapons inspector, inherent traveler, and the mule of Team Intrepid.  Follow Todd as he documents his training mishaps, travel stories, and anything else that crosses his mind as he prepares to compete in this year’s installment of Primal Quest Badlands presented by SPOT.  Week by week you will be able to make your input into Todd’s training, gear choices, and motivation as well as follow his progress as he attempts to transform himself from a debaucherous dilettante into a real live adventure racer.  Will he be able to do it?  See for yourself as we present his first contribution of the many he will offer from now until race day.

Quest for PQ: The Dream of Major Bull Project

It’s difficult to be witty when staring at a blank, white computer screen.  That level of repartee comes from conversations at cocktail parties and is doled out by political pundits.  I’m just not one of those guys.  Now if you want me to explain how I came to try and fill these pages, then that is where the story begins.

It was a dark and stormy night.  No, seriously…it was.  I was sitting in a horse pasture under the medical tent of Primal Quest 2004 in the San Juan Islands, Washington State.  I had been working as a medical volunteer for the first time, and I was freezing my proverbial “round, circular orbs of personal affect” off when I thought that for once in my life I would love to switch places with those who were, I thought, less fortunate than me; adventure racers.  The weather had been brutally uncomfortable for the first three or four days and I was sequestered under a leaking canvas tent, watching “Man on Fire” with Denzel Washington on my iMac, wrapped in every stitch of clothing I had borrowed to keep warm and basically doing my best at 2 am to be cheerful to those who wanted band-aids.

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Robyn Benincasa, captain of Team Merrell Zanfel, returns this week with more adventure racing tips for Primal Quest success. Her last installment focused on teamwork, and this time out we’ll take a look at the all important skill of navigation, a discipline that is often overlooked, but can determine a team’s ultimate success or failure. 

Adventure Racing Navigation Tips

If you are a good navigator, you can write your own ticket in the sport of Adventure Racing.  Your race calendar will be full before you know it, with invites from some pretty solid teams.  But navigation is a mix of art and science that needs to be practiced continually, so your best bet is to hook up with a local orienteering team (most of the sport’s best navigators have a competitive orienteering background) and see how good you can get!  Plus, learning to navigate is just darn fun. 

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Way back in June we told you about Todd Carmichael, the american adventurer who was planning an attempt on the solo, unsupported speed record to the South Pole. Now, months later, we can update the story with the news that Todd did indeed break the record. 

The attempt was dubbed Expedition Earth and on November 12, 2008 Carmichael set out from Patriot Hills in the Antarctic in pursuit of his goal. There were set backs almost from the start. Bad weather slowed his progress, and by the end of the first week, the bindings on his skis were broken, and beyond repair with what little equipment he carried with him. Things looked grim, and the prospect of actually walking all the way to the South Pole, rather than skiing, didn’t seem all that promising. But walk he did, dragging his heavy sled behind him the entire way. 

The old record for the solo, unsupported South Pole Trek was 39 days, 9 hours, and 33 minutes, set back 2006 by British adventurer Hannah McKeand.  Todd arrived at the South Pole on December 21st, exactly 39 days, 7 hours, and 49 minutes after he had started. After nearly 40 days out on the ice, he broke the record by 1 hour and 44 minutes, a difference of just .2% of their total time out on the ice, the equivalent of a photo finish for this type of endurance challenge. 

Congratulations to Todd on this amazing achievement. Not only has he become the first American to go solo and unsupported to the Pole, but he also did it record time.