Primal Quest River Director, Josh Galt catches up with Team OrionHealth.com on Saturday. It appears at this point in the race…he is the only one that can. The Kiwi team continues to dominate the field with still over half of the race still ahead. From the leaderboard, it appears that they are trekking and have passed CP26 after 23-25 were eliminated from the course. See below statement from PQ site:

The big news for today is that the course has been shortened slightly for logistical regions and to allow teams to make the time cut-offs. When the racers arrive at checkpoint 22 they will now trek directly to CP 26, skipping checkpoints 23, 24, and 25 completely.

Since we have been following Team nuun-FeedTheMachine over the past few months leading up to Primal Quest Badlands, we wanted to post this video interview on our site in conjunction with that. At the time of this posting on the PQ site…the team was in fifth place on Day 3. We will be posting more about the team throughout the race and will follow-up with them after the race. Stay tuned.

Photo at top by Mike Bitton (PQ Montana 2008)

After getting a good night´s rest, waking up, grabbing a hot cup of coffee, I login to find out how the sleepless teams are coming along during this year´sPrimal Quest.
I first typed in the URL, primalquest.com and arrived at a website that reminded me of the heaven´s gate cult, whoops. ECOprimalquest.com is where it´s at, one of the biggest events for the cult of adventure racers.

Teams have been at it for 2 days and 5 hours now (53 Hours), and somehow it is just the beginning. There is a cluster of about 8 teams way out in front. The New Zealand team, Orionhealth.com (2008 AR World Champions), have pushed hard to get the lead and only time will tell if they can keep it up. Biting at their tail, are two strong American teams (according to recent SPOT Tracking Posts, they are almost within shouting distance of each other), Salomon/Crested Butte and Cordura/Osprey Packs.

Here is a very recent update from team Cordura/Osprey Packs doing a great job keeping the world posted at their BLOG,

Hello again!!

Team Cordura/Osprey is still rocking along, currently in 3rd place. It seems that Salomon/Crested Butte is having some issues with their Spot tracking device, as they have reappeared in 2nd place after over 12 hours being out of touch, which has us now in 3rd place, probably the place we have been all along!! As of 10:30 this morning, Team OrionHealth (from NZ) continues with healthy lead and have just completed the ropes section. Salomon/CB is on the ropes and Cordura/Osprey has just arrived at the ropes section. These three teams appear to have distanced them selves from a cluster of 4 chasing teams at this point. We went back and forth with Team Bones all night, but it appears they have chosen to take a short break, or………..maybe their GPS is not working right either!! The top eight teams though have really distanced themselves from the rest of the race, as the 8th place team (Team iMoat) has a 30 mile lead on 9th place. Sure looks like the winner will come from this cluster of 8, and actually the top three right now have a healthy lead on the other 5 teams in this lead bunch. Following the ropes section, the teams will continue on a long trekking leg down to the swim and paddle sections, which will take them well towards the east, out in the heart of the Badlands.

We all hope the ropes section is going well. Should be a blast!

Keep smiling!!!

The media team, including: Kraig Becker from theadventureblog.blogspot.com , Frances Fisher, with help from Corey Rosen and Craig Steinn have been doing an excellent job. Frances brings us these great quotes from the field with her posting, Continue Reading

Check out the great photo coverage of this year´s Primal Quest event, one of the world´s most challenging endurance competitions staged in the arid Badlands of South Dakota.

Top adventure race teams from around the globe will be “travelling” non-stop, day and night and the winning team will finish the race in approximately six days. A prize purse of about $150,000 in cash, prizes and gifts has been put together for PQ Badlands this year.

With the start of Primal Quest Badlands presented by SPOT just hours away, teams are making final preparations for a race that has been called “The World’s Most Challenging Human Endurance Competition”. Approximately 35 teams from around the world will embark on the 600-mile journey through the Badlands and the Black Hills of South Dakota. The race can take up to 10 days for teams to complete. Racers will test their abilities in mountain biking, trail running, kayaking, caving, swimming, and fixed line ropes.

According to Kraig Becker, Primal Quest Media Director, “The pre-race briefing is complete, and the teams have received their maps and passports. They are now pouring over both and plotting their course through the Badlands and Black HIlls of South Dakota. Their navigational skills will be put to the test over the next ten days as they bike, hike, and paddle their way through the race. The teams learned that there would be plenty of orientteering during Primal Quest Badlands. In fact, they’ll be navigating on foot, mountain bike, and on the water, and if that wasn’t enough, they’ll have an orienteering course inside of a massive cave.” Continue Reading

Well, since my last post, we’ve all been busy preparing for Primal Quest. Not only in terms of training but also getting the right gear together and planning logistics. It’s been time consuming but we’re slowly getting there. It’s amazing how after years of racing, every race requires a new piece of equipment. Our garage at home can no longer accomodate a single car. Just the way it should be!

Since my last blog, I’ve been putting some consistent training sessions with 2 notable longer ones.

Three weekends ago, Sean and I rode from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena to Wrightwood and back along Hwy 2. It’s one of the most beautiful roads in the nation winding its way through the Angeles National Forest. When we got back to our cars we had ridden 130 miles and climbed more that 13,000ft (our 2 altimeters registered different total gains so we’re not exactly sure what the actual total is. one registered 13,100ft and the other 13,900ft). It was an incredible and satisfying day but I wasn’t feeling good at all. Typically long days in the saddle are what I’m all about. The more climbing there is, the happier I am. But, that day, it wasn’t meant to be. Within one hour on our first climb, I started overheating and even had the thought of ripping my helmet off which was clearly a bad sign. When that thought hit me, I knew I was not going to have a good day. I simply overheated. Although it was hot out, I typical perform well in the heat. But, I hadn’t been in the heat much this year and figure I wasn’t well acclimatized. Real bummer because I spent the rest of our ride to Wrightwood in a really tough physical and mental state. I kept telling myself that all this suffering would make me better acclimatized for Primal Quest. I think it has but it was little comfort in the heat of the moment. The ride back from Wrightwood was a lot better as I had somewhat recovered from the intense heat.
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