Subaru Primal Quest Diaries - Silly Rabbits - 2004

[ARReports]

Silly Rabbits Go Live Online at Subaru Primal Quest

Marin County, Calif. -- Augmenting the comprehensive, award-winning coverage of the race at www.subaruprimalquest.com, Adventure Race Reports (ARR) and Silly Rabbits Adventure Racing are pleased to announce an exclusive, live webcast featuring in-depth coverage of a single team during an adventure race. This is no journalist’s interpretation, but reports straight from the mouths and eyes of the racers tackling the race. And not just any adventure race, but the grueling 7-10 day expedition-length Subaru Primal Quest.

In September, 2004, top adventure racing teams from around the world will meet in the Pacific Northwest to battle each other for $250,000 in prize money and the sport’s top honors. One of those squads, Team Silly Rabbits, will be posting their own race reports live to www.Adventure-Race-Reports.com during the entire Subaru Primal Quest expedition adventure race. Silly Rabbits’ reports, including photos, will cover the pre-race activities, to the start line, every TA, and finally the finish line…and maybe the local tavern afterwards.

Silly Rabbits, currently ranked 6th in the U.S. by Adventure Sports Magazine, are made up of San Francisco Bay Area racers Jason Quinn, Andy Tubbs and Rick Baraff, along with Lyn Helliwell of New Zealand. As the team battles for a top finish in this year’s Subaru Primal Quest, crew member Kathryn Tubbs will record the team’s impressions of the course, along with any exciting happenings, obstacles, or hallucinations they face. These stories will then be uploaded to the web as soon as the racers get up from their folding chairs, giving you, the race fans back at home, a nearly live representation of racer’s experiences on the course.

Visit Adventure Race Reports or Subaru Primal Quest’s site often from September 16th to September 28th to read accounts of the Subaru Primal Quest from some of the racers actually completing this amazing adventure race. Wherever their crew can find cell reception, images and stories of Team Silly Rabbits’ experience out on the course will leap from the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest straight through cyberspace to your own computer screen.


About Adventure Race Reports

Adventure Race Reports serves the entire adventure racing community by providing an easily accessible way to locate and exchange reports and stories from adventure races. ARR is a forum-based site, and users have contributed an extensive archive of race reviews, frequent updates from recent races, and links to upcoming adventure and multisport races. ARR is located at http://www.adventure-race-reports.com and membership is free.

About Silly Rabbits

Dr. Jason Quinn, team captain, runs a busy emergency room by night, and by day he runs through all that the Bay Area trails have to offer. Andy Tubbs, a former member of the US National rowing team, champion rugby player and record-holding ultrarunner-turned-adventure racer has never owned a car and runs everywhere… and we mean everywhere. Rick Baraff, the team’s creative genius and resident bike hammer, has years of elite adventure racing under his belt. Lyn Helliwell hails from New Zealand and is one of the top adventure racers and paddlers in her home country. This mother of 2 spends months at a time biking around the world with her whole family in tow. To find out more about the Silly Rabbits, check out their website (www.sillyrabbitsracing.com) or look them up on the Primal Quest site (www.subaruprimalquest.com Press/news). Stay tuned for more “hare”-raising adventures.

About the Subaru Primal Quest

The Subaru Primal Quest is the world’s most prestigious adventure race, attracting the top teams from around the world to compete for the largest prize in the sport: USD$250,000. The race this year will be competed in the rugged Pacific Northwest, and will again be broadcast on CBS on January 23rd, 2005. Competing in the event will be teams from the United States, New Zealand, Great Britain, Columbia, Costa Rica, Sweden, Spain, Finland, Canada, Poland and Brazil.

