The Endorphin FIX Adventure Race
LiteSpeed Get Their Fix
Dawn Taylor-Mann/Odyssey AR / 30.05.2004
The electrical storm that dropped the pre-race briefing into darkness foreshadowed the lightning-fast speed in which 2-person male team Litespeed would blaze through the New Balance Endorphin FIX course between May 21-23rd, in the New River Gorge Area, WV.Jay Curwen, who is a two-time Hawaii Ironman Pro, ultra-runner, 4:15-minute mile runner, 2003 USARA Champion and race director from North Carolina teamed up with Joe Crocker, a WV climbing guide, mountain biker and first-time adventure racer (and “all around brutally strong genetic freak,� according to Jay) to form this tenacious team. A near faultless execution of this 140-mile course landed these first-rate athletes at the finish line in just 30 hours 51 minutes, a full 7.5 hours before the next team, Chris Caul and Bill Scoggins of Godspeed. Team Adventure Pocono, and soloist Bryan Goble rounded out the PRO category finishers.
Curwen and Crocker met just a week ago when they unexpectedly ended up as team mates in a mountain bike race in SW North Carolina. It was an opportune meeting for the two who would triumph over the 13th edition of the FIX, which was presented by Blue Ridge Mountain Sports, and is known widely as “The Toughest 2-Day Race in the Country.�
This course was markedly more challenging and intricate than previously, a sentiment repeated by many returning FIX competitors. Despite Curwen’s impressive athletic bio, he said it was the most challenging race he’s ever done. Crocker concurred, “Adventure racing is HARD.� As course designer Joy Marr stated in the race brief, this course was unique in that racers would travel on 3 rivers and through 3 gorges as they hiked, bike, swam, paddled and rappelled.
The race started at midnight after a dramatic thunder and lightning storm that left racers in the dark to prep their gear by headlamp. The 4-mile New Balance Trail Run prologue wound the 19 two-person teams, 5 four-person teams and 9 soloists through a wooded gorge adjacent to the start line. The ensuing 30-mile bike leg took racers along rural country roads, and creek side single track before ending in a remote rural cemetery.
The 9-mile hike from the bike drop to the river swim start is known far and wide as the notorious “Endless Wall trek� that tests capable navigators with its boulder-strewn pseudo-trails. Once at the swim put-in on the New River, racers were treated to an exhilarating series of rapids and fast moving water that they negotiated on their boogie boards.See All Event Posts
