Subaru Primal Quest Adventure Race Update

July 10, 2002 (10:00 am; Mountain Standard Time)

Greetings:

It is 67 hours into the SPQ race and I just heard from the support crew. As suspected, they were in a box canyon with no cell phone coverage. So, here is what I found out.

As of last night at CP13, Team Santa Fe was doing well. Of course, they were extremely tired, and they ate and rested for 3 hours before heading into the mountains again. There were a few more scrapes and bruises from the bike leg, but nothing serious. Joel's cut thumb is doing fine - the medical team dressed the cut at CP4 and Jess changed the dressing last night.

From what the racers reported to the crew, this course is brutal. The initial part of the bike leg was a steep downhill single track path, done at night. The team spent a lot of time walking or carrying their bikes. River and stream crossings were generally done on fallen logs. According to the altimeter that Barb has, the team had done over 16,000' of elevation gain by the time they were only part of the way through the first part of the bike leg. The racers were cold and exhausted when the support crew met with them about 2/3 of the way through the biking leg. However, they were in very good spirits by the time they reached CP14, being much warmer by then.

As the racers mentioned, the course is brutal. There are now 14 teams out of the competition, including pre-race favorite Team Nokia. The torrid pace that the front running teams are going and the altitude have been real problems for those teams. This is affecting all of the teams. Jess said there have been several more racers that had to be evacuated by helicopter. The race for some of the trailing teams is starting to be whether they will make cutoff times. Several of the teams are still at CP8 or CP9, but they are still racing.

Overall, Team Santa Fe is doing very well, and is listed in 31st place, in part due to attrition. The plan was to head up the mountain to a mountaineering cabin and rest for a while before heading on to CP14. The website does not indicate that they have reached CP14, but that site is behind by 5-7 hours. According to Barb, their plan for the rest of the race involves a lot of "adaptive staging" with the team trying to move at the most appropriate times. Their estimates are 15-20 hours to make it over the mountains to the next transition area at CP17. At that point they will meet the support crew and transition into another mtn biking leg. A real consideration for planning is their arrival at CP19 which is the transition into the kayaking. There is a dark zone enforced from 4:30 pm to 6 am in which no kayak will be allowed on the river. My best estimate is that they will arrive there sometime after midnight, and will have to rest until 6 am.

More later
Darrell Henry - Team Santa Fe e-mailer