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To access this live webcast, please visit the “SPQ Special Feature” forum at http://www.Adventure-Race-Reports.com or www.subaruprimalquest.com

[ktubbsar]

Silly Rabbits hit the road




Team Silly Rabbits left today for Seattle to do a little pre-running of the upcoming Subaru Primal Quest adventure race. Of course, they don’t know where the race will go, but they will do their best guessing to get a look-see at the course terrain before the start gun goes off. The team will kayak in the rough seas there and visit many nearby haunts that team captain, Dr. Jason Quinn, remembers from his years growing up in the area. The team will return briefly to San Francisco to gather up all the piles of gear they need to truck back up to the Pacific Northwest. On their way North, they will stop by and compete in the Tahoe Big Blue Sprint Race on September 11th, a week before their big event. This should get all the last minute nerves calmed and prep the team’s bodies to stockpile some important energy stores.

Look for the Rabbits to hop thru again real soon...

[ktubbsar]

Silly Rabbits Victorious at Big Blue Finals



In a time of 6 hours and 52 minutes, Team Silly Rabbits grabbed the overall win at the final Big Blue race in Lake Tahoe Saturday. This was the team’s last tune-up before continuing the drive North to Subaru Primal Quest. The team is looking good and feeling fit, and were happy they had only minor issues in the race. The Rabbits were first off the 2 mile run to the boats and fourth off the water. In the two mile return run to the start location, where they picked up bikes, they caught up to all but the first two person team. They soon caught them on the bike and then chose to orienteer before doing the bike to get a bigger jump on the competition. The rest of the race was anybody’s guess as to who had the lead b/c teams could either bike or orienteer and there were several route choices. Finally around 2pm, we saw the Rabbits racing towards the TA, estimating they were ahead of the closest team by about 15 minutes. That gave them the cushion to walk up the last hill and leisurely enjoy their jog down thru the finish chute to victory. They finished about 20 minutes ahead of the nearest team. Overall, it was a good day’s work and smiles all around. The team found they were peaking at just the right time for SPQ.

The racers had a few post-race comments…

Lyn—“We couldn’t find the ropes course. No, actually they had taken it out of the race but I didn’t find out about that until we got back to the final transition. I was happy about it really b/c I wasn’t looking forward to it. It was a good race. I was worried we’d go too fast before SPQ, but we just cruised. It was fast, but not too fast. The team dynamics were great, as always.”

Jason—“The Tahoe Big Blue was a particularly good race this year b/c it was different than last year. You had to think and not just run thru it like a triathlon. On the paddle, we overshot the first checkpoint. I picked the wrong point, and we were halfway there before we realized it. The terrain didn’t seem right and then we saw the one team in front of us on surf ski’s turn around, so we were sure we needed to turn around and then found it. The biking was.hot, dusty and hard on the bikes. The O-course was really fun with several points off trail where you had to be very accurate. Overall it was a good tune up race for us. It was good that everything didn’t go smoothly b/c it reminded us what we need to stay conscious of in SPQ.”

Rick was napping at press time and Andy stared at the interviewer (his sister) from over a plate of food, with a comment something along the lines of “Do I really need to do this right now, I’m hungry!” Oh, that talker. Andy…look for more endless chatter from him in the days to come!

Tonight the team celebrated by walking way too far to a restaurant in King’s Beach and ate way too many cheesy appetizers and fermented refreshments. Those silly party-hoppers (pun intended!) hit their campsite pillows (wait, we have pillows?!) by 9pm. Sunday we have a long day of driving to get within striking distance of Seattle and the rally point for SPQ.

Hop on, Rabbit fans…

[ktubbsar]

The Rabbit Caravan heads North



It took 3 vehicles, loaded to the ceiling (and then some) to get Team Silly Rabbits and their 5 crew people all up North to Seattle for Subaru Primal Quest. We had quite the bi-continental group going with 3 American racers, 1 Kiwi racer, 1 American crew member, 4 Kiwi crew members and 1 very bemused Kiwi fan along with her Dad for what turned into quite an amusing journey North.



