Today marks a turning point in the race, as the last few teams made the cutoff to head into the Badlands.  Rounding out the full complement of official finishers, Teams Endurox R4, TecnuExtreme/StaphAseptic, and SCAAR entered the Badlands.  The remainder of the field will reach Scenic, SD, and transition immediately to the Avis Mountain Biking section.  From there, they will head toward the finish, where they will join the likes of OrionHealth.com, Salomon/Crested Butte, Merrell, Bones, WEDALI, iMoat, and the most recent finishers, Merrell Haglöfs Multimania.

Conspicuously absent from this list is nuun-FeedTheMachine, who was expected to finish this morning but have taken several wrong turns. Team iMoat, who finished today, said they passed nuun and had an amusing conversation with the weary and partly delirious team.  iMoat reports that they said they were on their way to a birthday party (one member of iMoat wanted to join them!).  They are now back on course, and will be stopping by a designated way point to refill water and prepare for the final bike in.

Suze Falvey and JD Eskelson of SCAAR on the Merrell Badlands Trek

Team SCAAR was elated to make the cutoff and enter into the Badlands.  Even J.D. Eskelson, who had sprained his ankle just before the race, was happily chugging along, being towed by Suze Falvey.  For those who are not seasoned adventure racers, it may come as a surprise for a man to accept a tow from a female teammate.  In the AR community, this is a sign of a true team player, and it is, under many circumstances, an honor to accept a tow from a teammate.  In adventure racing, each teammate will have strong and weak moments, and the goal is to move forward together as a team.

Meanwhile, Team Endurox R4 was plugging away toward Checkpoint 36 on the Merrell Badlands Trek.  Unlike most of the course, this section was very exposed, with few trees in sight. Much of it went along an abandoned railroad trestle.  Although the area is very scenic, they noted that you could see miles and miles ahead. “It was beautiful for about 15 minutes,” they said, “for the next 7 hours, you wonder ‘does this road ever turn?’”  The highlight of their trek was the view of the setting sun from Larsen Farm at Sage Creek Pass.  They said they hit it at the best possible time, and were treated to a five minute light show, in which the mountains were lit up all different colors, ranging from day-white, to sunset-yellow, then orange, purple, blue, red, and everything in between.  They did comment that “best possible time” is a relative term – although they loved the light show, they may not have gotten lost later if they’d been through the pass two hours earlier!  Their timing held as they left the checkpoint, biking during the most beautiful hours of sunset on the Badlands.

Team Endurox R4 enjoys another beautiful sunset on the course

Endurox R4 is an international team composed of two teammates from Ireland and two from the US.  Although they all share a common language (unlike Bimbache Extrem, for example), they have noted that the Irish members only have to dial up the accents a bit to become completely incomprehensible.  They don’t usually though, in face TA Volunteers commented that Endurox R4 is one of the happiest teams they’ve seen.  They’ve had a team of two Irish girls following them from Checkpoint to Checkpoint – not unlike Team South Dakota’s fan club. The Irish ladies even trekked a total of 5 miles out to a remote checkpoint at Triangle Butte, hoping to find their team. They had heard the volunteers staffing the checkpoint were in a very remote location and lugged some cold Coca-colas out. The volunteers were elated!

Volunteers Pepi and Richard staff one of the most remote checkpoints on the course

Word on the street is that although TecnuExtreme and SCAAR both have injured teammates, they are each sharing the loads between teammates – not only by towing them, but also by carrying the injured teammate’s backpack.  Because of their hard work and team efforts, they are the last two teams to have made it out on the crown of the course, the Badlands section.  In fact, the teams should be able to finish up the Merrell Badlands Trek tomorrow and get on the Avis Mountain Bike headed for the finish line.

If Endurox R4’s experiences in the Badlands are any indicator, they will have plenty of obstacles to overcome. One teammate struggled to replace a tire when a thorn was lodged in the sidewall and kept popping the inner tube. The solution: run some duct tape along the inside to keep the thorn from poking through.  Two teammates discovered blisters during their time at the TA. The solution: lance and drain the blister, seal it with superglue, then put some duct tape over it. Yes, it’s true, duct tape can fix everything.

