Primal Quest Badlands
Into the Black Hills
Team Orion Health / 15.08.2009
The leading teams at Primal Quest Badlands (PQ) have completed the first few stages with Kiwi team OrionHealth.com vying for the lead in a tight tussle at the front of the field.
After the gruelling "prairie marathon" it was OrionHealth.com, narrowly leading Salomon Crested Butte (SCB), who came into transition first to the cheers of the waiting PQ staff, volunteers and spectators. Cutting out the 26 mile run course in about 3 hours 40 minutes the leading athletes when asked seemed to all have found the run "OK". Eric (Sully) Sullivan from SCB commented that the sealed section of the run (which had taken about 90 mins) had been especially hard and jarring and adding to the challenge of this section of the race.
There was a little unexpected drama before the end of the first leg with the teams at the front of the field encountering an irate farmer who, according to a somewhat perturbed Anna Berthelsen, "threatened to shoot us ... TWICE!". Apparently the highly unusual sight of red bibbed adventure racers running through their domain had spooked some of the cattle which had understandably upset their owner.
After a quick refill of drink bottles and food the teams headed out onto the Fort Mead Reservation and an orienteering course with 17 checkpoints scattered on and around a steep gully/spur with thin forest cover. Neil Jones (NZ) and Rob Preston (Australia) looked to be quite stiff on leaving the transition after marking up their maps but made very good time over the course, clawing back about 15 minutes on SCB.
Neil mentioned that he had not been able to do much running training prior to the race due to a hip injury he'd sustained in a bike crash so he was "stoked" that he had managed to come through the first two run sections so well. He did comment that he "[couldn't] wait for the end of day one" though as he "likes walking"!
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