We loaded up in Tahoe after the Big Blue race and left early on Sunday morning toward the 5 Hwy to Washington. The general consensus was to have the most powerful vehicle lead the way and all follow, swapping passengers and drivers all along the way to get better acquainted. Well, lead-foot Kathryn dusted her competition (aka the rest of the caravan) in 20 minutes flat, and the Kiwi’s were spit out the back of the caravan like rain off the windshield. Oops! We stopped, changed plans and then the loaded down Kiwi van led the way. That lasted about 10 minutes before the impatient Americans decided they needed a different strategy! We would drive ahead, stop at different towns, stretch our legs, and waiting for the Kiwis…so much for trading vehicles and getting acquainted, since we all seemed to settle in where we started. We put a cell phone in each car and off we went again. Of course, who knew the backroads, construction delays and non-existent cell reception was to thwart our progress all day to comical levels. So far in over 4 hours, we had done less than 200 miles. At this rate we’d never get there!





At the second stop in Old Station, the speedy Americans waited over an hour for the Kiwis, not knowing they had stealthily ‘sped’ by us while we stopped for gas. We made a very lovely pink Silly Rabbits sign to direct them before giving up and carrying on—not knowing they were now over an hour ahead of us, being quite good at the maps and finding a nice shortcut. We all left incomprehensible cell messages on each other's phones trying to figure out the intl. dials and passing the phones around not knowing they were recording our gobbly-gook.

We came up with lots of games to pass the time--one being writing a message of “Honk if you Hump” on the back of Jason’s car in shoe polish. He couldn’t see it b/c of all the gear, but when the big rigs started honking at 3 men standing near the vehicle in matching t-shirts with shaved legs, it was clear something was suspect! And so, the rest of the day, the boys got shouts, honks and looks all the way to Jason’s parents house…not sure what his parents thought of our practical joke, but the van of Kiwi’s loved it and jumped out with their cameras ready when they serendipitously caught us at a lunchtime gas stop.



As soon as we got close to Washington, the weather turned nasty, raining on all the uncovered gear. We arrived with some very soaked clothes and got a good prelude to the weeks ahead. Even our newly adopted mascot--the Kiwi bird with Bunny ears attached—appeared forlorn looking out the windshield on our final approach. We did make it, sooner than all of us anticipated given the day's early obstacles. And at 11pm, all 3 vehicles and 9 people made our loud and gear-laden entrance to the lovely Quinn homestead. We unpacked with a view of Mount Rainier from the backyard thru pouring rain. We are looking forward to some rest and a week of gear organizing, store runs and last minute prep work. And finally to sitting down together--though we are already getting well acquainted and laughing quite a bit. Silly Rabbits indeed!



Hopping on to the next Rabbit stop…

[ktubbsar]

The Rabbits get dressed up



Tuesday was a very busy day for Team Silly Rabbits on their way to Subaru Primal Quest. Settled in Olympia, WA, for a few days before they drive farther North for the SPQ Rally Point, the team is taking care of last minute business from the Quinn homestead. It gives us crew and the team the chance to relax after so much driving and traveling to all get here. And time to get to know each other better, especially to get the running jokes and nicknames brewing before the tough days ahead. The day started early with the team hitting Mt. Rainer for some last minute glacier work and the crew hiking Mt. Saint Helen's for our own rain-soaked adventure (boy, those Kiwi's 'tramp' fast, especially when the weather turns nasty!). Later we gathered together to work out the TA meal plan, which will be quite complex with 9 mouths to feed, two distinct national diets & vegetarian and meat-eaters thrown into the mix. Team Mom, Paula, graciously sewed patches while the team made last minute adjustments to gear bins. Meanwhile the crew went grocery shopping and cooked for what is now becoming a nightly tradition of fun-loving conversations over dinner. Oh yeah, and as you can see from the pic--the Rabbits tried out their new team uniforms. They don't call them the SILLY Rabbits for nothing! (notice the bunny tail on Andy too!)

Tomorrow, it's another few hours in the car to head even farther North to the rally point and along the way hit the AR shopping mecca of REI, Seattle. We have booked a couple hours to drool over potential new gear purchases and play on the climbing wall. Then it's on to Anacortes.