Team Endurox R4 heads out on the Avis Mountain Bike Section in the Badlands

The field out in the field has gotten narrower and narrower as the race draws to an end, with the higher concentration of teams making it as far as Scenic, SD before turning back for home.  But the last few teams battling it out for full-course finishes in the Badlands deserve a lot of respect.  In the hot days and freezing nights, they must carry on non-stop from this point on if they hope to finish by noon on Sunday.  And they’ve got quite a following – even the Park Ranger stops by the Interior Checkpoint every so often with a printout of race standings, so she can keep the TA staff informed. No one asked her to do this, she just figured it would be helpful. The race has generated much support from the local South Dakotans, who will be watching carefully as all the teams (included their beloved #36 – Team South Dakota) make their way to the finish line.

If you’ve been following Primal Quest Badlands presented by SPOT, you know that the racers push themselves to the extremes of their mental, physical, and emotional capacities to complete a 600+ mile race.  They frequently go with little or no sleep, ultimately ending in some cases in very vivid hallucinations, delirium, or a total lack of knowledge of what is going around.  In the adventure racing world, these hallucinations are called “Sleepmonsters.”  In fact, there is an adventure racing blog by the same name.

This year in Primal Quest Badlands, racers have experienced these hallucinations and laughed heartily about them later (after a little rest).  Last night, when Bones team member Walt Brumniach crossed the finish line, he described his experience on the Warren Windows Lake Orienteering, which the team did at night, in vivid detail.  Completely delirious from exhaustion, he did not even recognize his teammates.  When his kayak companion Jason Quinn would get out of the boat on shore to run and get an orienteering check point, he would return to Walt’s questioning: “Who are you?” “Where’s your dad?” “Why don’t you get your dad to do this?” “Who are those people following us?” (those people were his other teammates).  When Jason explained that they were in a race, Walt found this unfathomable. “We’re not in a race!” he would say, “There’s no one around! Are you mad?”  Eventually Jason told Walt to paddle a bit and relax, and Walt said “I’m just not into this.”

Later, he described his behavior on a trek, as he kept bending over as if he were picking things up.  His teammates asked what he was doing, to which he responded “I’m picking the donuts out, just before they’re done. They’re best that way.”  When Suze from SCAAR was told about Walt’s adventures, she related to the experience. “I always try to pick up money!” she said.  When she’s in the throes of the sleepmonsters, she sees quarters everywhere and is thrilled to pick them up and stash them away.

Charlie from TecnuExtreme/StaphAseptic recounted his encounter with the sleepmonsters at the Lake TA.  He had a vision of four racers standing in a circle, when all of a sudden they were illuminated. They then each started spinning individually, then as a group; at which point they began moving away from him. That was when he knew he had to sleep. Although most serious adventure racers have experienced sleepmonster hallucinations, Charlie mentioned that this was the first time for him.

All of this puts in context the current reports on Team nuun, who was 4 hours from completing the race roughly 24 hours ago.  By viewing their tracks on the SPOT Team Map, you can see that they lost their way, then doubled back multiple times.  Team iMoat reports passing them on the trail.  One of the iMoat racers had been telling the team they needed to go back for a birthday party, and they knew he was hallucinating.  Then they passed nuun, who was heading in the wrong direction. “We’re going to a birthday party!” they shouted.  “See!” said the iMoat racer, “I told you there was a birthday party!”  iMoat could see that nuun was having a shared hallucination, the rarest form of the sleepmonster.

The moral of the story is: Don’t do drugs; Adventure Racing is legal and just as potent.

The seventh team to complete Primal Quest Badlands presented by SPOT is Merrell Haglöfs Multimania. The team, which hails from Norway and Austria, was greeted by friends and family who made the trip to follow them on their odyssey through South Dakota. The team overcame a very long day on the bikes that had them off course on more than one occasion. They were definitely happy to finish the race.

While the top teams have either reached the finish line or are still straggling in, Team South Dakota is still working hard towards reaching their goal of completing Primal Quest Badlands presented by SPOT. As of this writing, the team is in 16th place and working its way through the river trek from Redshirt to Cheyenne, but we caught up with them awhile back to see how they were faring so far in the toughest adventure race on the planet. See what they had to say below.

The sixth team to complete the 2009 Primal Quest Badlands presented by SPOT is Team iMoat, who arrived as the finish line a short time ago. Amongst their requests, other than the pizza, ice cream, and champagne that was awaiting them, was for a bottle of shampoo. I think the team is ready to hit the showers.