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6/25 - 7/4/2006, Moab, Utah by Kim Dunkin Thursday, 6/22 - Day before Skills Testing Salt Lake City Airport 5:30 PM I am informed that there is no shuttle for me that evening. I was scheduled on the one for the next morning at 8:00 AM. Thankfully only 30 of the 90 scheduled racers show up and I don’t have to spend the night in the airport! On the way we stop at Burger King. I met a racer as we order our salads. He is from Sweden and has just returned from the World Championships. They are team 95 and barely got in so I think they are just a “regular” team. I find out the next day, this soft spoken kind man, is on Bjourson, with Mats Anderson, one of the best teams in the world. They end up getting 6th at PQ. The best racers were the most humble racers I met. Moab 12:30 AM I arrive at the cabin where my team is waiting up for me. They are very nice and pretty much what I expected, seeing as how I have never met them. I can’t get my gear until the next day so I have to sleep in the clothes I wore on the plane and have no toiletries. They do give me the famous Nemo race shirt. I now join the spandex world, with bike shorts with Polartec plastered across my butt, and a tight fitting bike shirt a size smaller than I requested. I am a railrider clothes type racer, so the spandex was a bit out of my comfort zone. Friday, 6/23 - Skills Testing Day Pre 8:00 AM Although I planned on sleeping in after my late arrival they wake me up early for breakfast. Everyone puts on their Nemo t-shirts except me, as no one had brought me one. I figure I’ll just were my PUMA shirt which makes it look like I have a big sponsor ha ha. After breakfast I am anxious to get back and organize, but we hit a couple of gear shops first. I really want to get out to organize our gear boxes. (We had to put all mountaineering gear in one, food in one, extra gear in one, and one stayed behind). We end up cutting it close and get this done just minutes before we are to test. 2:20PM We head off to gear testing (in our spandex) where it is a mess as teams have had delays. We can go in any order we want now and so just look for open stations. This was fine except the team kept seeing people they knew and visiting so it took 8 hours to go through the 5 hour gear check. It was lots fun visiting and the atmosphere was awesome. I really got into the PQ spirit as we tested with the best racers in the world, and visited with friends from home. There were 10 stations. We did everything from ascending, to learning how to use your Wags bag, to what to do if you see cryptobotic soil, to t rescues, treading water for 10 minutes and self rescues in the kayak at the swimming pool. We didn’t pass part of the test as our throw bag wasn’t long enough and Tim had spectra instead of nylon slings. Tim had also brought us knives that didn’t pass, which meant I had to carry my big river knife and continue to switch it, between sections. Our uniforms are approved by Don Mann (Course Director) even though they are two colored instead of one. He told me to tell others he had approved it should someone ask. I am secretly hoping we have to change as I am not looking forward to 10 days of spandex and trying to fit my too small shirt over mountaineering gear. 10:00 PM We almost finish our gear check and scrounge through race food for dinner. Saturday, 6/24 - Race Briefing Day 8:00 AM We do our horse skills test as we didn’t finish the day before and head to town to “make” a 65 foot throw bag. After retuning and being approved to race, the ladies spent the day packing our bags and preparing. 3:00 PM Don Mann sees me and pulls me aside. He let me know our shirts now do not pass as teams have complained (they should have been one color and ours are tri-colored). He pulled for us, but the jury said no. We will be penalized 4 hours-one hour per shirt. I was not happy and wanted to change shirts. The team said “no way” as they didn’t think it was fair to our sponsors and we would take the penalty. I was not happy starting out 4 hours behind. 4:00PM Race dinner We ate with Dynamic Health (the oldest team in the race) from Texas, which was fun to have some Texas company. We wore our special “spandex” uniforms. Opening ceremonies were incredible. I had chills when we saw the course and couldn’t wait to race. Don Mann was booed (in good fun) as the doomsayer when he predicated over half the team wouldn’t’ finish. He ended up being right. We have almost two hours of director outlining safety and then finally the maps! 8:00 PM We had four hours to plot points and turn in our gear boxes. We started plotting and then a teammate wanted us to go outside and take a sponsor picture. We spent a few minutes doing this during this time. Then we were back to plotting. I wanted to help and see the course, but Tim had not packed his backpack. Ebeth and I had to pack his bag and get gear for him from our boxes that were about ¼ mile away. We missed out on seeing the course as we were packing for Tim. The two plotters got tired and took a break. Instead of the other two plotting they just wanted to wait, which meant we didn’t get the whole course plotted. It would have to be done during the race. It was scary to me as no one wanted to recheck the plotting. We went to turn in gear boxes several times and Tim would run out and say no he needed to put something in it. We were 15 minutes past the 11:00 PM deadline and were lucky our boxes made it to the course! 12:00 PM We boarded the busses at midnight for a 5 hour buss ride to the horses. When we drove out of the Red Cliff Lodge it was surreal. Volunteers lined the road and cheered for us for about a half a mile. It was so inspriing. With the press and staff we had a miles of cars following our 6 busses. I was on an adventure racing high. Note on the busses: Racers were just sure we would get a greyhound as how would racers with three days worth of food, trekking poles and gear fit in a school bus. Well we started the suffering early. We rode in a school bus, two to a seat, for 5 hours with backpacks and horse rigging in our laps. Don Mann had told us we would stop half way for food and restrooms. Racers had been heavily hydrating. Well someone forgot to tell the bus drivers. One of the racers was begging to stop and the drivers said no. Finally after much pleading the bus stopped on the side of the rode. Hundreds of racers poured out and formed a “pee” line. Woman and men alike relieved themselves along the road. The team bonding had started. Next --> For more information about Primal Question, visit www.ecoprimalquest.com. Questions? Comments? Post them on the message board. |