One last pic...here is Andy Tubbs, the only man alive who can still look intimidating wearing bunny ears... (yes, girls--he's single; go figure!)



Hop on Rabbit fans...

[ktubbsar]

This Silly Rabbit goes to market...



Today, the Silly Rabbits packed up all their gear in labeled bins as best they could--not knowing the order of events or the length of different course sections--and loaded it into one RV. For these next 3 prerace days, prologue and 1 day of racing, the team is limited to one vehicle. It's a particular challenge for the Silly Rabbits as they have 5 crew people with their own gear, 4 team members, and a smallish RV (in comparison to the amazingly large and decked out RV's of other teams). But with a little ingenuity and many, many bungee cords everything found a place inside, on top, off the sides and back of the RV. We hope it stays there!



Then the team drove North and spent the afternoon in REI shopping. It's amazing how many items seem so terribly important to purchase just before a big race, especially the pricey lightweight items you might think twice about at home--but somehow seem to be essential the day before check-in. Needless to say, REI's stock rose steadily this afternoon from our emptying of the store. We weren't the only team there as we spotted some members from Vignette, Golite and Merrill also shopping.

Then it was off to Costco and the unbelievable stockpile of random foodstuffs for real meals and race snacks during the race. We have no idea what strange cravings the racers may get a hankering for, but we hope to be prepared, especially since we could be far from stores for much of the race.



After that it was off to the Quinn family cabin near Anacortes. There the team broke out some new lightweight climbing gear and reset their jumar llengths for the next day's skills testing. Was funny to see them ascend the 8 feet from the first to the second floor balcony and down. Luckily, the balcony held and all was figured out in time for an early sleep...except for me sitting here listening to a cacophony of snores while trying to write.



Off now for some zzz's before our 2:30am wakeup call and ride to the rally point at 4am. Ah, the life of an adventure racer--even the non-race days are epic!

Until next time...

[ktubbsar]

At the ungodly hour of 2:30am, Thursday, Team Silly Rabbits woke up and left the Quinn family cabin for a short drive to the rally point. We needed to be at the rally point a little before 4am to join the caravan to race HQ. We were put in our appropriate order with the other teams to get on the ferry to Orcas Island. This took a long time b/c there were so many team vehicles. There was 8 of us, 3 in the cab of the RV, and 5 in the back. The 5 in the back were a restless lot--of course we were sitting on top of several bins and keeping different yoga poses just to all fit in the 5' of 'seating' left in the RV. Every time the engine stopped we’d jump out and hope the ordeal was over, only to be rounded up again and crammed back in. As it hit 5am, we knew the Starbucks opened and was only a block away. The temptation was too much and we asked SPQ staff how much time before we left…22 minutes. Right on, off we went with the team’s order, j-ran our way over to the Starbucks, hoping to sprint ahead of the other teams and get our order in time to make it back into the caravan. 10 minutes later sauntered back with caffeine for us, Dan & Maria (making sure they wouldn't leave without us!) and other friends...all was right with the world again.

After waiting in line, we got on the first ferry—yay. We jumped out and climbed the ferry stairs to join all the athletes and crews on the top floor of the ferry to see the beautiful Islands we were going to be spending the next few days at. Many slept, as you can see in this pic of Andy, and others visited with friends they see too rarely at races.




Off the ferry on Orcas Island, we caravanned to race HQ at the Rosario Resort, and had 5 minutes to unload all the team's gear from the RV before we had to move it way up the hill to our room. We didn’t get everything out and later procured a wheelbarrow to make gear trips from our RV to the 20’x20’ plot we were assigned on the water's edge.



Our space was next to an empty plot—empty b/c smack dab in the middle of it was a working tetherball court. Well, that was too tempting for the Rabbits to pass up! We spent a good 30 minutes introducing this fun kid’s game to the Kiwi’s, and turned it into a rather competitive game of contact tetherball...but no major injuries to report, though much laughter.



