Addicted to adventure

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Addicted to adventure
Athletes around the state are getting hooked on the ultimate sports challenge

by kristin krupa

They tortured their bodies to points of exhaustion foreign to non-racers as they thrust themselves into an unrelenting wilderness. They suffered through the continuous pain of swelling blisters and aching bones. Their muscles cramped and the freezing wind slapped their exposed skin. Their chapped lips cracked and they could taste the blood as they licked their lips. The physical and mental fatigue weighed down on the shoulders of the two adventure racers as they cursed, “Tell us why the hell we do this again?”

Adventure racing, or AR’ing to insiders, has swept the nation, attracting gutsy athletes who crave the raw feeling of pushing their bodies and minds to the limit. With more than 100,000 racers in the United States alone, this daring challenge consists of a multitude of sports. Races vary in everything from length to types of events. Shorter races, or sprints, take 10 to 12 hours and others can take days.

Although adventure races have no set format, most races involve mountain biking, hiking or trekking, navigating and some water event. Still, race directors’ creativity has exploded and races now can include practically anything: inline skating, rappelling, horseback riding, canoeing, kayaking, swimming and rock climbing. For athletes audacious enough to voyage into the inconsistent and demanding abyss of adventure racing, the sport and its benefits are limitless.

“Adventure racing promotes teamwork and definitely stretches people’s envelopes,” says Troy Farrar, president of the United States Adventure Racing Association (USARA), an organization created to aid the sport’s positive growth.

Courageous and daring, the first adventure racers set out to conquer 400 miles of New Zealand’s treacherous terrain in 1989. The unprecedented event, “The Raid Gauloises,” hurled racers into a slew of disciplines, including mountain climbing, horseback riding and rafting. The fearless sport first hit the United States in 1995 in Utah at the Eco-Challenge and in recent years has seen a surge in growth. Between 2000 and 2004, the number of USARA-sanctioned events jumped from 34 to 320.

Like the sport itself, the racer mold is also malleable and evolving. Software engineers, technicians, graphic designers, teachers, police officers, nurse practitioners, mothers and fathers by day, all transform into fierce athletes outside of the office. These super-humans not only spend their weekends enduring the often hellacious conditions of the wilderness, but they also manage to balance their training with their professional and personal lives.

The average racer is in his or her thirties; yet, with the sports growing popularity, AR’ing has seen an increased interest, particularly from twenty-somethings. Having finished their formal schooling, these people crave an organized team activity, and their local gyms are unable to satiate their desire to test their physical and mental limits.

“We are seeing younger and younger people get into the sport. The veteran racers think this is great,” says Andy McCarthy, race director for the Wisconsin Adventure Racing Association and veteran AR’er. Some of his teams have even included younger members like 28-year-old Tim Hall.

Hall, a middle school teacher, husband and new father, finds peace and consistency in the sport. Hall has managed to become a serious competitor, balancing twice-daily training sessions with the stress of having a baby, building a new house and selling their old one, finding a new job closer to family, and earning a master’s degree.

“[Adventure racing] is definitely a life skill-builder,” Hall says. “You’re always running into things you don’t want to do, but you push through them nonetheless to get them done. It’s the same way in a race.”

The sport is so tough that just finishing is considered an accomplishment, especially for a rookie. But unlike its multi-sport cousin, the triathlon, adventure races command athletes to combine strengths as a team to successfully compete not just against opposing teams, but also against the ruthless environment.

“I remember when one of our teammates bonked; [he] totally ran out of energy, I had nothing left,” recalls Hall. “That’s the time you really rely on your teammates and they make up the difference.”

Like any activity requiring teamwork, teams are only as strong as their weakest link. And strength is not just about enduring the elements––it’s also about relationships and interaction. To many racers, camaraderie is often considered one of the biggest benefits. But when frustration mixes with fatigue, teams can run into trouble. Misinterpreting a topographical map can devastate a team, setting them back hours and making them scramble through numbing darkness. But mistakes happen, even to the most experienced teams. That is just part of the sport’s character-building nature. However, teams that effectively learn how to combine their abilities and work as a unit benefit the most. This idea of team strategizing and problem solving has even inspired some companies to replace the company softball league with their own adventure racing team.

“Adventure racing is like a microcosm of life,” says AR’er Keith Lamb. Lamb, who carried 350 pounds on his 6-foot frame when he started adventure racing, has become an inspiration to many and is now in the best shape of his life. “You gather around a group of people that you can trust and count on. With these people, you take on the challenges put before you every day and hold on tight, finding a way over, around or under those obstacles.”

Despite its intimidating image, AR’ing welcomes a wide range of dedication. Weekend warriors interested in competing at a challenging but less rigorous level borrow bikes, canoes or other race equipment to participate. But die-hard, serious competitors may spend thousands of dollars on gear to race at a level that tolerates no weakness, demands incredible willpower, and puts athletes through considerable abuse.

After hours of kayaking at breakneck speeds, biking against high winds, and overexerting the body to the point of dehydration and collapse, the racers’ perplexing question still looms: “Why the hell do we do this again?”

To a non-AR’er, the answer may not be obvious. Hall fields the question while sitting at a student-sized desk in his middle school classroom, wearing a blue button-up shirt, grey slacks and black polished shoes. For a second, Tim Hall the aggressive adventure racer emerges; super-human, pain-enduring and thrill-thirsty.

“You kind of define yourself through torture,” Hall says, laughing. “The more you can put yourself through, the more you feel like you have accomplished. I guess that’s why it’s so addicting.”