Adventure Beat

The last of Primal Quest's exhausted racers crossed the finish line July 4, giving whole new meaning to the term "Independence Day" and officially ending nine long days of one of the toughest endurance challenges on the planet.  Gordon Wright reports from the finish line.

Primal Quest Utah finished with a tangible expression of how brutal and nail-biting the entire competition was.  On Tuesday, July 4, at exactly 1:22 p.m., team NW Nike ACG crossed the finish line to hearty applause, under a shower of champagne. They were the last full-course Expedition-ranked team to finish — and they did so with only 38 minutes to spare. 

In a race like Primal Quest, the toll exacted on slow teams is exponentially higher than that faced by fast teams.  Slower teams are exposed to the elements longer, must carry more water and food, and run larger sleep deficits.

Captain Julie Leasure and teammates Peter Courogen, Mike Dawson, and Ken Meyer were determined to finish the entire expedition length course, however.  Early on, the team banked sleep, knowing that as the final days of the race approached they would be sleeping one hour or less in an effort to meet the time cut-offs dictated by the course.  "There wasn't even a discussion," says Courogen.  "We knew that we were either going to try to finish the whole thing or fail.  It's that simple."

Right until they crossed the finish line, the team wondered if they would be able to reach their goal.  After a particularly costly navigation error before TA10, it seemed clear that the team would be forced to take a "DNF."  Reaching the transition breathed new life into the racers, however, and the team ate, gathered their gear and grabbed a final rest before the last push.

Courogen and Dawson's wives, as well as and Courogen's four children, met the racers at the transition area.  "That'll do them more good than sleeping at this point," said one of the volunteers, nodding at the happy families. 

All of the racers cited the support and understanding of their families as the main thing that allows them to race.  Dawson could only shake his head with a dazed look.  "It's so good to see you guys."

Of the 89 teams entered in what Inside Triathlon is already calling "one of the hardest races of all time," 28 finished intact — very close to the 30 predicted by race management.  Another 14 finished the course without one team member, counting them as "unranked" but notable nonetheless.  Twenty-seven teams finished some version of the three short course options granted by the race directors, and twenty never saw the finish line at all, withdrawing for a variety of reasons, chief among them injury and exhaustion.

Joe Moerschbaecher, a member of Team Odyssey, said upon reaching the finish line, "Primal Quest has always been the top of adventure racing.  But with this race, they've surpassed all the other versions of the race, and set the bar way up here."

Through searing desert heat, heart-stopping vertical exposure and days of pure suffering, the 356 athletes comprising the field of Primal Quest are the true story.  Milling around race headquarters before the post-race party, they shuffle around in flip-flops, trading stories and gruesome injury stories.  They came to the Moab desert to compete, but also to reach for an intangible other thing; a quest, to be trite.  But it is clear they've all taken away something much more than saddle sores and festering feet: for many of them, they're taking away the experience of a lifetime.
 

Next: Eight wonders of Macedonia

Previous: Primal Quest: The race is won

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