Just as we were getting comfy in our little grass plot and thinking about lunch (at 8:30am), here came the rain. And wouldn’t you know it, one of the many items we left in our other crew vehicle b/c of storage space was the EZ-up with rain guards…D’oh! But never fear...a little ingenuity, some tarp, a lot of string and the procuring (we do a LOT of 'procuring' in crewing for these races) of a nearby bathroom wall and viola, the Rabbits had a rain cover for their gear. Now it may not have matched the spiffy appearance of the fancier sponsored teams, but our ghetto tent worked really well—even better really b/c there was no way the wind was going to blow the bathroom wall away and rip our cover from the gear. Ok, so we all have sore backs from spending days bent over under the low cover, but it works great.



Now the team is hopping off to registration...

[paula]

I love the pictures and updates. Thanks for taking care of this. I hope the weather is better there than here--thunder and lightening. Also hope Mark found you.

Happy Hopping, your fans are cheering.

paula

[ktubbsar]

The Rabbits sign-in and test their skills



Psst...Rabbits t-shirts for sale...they're a hot item!! Get um while they last from the Silly Rabbits crew.

Thursday, Team Silly Rabbits went thru registration and skills testing. This was a 9 hour day of skills testing in kayak safety, ropes, glacier rescue, nautical navigation etc. and followed a 2:30am wakeup, so it was a LONG day. The Rabbits sign-in...no backing out now!



Look at Rick's very organized bin...it won't be like that after day 1!



Teams were backing up on all the testing, so the Rabbits had a lot of time to kill, especially for the kayak skills test. Rick entertained the crowd with a few sand angels. It rained again today (surprise, surprise), which made for a wet, chilly day.



Here the team shows their knowledge of a kayak pulley...



And here's the team on the various in-water stations...







In our attempt to be voted the best crew, Debbie and I cooked up some hot cocoa and brewed coffee with homemade cookies for the teams exit from the water. But they got in just as the sun broke thru and with their full dry suits on they were sweating bullets by the time they were done. So much for refreshments!



The team next went to ropes skills testing. The race organization changed their safety systems again from last year, which meant the team had to do several last minute set up changes. While this doesn't change their performance on the ropes, it is slightly frustrating after a year's training to get comfortable with one set up and changing it two days before the race. But everyone agrees--safety first...





To keep tract of all the Rabbits hopping around race HQ, we are using two way radios. The crew are Bunnies 1-5 and the team is Rabbits 1-4...the athletes refused to be called Bunnies as they are soft, fuzzy animals and they are under the delusion that Rabbit sounds much more ferocious...grrrrrr!

After the ropes, ½ the crew went to cook the team’s dinner and the other ½ accompanied the team to the media and other administrative stations. Tired and very hungry (and a bit grumpy) Rabbits showed up at 9pm for a luke warm dinner of veges and chicken, and 2 minutes after eating we were all sound asleep. Uh, oh--I've been told I snore...sheesh.





Hop on, Rabbit fans...

[ktubbsar]

Rabbits hop thru the Prologue



On Saturday, Subaru Primal Quest started with a prologue race that would decide start order on the expedition length race. It was a 3-6 hour sprint adventure race. While teams would only lose at the most 18 minutes on the first wave of paddlers, there was much at stake. It was a technical prologue course with many opportunities to trip on the run or crash on the bike and end your race before it even started. With that in mind, Team Silly Rabbits wanted to go semi-easy and just be careful…but that’s easier said than done when you’ve got the world’s best teams all around you, teeming with competitive fire from a week of ‘resting’ and prep work. Uh, and you're wearing pink, furry costumes trying to prove Rabbits can have fangs too!



It was a noon start, so Silly Rabbits had some time to sleep in—there was much tossing and turning though. Much of the time before the prologue was spent eating (a common activity for the team this week) and preparing more gear details and food packets for the longer expedition race. After eating, the team was also able to nap and warm up just before the prologue.



In the meantime, the crew attended the crew meeting and got the first glimpse of the race and the extent of our duties. The course seemed huge! But the event looked to be very well organized.




