My Primal Quest Dedication

Primal Quest 2008 kicks off in Montana in less than a week, 500 miles, 100,000 vertical feet of punishing foot, bike and water travel through some of the rawest wilderness in the lower 48. This will be the third PQ Expedition Adventure Race for my teammates and I, and perhaps our most difficult.

The question us multi-day adventure racers seem to get most often from friends and family members who have never participated in a race of this magnitude is “What keeps you going for that long??”. My quick answers are usually responses like “hallucinations” or “the fear of having to go back to work early”.

Truth is, most of the time we are pre-occupied with staying on-course, concentrating during technical section or rehearsing for the next technical section. Sure, a lot of the time voids in between are filled with visions of spooky sleep monsters, which seem to lurk around every bend in the trail starting at the end of Day Two. But more often, I get through the mentally difficult “down-times” by reflecting on the people who have inspired to do these suffer-fests in the first place.

Here are some of the ordinary and extraordinary people that I have been touched by, the ones that keep me going through day and night during multi-day adventure races, and to whom I dedicate this race:

· To the unidentified boy in the baseball cap near the finish line at my first marathon (see the picture at right). He may not know it, but his encouragement played an important role in helping at least one struggling stranger eek out a qualifying time for Boston. Just knowing that someone gives a crap is a powerful motivator!
· To Brent, who showed me and many others close to him that being true to one's passions and consistently testing one's personal limits can coexist with fierce devotion to one's family. He lived to the limit so others could learn from his example, and he always did so with compassion and a broad smile on his face

· To Marc, whose enthusiastic conversation about ultra-endurance sports during our chance meeting pulled me through my first 50 mile trail running race. It was hard to beleive that he was overweight as a kid and was later severely injured in a car accident. Seizing his accident as a window of opportunity, Marc not only recovered from his life-threatening injuries, but he used the tragic event to transform his life and the lives of countless others through ultra distance competitions. Ironically, while he was just about to cross the finish line with what may have been a Marathon PR, Marc was stopped cold by a weakened heart, and the ultra-sport world lost one of its greatest ambassadors.

· To Nellie, whose epic survival story of enduring two frigid nights through massive internal bleeding, hypothermia and dehydration salvaged the year 2006 for me following the loss of my dear friends Brent and Marc. She has shown me that a person who truly wants to live is capable of enduring great hardship. After her dramatic rescue, she faced a bleak outlook, including months of slow and painful recovery in a wheelchair. Yet, true to form, Nellie persevered through hard work and, exactly 3 months after her accident, entered a 12-hour adventure race as a solo, under the name “How’s This for Rehab?”, and beat most of her competition (all men) in the process.

· To the woman who sat in the seat next to me on my flight to Boston a couple weeks ago. Waking up early every morning to get in her run before another stressing 12 to 15 hour work day as a microbiologist, she still finds the energy on weekends to enter, and frequently win, road races. Never mind the fact that she suffers from the effects of a potentially-crippling neuro-muscular disorder, a condition that makes routine tasks such as removing a cap from a water bottle a struggle.

· And, finally, I dedicate this race to my wife and savior, Tami. While I am away training and racing and traveling for work, she is back home leading her own expedition adventure race team of sorts: motivating, navigating and towing three unruly boys with lots of special needs through the wilds of everyday life.