Primal Quest: Endurance racers use all of their stamina

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Primal Quest, an event promoted as the toughest ultra-endurance race on the planet, kicked off on June 24 in a dusty field near Elmo, Utah. Eighty-nine teams of four -- 356 racers total -- lined up in the predawn light to wait for the starting gun.

Ahead: More than 400 miles of wilderness, including canyons, mountains, whitewater rivers, and great stretches of desert sand -- temperatures ranging from 50 to 110 degrees -- separated the race pack from the finish line. There was a 10-day finish limit. The average was just under nine.

More than 20 teams dropped out due to injury or exhaustion.

The race winners, Team Nike PowerBlast, finished just after sunrise on their seventh day to win $100,000 (out of a total $250,000 prize purse).

My four-person squad, Team Bulleit, took 46th place, finishing the course on the morning of our ninth day in the desert.

Adventure racing is characterized by its long and sleepless multidisciplinary racecourses, and Primal Quest, which was created in 2002, is the largest and longest race of all.

This year's course, which began in central Utah and finished 417 miles later near the town of Moab, included trekking, kayaking, mountaineering, canyoneering, riverboarding, horseback riding, orienteering, mountain biking, and multiple rope climbs and rappels.

Each discipline made up a course within a course, some segments requiring 30 hours of race time or more for each team to complete.

Teams of racers -- they must stay within 100 meters of each other for the entire route -- go non-stop at Primal Quest, pushing their bodies for days and nights on end. Gear, food and water are carried in backpacks. A map and compass are the racers' sole guides to mandatory course checkpoints that form a vague route through the desolation. Sleep is purely optional.

Properly managing sleep deprivation allows teams to keep on the move for up to 48 straight hours.

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