Silly Rabbits wanted to use the prologue as a time for some fun and let their abundant personalities show. They may not get to do that during the long expedition race, so they donned some lovely Rabbit costumes. Each teammate had a set of pink/white Rabbit ears (as did the whole crew) on their heads, tube socks with hand-made Rabbit logos and a gyrating hula girl on the bow of their kayak. The crew had cottontails too!



The prologue split the team for parts of the course. Two members kayaked about 45 minutes, all four ran 3.9 miles on trails, then the two other team members biked for about 10.5 miles, and the team came together again for the last 1.4 mile run to the finish.





Andy and Lyn did the kayak. There wasn’t much space between boats and it was chaos with a mass start. They tried to drag their boat quickly out front, away from the masses to jump in and paddle away before getting bottlenecked. Unfortunately, their rudder stuck halfway down and this made them less efficient for the first few minutes of paddling. We bit our nails on shore witnessing this, but Lyn noticed it and lowered the rudder soon enough. Rick and Jason watched in binoculars as they waited to join the team for the run.



Lyn and Andy exited the water about where we expected them, in the second wave of boats coming in. Their transition to the run was fast, so fast we lost track of Andy’s pfd and spent the next 2+ hours searching from crew to crew (met many wonderful people!) for it while they were racing—found it just as the first team was coming down the final run. When the Silly Rabbits finished, Andy says, “So what did you get to do all day?” and we just rolled our eyes and said, “Looked for your G.D. PFD!”



The team said the bike was really hard with much climbing, which we could see from all the muddy faces on every racer who did the bike section. The Rabbits said they saw a lot of teams anxious at how long it was taking their teammates to return from where they all waited at the CP and how worked the riders looked upon dropping their bikes.



When we heard teams were on their final approach to the finish, we stationed some of the crew at the finish line with cameras and then some of us hiked up a ways on an access road to get pictures as they were running down. We had our radios to communicate which teams were passing by. After the first three teams came thru spread out a bit, it was a mass of teams sprinting downhill at full throttle towards the finish. It was fun to hear how many teams recognized our Bunny ears and yelled, “The Rabbits are right behind us.” Yep, soon enough, I saw the familiar pink ears running down the road looking very happy (happy to be almost done, that is!)



After this 3+ hour adventure, the first words out of the Rabbits’ mouths were, “What’s to eat?!” We had some very hungry and spent Rabbits on our hands--uh, oh. The crew rushed about a bit getting more food together since we didn’t expect the team to want another entire meal so soon after lunch, but they did…a good sign that they are fueling up well for the upcoming week.



Overall, the Silly Rabbits thought the prologue was pretty darn tough and long for the day before a 6+ day difficult adventure race. But everyone on the team felt good and they said everything went fairly well. The Rabbits said all the teams went pretty hard in the prologue, and it was difficult not to go fast. They were happy to have landed themselves in the third wave on the paddle for Sunday’s official start.



After eating the team took a nap, while the crew fixed dinner to take to the prerace briefing. Other members of the crew gathered up the team's gear from various staging areas and brought it all up to the RV for packing to get to the first TA (since time would be tight after the start, we wanted to have it all ready to go beforehand).



Then we went to the prerace briefing at 6pm. The team was done with the Rabbit ears and refused to wear them, but the crew was still representing. Rabbits ate some potato, cheese, chicken burritos and fruit salad as they watched inspiring video from previous SPQ races and heard Dan’s descriptions of the course. Many directors of various legs of the race talked about safety issues and pretty much scared the bejeebas out of everyone in this big tent about how difficult Subaru Primal Quest was going to be. A silence hung over the room after the ropes and water sections were discussed. Weather is certainly going to be an issue on this course, and we were warned that while teams had many choices of routes and clothing, ultimately this is a dangerous course and mistakes could be fatal. The team was in awe and excited about what lay ahead of them.



