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

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Outside Magazine January 2003

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

BY THE THIRD DAY, the lack of sleep and oxygen had begun to take their toll. Eyes were bloodshot, tempers were short, and fatigue was etched on everyone's face—and I'm just talking about the

The media were forbidden to enter, film, or mention the town of Ophir. The race map had a red line drawn around Ophir Valley—a no-go zone that was dubbed "Ophirstan."

journalists. Every night, we got to return to the rejuvenating luxury of the Wyndham Peaks Mountain Resort, complete with its Golden Door Spa and plush couches in the lobby bar. As we dropped into race HQ at the Telluride Conference Center, stuffed with elk steaks and fine wine, we could only imagine the suffering of the poor buggers out on the course.

We felt guilty about it, but the fact was we didn't really need to leave Mountain Village at all. The Primal Quest Web site, www.ecoprimalquest.com, was packed with information—team bios, training diaries, stories kicked in by hardworking staff journalists—and was constantly updated. The best feature was the GPS tracking program. Each team carried a GPS unit, and at every checkpoint the data was downloaded, allowing Web surfers to trace the team's pace and trajectory.

This was popular among journalists because, truth be told, watching an adventure race live is about as exciting as watching a rash heal, a fact that Burnett tried to work around by accentuating the human drama. Even some of the athletes could be skeptical. "People don't want to watch really fit people hiking through the woods," says Rusch, "unless they're yelling at each other."

But Barger and Watkins envisioned a different kind of race, one that would use television and the Web to emphasize the environment and athletic drama. The TV crews were doing their best, swarming around the interesting sections: the river paddling, the moonscape scree fields, and the huge rappel on Bridal Veil Falls—the race's money shot.

There was no denying the athleticism at Primal Quest. At the front of the race, the pace was punishing, sometimes breaking into a trot. SoBe/SmartWool had kept its lead since the first day, thanks in part to Montrail's penalty, but it wasn't easy. In fact, as the team tottered into town late on Wednesday afternoon, its members didn't look at all like the healthy young athletes who had left Mountain Village on Sunday. Every few yards, Steve Gurney doubled over, hacking violently, somewhere between coughing and vomiting.

SoBe/SmartWool was perhaps the fittest team in the race: In addition to Gurney, the squad included Xterra off-road triathlon champ Michael Tobin, former pro mountain biker Mike Kloser, and Danelle Ballengee, who summitted all 55 of Colorado's 14ers in a record 14 days. But Ballengee wasn't feeling so hot either. She hadn't been right since the mountaineering section, where a Tirolean traverse turned into a zip line, sending her zinging into rocks at 35 miles per hour and shattering her helmet in three places. At least two other teams suffered similar incidents, but Barger insisted that "it was their teammates' fault for clipping in at the same time. It was never meant to be a zip line."

The two Mikes, on the other hand, appeared relatively spry. Trailed by an OLN camera crew, Kloser dashed into the Village Market to buy SoBe drinks for the SoBe-sponsored team (ka-ching!). At the gondola base, where they started the climb up to Mountain Village and their $100,000 check, Tobin tossed his empty into a trash can. "No recycling today," he said.

By this point they had raced, nonstop, for 74 hours and 25 minutes, almost as long as Lance Armstrong rode his bike during the three-week Tour de France. They slept just three hours, although "rested" is probably a better word. And now, doubled over by coughing spasms, Gurney looked like he might not make it. Twenty yards ahead, Tobin was towing Ballengee with a bungee cord, while Kloser gave a radio interview via cell phone.

"The pace wasn't too bad," he said. "Sure. It's K-L-O-S-E-R."

"Animals!" Gurney gasped.

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