Is This Any Way to Make a Living? (Cont.)

You Are Here:

Home >> Is This Any Way to Make a Living? (Cont.)

Today's Question
How do you make primitive snowshoes? answer

What should you do if you get lost driving in a snow storm? answer

Today's Question
What is the greenest ski and snowboard on the market? answer

Can I really damage a coral reef with sunscreen while snorkeling? answer

What kind of dog will make me look manlier? answer
Is there a sport that safely combines my twin passions for guns and kayaks? answer
How come most of the world's cultures enjoy eating goat, but Americans don't? answer

Online Favorites

Special Issues

Photo Galleries

Outside Magazine January 2003

Page:

Is This Any Way to Make a Living? (Cont.)

THE NEXT DAY, having showered, slept, and scarfed a huge bacon-and-egg sandwich, I drove ahead on the course, hoping to catch some of the leaders. No one had been injured in the rockfall the night before, I learned—a huge relief, especially for Barger, who was now zipping around the course in a black helicopter. I drove 90 zigzagging minutes to reach Ouray, which is only 18 beeline miles from Telluride. From CP13, the end of the 103-mile bike leg, I backtracked by mountain bike until I spotted four grimy characters pushing bikes up a shallow incline. Were they even racing? They looked more like zombies crawling out of a shopping-mall basement at midnight.

Hard to believe, but this was the famed GoLite team, captained by the legendary Ian Adamson, 38. His teams have won three Eco-Challenges and one Southern Traverse by puttering along just like this, conserving energy and waiting for the other teams to blow up or screw up. When GoLite hit the checkpoint and found its support crew, food, gear, med supplies, and really filthy socks started flying. Adamson sat in a chair in one corner of the tent looking at a map while his teammates ate and patched themselves up. Keith Murray chomped on a sandwich, Andrea Murray gulped soup, and John Jacoby—naked from the waist down—rubbed Hydropel ointment on his feet to help prevent blisters. Each athlete had a crew member focused on him or her: "Who needs a sandwich?" "Are these socks OK?" "How are your feet?" "More soup, Andrea?" "Time?" "Six minutes!" It was five in the afternoon. SoBe/SmartWool was long gone, but other top teams were here: Seagate and Nokia had arrived within the past hour, while Team Buff had been lounging around their mobile home for the last couple of hours. On the other side of a split-rail fence, racers on Team Montrail were curled up in their sleeping bags, serving an eight-hour sentence for taking an illegal paved road and bypassing the rocky climb over Last Dollar Pass—accidentally, insisted Montrail captain Rebecca Rusch. After 22 minutes in transition, GoLite checked out in third, just steps behind Team Buff.

GoLite had arrived in Telluride only four days before the start; other top teams had been in the area for weeks, training and acclimatizing. Montrail had been living out of a motor home since Memorial Day, and SoBe's Steve Gurney had climbed almost every ridge and scree field in Colorado.

"I could have done that," Adamson said, "but I didn't think it was ethical. It's totally against the spirit of adventure racing." Despite the disadvantage, GoLite moved into second place, shadowing leaders SoBe/SmartWool by a few hours. In adventure racing, that's bumper to bumper.

Page: