Wow. WHAT A RIDE!!!
...Literally...
After starting the Expedition XStream adventure race in Moab at noon on Thursday, Team DART-nuun (Glenn Rogers, Sean Clancy, Mari Chandler, and Matt Hayes) crossed the finish line at after 70 hours of racing at 10:20am on Sunday in 1st place!
This was a truly epic adventure race that saw nearly every other "elite" team drop out or lose teammates due to injury (mountain biking was very technical) or exposure (heat exhaustion/hyperthermia in the desert) or "cold exhaustion/hypothermia".
Yes, withinn hours on the same day we faced 95 degree temps on the slickrock near Moab and 40 degree temperatures-and hail-in the La Sal mountains.
We managed to win this race with flawless navigation, constant teamwork, completely dialed nutrition/hydration (the usual, nuun and Vitargo S2), and our unbelievable support crew who flew into Salt Lake City from Seattle and made the 4 hour drive to Moab with us: Tom and Jill Purcell.
Handlling adversity is always a factor in an adventure race. We had a frozen disk brake, a broken spoke, and a flat...all in the first hour of the first bike section! To give you an idea of how hot it was on the slickrock, on one 8 hour run/hike/ropes section I personally left with 272 ounces of water. It was not nearly enough. Luckily we found a random natural spring leaking water in one of the canyons!
To see how spectacular and challenging this racecourse was, check out this gallery on the link below...it captures much of the spectacular setting of this 280+ mile
course.
http://www.checkpointtracker.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=app.showDashboard&eventID=147 M
Mari also took dozens of great shots while we were out on the course. I will try to post those on my racing blog when I get home. That's 7 wins in 7 races this year. I'm going to grab a beer and take a nap!
Thanks for tuning in!
Sean Clancy
Team DART-nuun Adventure Racing
www.nuun.com
www.clancymultisport.blogspot.com
http://www.checkpointtracker.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=app.showDashboard&eventID=147
More to follow! Thanks for the shoutouts during the race!
1 comment:
Congratulations!! Those pictures are SICK and I cannot believe the environment changes so much in 70 hours but sound like you covered a lot of ground in that time.
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