By Brock Foreman

December 12, 2005

All adventure racers share a gritty determination, and you can hear this determination in the voice of Mary “Mash” Glanville, team captain for Dancing Panda. “If we have to crawl across the finish line, we’ll finish the race” says Glanville, 42, as she recounts the time when she and her teammates heroically carried one of their own across the finish line. Glanville recalls another race where she suffered her own bruises and a nearly debilitating pulled tendon in her leg. Despite the injuries, Glanville continued to push herself and help her teammates achieve a top finish. In another supremely inspired - albeit vastly more comical – effort, Glanville once trekked through the night without pants after a punishing bike ride left her cringing with first degree saddle soreness.

Some say that endurance athletes like Glanville – those willing to run through the pain, push past the point of exhaustion, and, say, hike through the woods without clothes – are often running from something deep inside. The motivation usually stems from some pivotal life experience. In fact, there are many stories of people turning “Forrest Gump” after they lose a job or a loved one. In his recent biography, “Ultramarathon Man,” Dean Karnazes explains how the death of his sister compounded his mid-life crisis and fueled his unparalleled ultra-running binge. Similarly, Glanville’s childhood might explain her proclivity for long-distance racing, a bug which bit her after a friend convinced her to enter a mountain bike race in 1999.

Glanville was born in Soviet Russia where her father had been confined to a concentration camp. Eventually, her family was forced to flee west, and, as refugees, she and her family arrived in Toronto in the early 1970s. It is plausible that the adversity of being uprooted from her home and raised in an unfamiliar country shaped and hardened Glanville and gave her the courageous heart of an adventure racer, not to mention the drive to succeed as a busy executive in a biotechnology company. Certainly the Forrest Gump – Dean Karnazes theory of psychology explains why Glanville might be drawn to a sport like adventure racing and Primal Quest.

Of course, Glanville might just like adventure racing because it is, well, fun. This is more likely the case, especially considering Glanville’s light-hearted attitude and complete lack of angst. Do not forget, her team’s name is “Dancing Pandas,” an esoteric reference to an old Kit Kat candy bar commercial featuring two playful Pandas.

“You’ll never hear a team laugh harder. We never stop laughing even when it’s tough…we’re out to have a good time,” says Glanville as she describes her team’s smiles-will-get-you-miles philosophy. She adds: “During the race you’re going to see ugliness in yourself. When you’re in extreme stress, your true self comes out, and I know people who race once and they never want to see that side of themselves again. As long as someone can laugh at themselves, and really want it, they can do it!”

Glanville is clearly in it for the camaraderie she shares with her teammates. She loves it when they share funny stories during the race. The team often revisits the time Glanville’s husband of 18 years and team co-founder, Rob Glanville, 40, was searching for a checkpoint and, in a fit of sheer terror, came bounding out of the woods with a bear at his heels.

Along with laughter, Glanville says music is a key ingredient in the team’s race strategy. Music is their caffeine, it keeps them awake at night during the race. Like most teams, her team constantly looks for more ways to shed ounces from their gear. However, they will never part with their 375 gram MP3 player and mini-speakers. “We’re working on a new play list for PQ,” says Glanville. The team favors newer bands like Spoon, The Killers, and Franz Ferdinand. And when the going gets really tough? “We play a lot of crap from the ‘80’s.” Glanville chuckles, adding that blasting Depeche Mode will probably help the team avoid future bear attacks.

Glanville and her husband reside in San Diego and have raced together since 2000. New to the team this year are the couple’s good friends Eric Ervin, 30, and Mike Bell, 35, also from San Diego. Glanville says everyone on the team has day jobs as well as very understanding families that thankfully allow them to pursue their passion.

Glanville feels that despite her dubious ropes skills and her husband’s uncontrollable horse allergy, her team’s skills are well-suited for longer, expedition-length racing. While they realize they are not in contention to finish near the top, they aim to finish the full 800Km+ Primal Quest – no small feat of endurance and teamwork. Her team looks forward to training their muscles for their first PQ…and for the strenuous laughter and dancing that always accompanies them on their races.

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.