Notes from the race course as Day 4 of Primal Quest 2008 unfolds.

- The top of the leaderboard remains the same, with Nike, Merrell, and TeamPeakAdventure.com continuing to hold down first, second and third respectively. All three teams have come out of the Crazy Mountains, and as of this writing Nike has moved on to the Bridgers. By all accounts, Merrell has caught that second wind, and are now feeling good and moving well as a team. Their sites are set on catching Nike at this point. 

- Yesterday it was noted that Nike didn’t take their snowshoes with them into the Crazies, and since they are considered mandatory gear, they could have faced a penalty. However, after evaluating the course, PQ management has now made snowshoes as optional for the rest of the course, but when Nike left them behind, they were still considered mandatory. In order to not take a time penalty, Nike has been given an option to carry their snowshoes through the Bridger Mountains instead. 

- Yesterday morning the sun rose on CP12 it was discovered that a mountain bikes belonging to one of the Dirty Avocados teams was inadvertently run over by a support crew in the night. The bike was damaged beyond repair on the course, but the team that it belonged to hadn’t arrived yet to claim their wheels. Fortunately, PQ Course Director Chris Caul came to the rescue, loaning his personal bike to the unlucky team.

- Bike troubles weren’t confined to the Dirty Avocados either, as Team Active Racing’s support crew arrived at the same CP to find that one of their bikes were missing from the bike rack on the back of the vehicle. The last time they saw the bike was when they were in the parking lot of the local Walmart, but it was gone when they arrived at the checkpoint. It’s unclear if the bike was lost in transit. 

- The Captain at Transition Area 7, Marcy Beard, sends this anecdote from the field. When Team Nike ACG/GoreTex arrived to the TA and underwent mandatory gear check. When asked to verify their bear spray Nike ACG captain Peter Courogen was over heard saying, “We drew it once, then we realized we were hallucinating and looking at a stump.”

- Another great quote from the course comes from Nike’s Monique Merrill who says: “The trek through the Crazies Mountain Range was the most beautiful hike I ever did.”

Photo by Will Ramos

Primal Quest would like to extend a huge thank you to the Ham Radio operators of Southwest Montana for all their help in maintaing communications throughout the course. Because of their efforts, and their outstanding repeater network, the PQ staff has been able to successfully render aid to 13 racers on the course who have been in distress. Thanks to the diligence and dedication of the local amateur radio community, lives have been saved.

The remote nature of the course has made communications difficult at times. Cell phone coverage is spotty at best, traditional radio communication has been challenging even with a temporary repeater network in place, but thanks to an established ham radio community, even remote checkpoints and transition areas have been accessible. 

The Primal Quest comms team is in need of a few amateur radio operators to assist them further over the next few days. As the race winds to a finish, and teams are spread out further across the course, communications have become all the more important. If you’re an amateur radio operator who would like to assist the PQ team, please call the Comms department at 406-995-5733 to find out how you can help. This weekends efforts could be an excellent practice run for the upcoming Field Day. 

Photo by Will Ramos

The GoFar Podcast hosted by Fred Abaroa conducted a pre-race interview with Nutramendz Team Soar, who are currently running in 18th place at the 2008 Primal Quest presented by SPOT, having just passed Checkpoint 14, with the Crazy Mountains looming. 

Fred is joined by Tom Thomas, Tracy Evans, Brian Hausen from the team who talk about a wide variety of adventure racing topics as the they prepared for Primal Quest. The podcast kicks off with Tom talking about recovering from a major injury a few months back, and rehabbing his way back in time for PQ.

All three members talk about their experience in adventure racing, how they got started, what they enjoy about the sport. They also rattle off their list of injuries like a badge of honor and discuss their training program for getting ready for Primal Quest, which included “Hills… lots and lots of hills.”

Listen to the rest of the podcast by clicking here or subscribe directly to it in iTunes here. 

Primal Quest continues to garner media attention around the country. Here’s a list of new articles on the race today.

Blisters and rapids challenge Primal Quest team (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

Primal Quest turns to elevation game (Durango Herald) 

Primal Quest: What would Jimmy do? (Bozeman Daily Chronicle)

Throughout the race we want to take an opportunity to thank our partners, without whom there wouldn’t be a Primal Quest. Each of them plays a vital role in the success of the race and deserve credit for allowing us the opportunity to have this great adventure.

Today the spotlight falls on Tate Incorporated, a company that specializes in training and education for high risk personnel in both the public and private sector, as well as research and development, testing, and implementation of new technologies. 

Tate’s training procedures focus on employees, both for the government and private industry, who are working in hostile or high threat urban and rural environments. Their background in special operations and SERE training make them an excellent choice when for offering a wide array of services, including threat assessment, survival training, and high risk operational education. 

Amongst Tate’s list of illustrious clientele include the U.S. Air Force and Army, the Center for Navel Analysis, 720th Special Tactics Group, Joint Military Attaché School. In addition to these, dozens of civilian corporations contract with Tate to handle their high risk training operations for their over seas personnel working in hostile environments. 

Primal Quest is proud to call Tate Incorporated one of our segment sponsors. Thank you Tate for all of your support!

 Team 54, Werewolves/MPGear.com continue to post in their excellent blog of the race, with good updates on the progress of their team and general information on the course. Yesterday they posted this video of two team members, Tom and Paul, getting rescued from an island on the Gallatin River when whitewater became a little too wild. The footage was shot with the Werewolves’ GoPro Hero 3 Camera.

Major props to PQ River Director Josh Galt for getting the Werewolves, and others, back to shore safe and sound. 

Day 3 recap from PQ contributing writer Craig Stein

Wednesday June 25, 2008 - Emigrant Montana

By Craig Stein

A new dawn met sleepy racers this morning at Check Point 12 on the Yellowstone River. The top three teams made this transition area during the early morning  hours only to find that the sea kayak section on the Yellowstone to Big Timber, Montana had been cancelled. The river is flowing at 9.5 ft. which qualifies it as being in moderate flood stage. Fully grown cottonwood tree trunks are freely floating down the river colliding with bridges, creating unsafe conditions for race teams to enter the cold, brown, boiling waters. Local rafting companies have cancelled all float trips.

Team Nike was first into the boating transition area this morning at 2:15 AM. Mike Kloser looking very energetic said, “We feel pretty good but we need to sleep for a while!” He certainly did not seem to mind that the paddling had been eliminated. Within minutes Team Nike had been fed and was off to their sleeping bags for an early rise and departure at 6:02 AM.

Read the rest of this entry »

Off their feet and on their bikes (Photo by Will Ramos)

Pizza! Breakfast of champions! (Photo by Wouter Kingma)

Fueling Up! (Photo by Wouter Kingma)