The Primal Quest Montana endurance racer was riding his mountain bike just outside of Big Timber on Thursday when a dog ran in front of him.
“Unfortunately, I was unable to kill him,” Fredericks, 42, joked while examining the crack in his cycling helmet.
Team Big Sky/Flathead Beacon was 213 miles and four days into the 512-mile Primal Quest race when they pulled into the Otter Creek fishing access site along the Yellowstone River. The site is one of the transition areas along the race course where athletes stock up on food and water, and get medical treatment for blisters and abrasions.
Support teams traveling in trucks, vans and RVs supply the food, water and gear. Unfortunately for the four-person co-ed team representing western Montana, they arrived before their support crew, forcing them to rely on the kindness of others.
“This is paying it forward because we were 20 minutes late for our team,” said Teresa Jackson, of Las Vegas, a support crew member for Team Xtreme Couture, as she and Kristen Munson passed out water, Gatorade and burritos to the Big Sky team.
The team found refuge from the sun under an awning set up by Team ActionLearning.com's support crew.
“We just exploded on you,” apologized Thomas Etter, 44, of Team Big Sky.
“That's OK,” said Jen Pollard, of Blacksburg, Va., a support member for ActionLearning.com. “We've all got to take care of each other.”
Primal Quest Montana began Monday morning at Big Sky Resort. Four days later, Team Nike was far ahead, already running the ridge along the top of the Bridger Mountains headed toward Bozeman, about 366 miles into the race. The second place team, Merrell/Zanfel Adventure, was just scaling the base of the Bridgers.
The final day of the race is Wednesday. Teams that haven't made it back to Big Sky by then will be pulled from the course. Out of the 58 teams that started the race, five have dropped out and two have lost a team member but elected to continue racing.
Since the race's start, Team Big Sky has navigated through the Madison and Gallatin mountain ranges, kayaked and riverboarded down the flood-swollen Gallatin River and mountain biked from Trail Creek nearly to Gardiner before turning around and biking to the base of the Crazy Mountains. The team has three Montanans - married couple Darin and Kristen Fredericks (of Bigfork) and Matulionis (of Whitefish), while Etter is from Missouri.
There's a reason they call this adventure racing.
Team Big Sky related a few experiences from the race's first four days.
During the riverboarding, Kristen, 39, got recirculated in a washing machine-like section of whitewater in the Gallatin River and couldn't get out.
“I got sucked into a hole,” said the mother of two. “I finally got out, and after that I was totally paranoid.”
At a medical checkpoint along the riverboarding section, Darin was ruled hypothermic. That meant to continue on, the team had to hike to the next checkpoint. But the route they were told to take ended up being washed out, forcing them to turn around.
“It was fun until the riverboarding fiasco,” Matulionis said. “That added a lot more work for us.”
About 70 hours into the race, having only slept about half an hour, Etter said he came near to collapse after getting cold while descending what seemed like a never-ending forest trail.
“It was a very difficult descent, very pounding on the legs. Luckily, I was pretty delirious,” he said. “My team was awesome and pulled me through. It took about four to five hours to recover.”
After navigating the Gallatins, the team hopped on mountain bikes Wednesday night and began riding south in the Paradise Valley toward Carbella fishing access site, the next transition point.
Originally, the racers were supposed to kayak down the Yellowstone River. But with the water running so high, race organizers elected to make the teams bike ride instead of kayak.
“Man, last night during the bike ride we felt so psyched to get going, but we were so tired,” Darin said. “We were weaving back and forth. I said, ‘Andrew, look at that elephant.' It was from a water spot in the road, but it looked just like an elephant.”
Kristen said she told Darin to sing a song to keep himself awake, but he couldn't think of any.
“So we just kept singing the ABC song over and over again,” Kristen said.
Luckily, the group got a good three hours sleep at Carbella and felt strong as they biked from there to Big Timber on Thursday morning. The burst of speed surprised their support team, which pulled into the transition point an hour late.
Despite the delay, Team Big Sky moved ahead a notch to 19th place as they aimed for the base of the Crazy Mountains, which they must cross before bike riding to the Bridger Mountains.
“Now we're pretty good,” Matulionis said. “Everyone has had some ups and downs, a few injuries. Anything can happen in these races. Unfortunately, we had a few unfortunate things. But it's a race of attrition. You keep putting one foot in front of the other and see where we are when we're done.”
|
 |
 |
Add your comment now! Write your comment in the form below.
(Email address is for verification only. If you'd like to email a story, look for the link above)