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Truckee adventure racer Susan Bower left for Primal Quest Badlands with a complete set of toenails.
To her surprise, after eight days and some 600 miles of racing, she returned with the same number.
“I have all 10 toenails!” said Bower, who predicted just the opposite before taking on the biggest, baddest adventure race of them all. “I actually came back and celebrated by cutting my toenails and painting them. Not one blister and not any loss of toenails.”
Susan Bower, her husband Scott, Thomas Bastis and Truckee's Jim Easterbrook, who together make up Team Aquan/iRule, set off from middle-of-nowhere South Dakota on Aug. 14.
They crossed the finish line in Rapid City this past Saturday morning at around 5:30, sleep deprived and sore, but elated to have conquered all the challenges thrown their way. They placed 11th out of 38 teams.
Awaiting their arrival was pizza and ice cream — a final act of compassion from Primal Quest, which puts on the largest non-motorized, multi-sport, multi-day event of its kind in the country.
It all started with a marathon run — the full 26.2 miles — to kick off Day 1, and ended with a century bike ride.
In between, the race abounded with adventure. There were orienteering sections, lengthy mountain bike legs, caves to navigate, rock spires to climb and descend, and, perhaps worst of all, a 47-mile kayaking stretch on a shallow Cheyenne River.
“The most standout section was the most miserable section,” Easterbrook said, “and that was a 40-mile — quote, unquote — ‘paddle' down 6 inches of water.”
Susan agreed. The kayaking section was no fun. Besides the part when her husband accidentally whacked her in the face with his paddle, she said the foursome had to walk about half the way. With poor visibility in the milky water, they stumbled along the rocky riverbed while shivering in the cold. On two occasions fish jumped into their rubber, self-bailing kayaks.
“I was like, ‘even the fish hate this river,'” said Susan, adding that they joked about there being more water in theirs boats than in the river.
Another trying leg of the race came in the Black Hills on Day 3 — before the days began to blur together, Susan said — when their team faced a downhill mountain bike stretch in sticky mud immediately after a downpour. The thick, clay-like soil stuck to every part of their bikes, making for some arduous traveling for several miles.
“Our bikes were so clogged with mud I couldn't even pick mine up,” Susan said, adding that riding was impossible much of the stretch.
Asked which was worse, the shallow river or the muddy bike leg, Easterbrook settled on both.
“I'd say both were pretty equally defeating,” he said with a laugh.
“But then you'd get so inspired by the good single-track (biking) and the climbing section — and in the mornings when you'd see a sunrise and you were going at a good clip, you'd get really excited about racing. It was a new day, and you tried to put some of the miserable sections behind you.”
An avid climber and mountain biker, Easterbrook said the ropes course — set up on giant granite spires in The Needles area of the Black Hills — and the 100 or so miles of forested single-track stood out as his favorite portions of the race.
“It was pretty spectacular,” he said of the ropes course. “Definitely a real treat for a lot of folks, especially for folks who are not climbers … The Needles of South Dakota, I never knew they are as spectacular as they are.”
Susan described the ropes course as “indescribable.”
“It was like Disneyland for climbers,” she said. “It was huge. I don't think something like that will ever be set up again.”
At the finish line after eight days of such adventures, Susan said opposing team members swapped stories of sleep-deprived hallucinations. The closest she came to relating to their tales was waking up cold and disoriented in the middle of the night, thinking they were missing people in their group. But they were all there.
Thinking back on the whole experience, Susan said she won't likely enter another adventure race for some time.
“I think I'm done for awhile,” she said. “Not because it was too tough; because it just takes too much time out of my life and my boys' lives. I really just want to get back to being a soccer mom.”
To her surprise, after eight days and some 600 miles of racing, she returned with the same number.
“I have all 10 toenails!” said Bower, who predicted just the opposite before taking on the biggest, baddest adventure race of them all. “I actually came back and celebrated by cutting my toenails and painting them. Not one blister and not any loss of toenails.”
Susan Bower, her husband Scott, Thomas Bastis and Truckee's Jim Easterbrook, who together make up Team Aquan/iRule, set off from middle-of-nowhere South Dakota on Aug. 14.
They crossed the finish line in Rapid City this past Saturday morning at around 5:30, sleep deprived and sore, but elated to have conquered all the challenges thrown their way. They placed 11th out of 38 teams.
Awaiting their arrival was pizza and ice cream — a final act of compassion from Primal Quest, which puts on the largest non-motorized, multi-sport, multi-day event of its kind in the country.
It all started with a marathon run — the full 26.2 miles — to kick off Day 1, and ended with a century bike ride.
In between, the race abounded with adventure. There were orienteering sections, lengthy mountain bike legs, caves to navigate, rock spires to climb and descend, and, perhaps worst of all, a 47-mile kayaking stretch on a shallow Cheyenne River.
“The most standout section was the most miserable section,” Easterbrook said, “and that was a 40-mile — quote, unquote — ‘paddle' down 6 inches of water.”
Susan agreed. The kayaking section was no fun. Besides the part when her husband accidentally whacked her in the face with his paddle, she said the foursome had to walk about half the way. With poor visibility in the milky water, they stumbled along the rocky riverbed while shivering in the cold. On two occasions fish jumped into their rubber, self-bailing kayaks.
“I was like, ‘even the fish hate this river,'” said Susan, adding that they joked about there being more water in theirs boats than in the river.
Another trying leg of the race came in the Black Hills on Day 3 — before the days began to blur together, Susan said — when their team faced a downhill mountain bike stretch in sticky mud immediately after a downpour. The thick, clay-like soil stuck to every part of their bikes, making for some arduous traveling for several miles.
“Our bikes were so clogged with mud I couldn't even pick mine up,” Susan said, adding that riding was impossible much of the stretch.
Asked which was worse, the shallow river or the muddy bike leg, Easterbrook settled on both.
“I'd say both were pretty equally defeating,” he said with a laugh.
“But then you'd get so inspired by the good single-track (biking) and the climbing section — and in the mornings when you'd see a sunrise and you were going at a good clip, you'd get really excited about racing. It was a new day, and you tried to put some of the miserable sections behind you.”
An avid climber and mountain biker, Easterbrook said the ropes course — set up on giant granite spires in The Needles area of the Black Hills — and the 100 or so miles of forested single-track stood out as his favorite portions of the race.
“It was pretty spectacular,” he said of the ropes course. “Definitely a real treat for a lot of folks, especially for folks who are not climbers … The Needles of South Dakota, I never knew they are as spectacular as they are.”
Susan described the ropes course as “indescribable.”
“It was like Disneyland for climbers,” she said. “It was huge. I don't think something like that will ever be set up again.”
At the finish line after eight days of such adventures, Susan said opposing team members swapped stories of sleep-deprived hallucinations. The closest she came to relating to their tales was waking up cold and disoriented in the middle of the night, thinking they were missing people in their group. But they were all there.
Thinking back on the whole experience, Susan said she won't likely enter another adventure race for some time.
“I think I'm done for awhile,” she said. “Not because it was too tough; because it just takes too much time out of my life and my boys' lives. I really just want to get back to being a soccer mom.”