Jason separated out for a captain’s-only meeting and came back hours later at 10pm with many, many maps marking the course. The rest of the team plowed thru dinner #2 (yes, if you're counting that's 6 big meals so far today). He layed the maps out and described to the team what they were going to encounter in the days ahead. The crew quickly got together notes on what they were to do at the first TA, staging for the start etc. and went to work while the team spent the next hour going over the maps in detail and making strategic decisions for the race. You could feel the palpable energy and excitement in them to get this thing going and sink their Rabbit fangs into it. It’s a beauty of a race--but daunting too. At 11pm, the team jumped into beds to attempt to sleep...doubt they will actually sleep with all the anticipation, but that's the plan anyway. Tomorrow they have an epic day of 50 miles of ocean paddling ahead among the San Juan Islands.



The whole Silly Rabbits bunch (crew and team) would like to say a huge THANK YOU for all the supportive emails and cheers we have been getting online and around the course--from other teams, volunteers, spectators staff, family, friends and sponsors. It's been amazing to witness what a goofy name and cheap costumes will get you, haha...just kidding. No, really, we appreciate all the support--it's very cool!



Think Safe and Speedy Rabbit thoughts for the next 5-9 days! Until the Start and TA1, Bunny 3 is signing off.

Hop on, Rabbit fans…

[ktubbsar]

Silly Rabbits hop thru the start



Team Silly Rabbits had a terrific start this morning to the Subaru Primal Quest. They jumped out first on the run thru the starting gate to their boats and out in the water first in wave three. And they caught the boats in wave 2 within a short while. As the crew rode on a ferry to the next TA, we passed the paddlers and were happy to see thru the binoculars that the Rabbits were sitting pretty in 11th place and drafting off a couple good paddle teams conserving energy. They said the last part of the paddle from CP4 to the TA was difficult with a headwind the whole way. Some of them were pretty chilled coming into TA from those cold waters, but otherwise they thought the paddle was very nice, certainly beautiful among all the San Juan Islands.



They stayed in 11th place thru TA1, and left on their first trek leg in good spirits. They will pick up their scooters halfway thru this leg at a remote assisted checkpoint.


These reports will need to be sneaked in when we have cell reception between TA's, so will try for more details when we can get it.

Hop on, Rabbit fans...

[Blakwolf]

Congrats and thanks for the updates

[ktubbsar]

Silly Rabbits, Day 1

Pre-race Subaru Primal Quest tent city chaos...



And the're off...





Ok, so it’s Monday at 1pm and I finally have some cell reception in a little town called Concrete. It only runs for 3 blocks or so. I’ve driven down from TA3 to provide some more updates and pictures now that we’ve had a chance to unpack, setup, clean gear and ‘relax’ for a bit while the team is out for what looks to be about a 30+- hour adventure.





Here’s some pictures of Team Silly Rabbits from the first paddle leg of Subaru Primal Quest. We, the crew, were able to see them from the ferry ride from Orcas Islands to the mainland. It was very fun with all the crews running from bow to stern to wave to various boats and spot their teams in passed around binoculars.

Here’s a view of the kayaks from our ferry ride…







GPS updates can be a blessing or a curse. When we were driving from the start to TA1—already on a tight time schedule—we got a call from a friend saying he checked the website updates and the Rabbits were in first. EGADS! We were in the supermarket shopping for them and had a feeling this info was wrong but what did we know—I guess with the navigator’s local knowledged, it could be conceivable. We practically sprinted thru checkout and on the roads to get to TA1 in time of the fastest estimated time. We were so discombobulated at this news and rushing to get their in time that we actually drove towards TA2 and got ½ way there before we realized we were going to the wrong TA, haha. Funnier still, we saw several other RV’s going the other way and we just figured they were going shopping, not that we made a wrong turn. Good thing we aren’t navigating for the team! It was probably the only time the crew was a little bit relieved when the next hour’s web update rectified the standings and put Silly Rabbits back in 11th place where we thought they might be at the time. Then, of course, we were bummed it wasn’t correct.







The team came into TA1 dragging all sorts of water logged gear. They didn’t realized they’d have a portage at the end to the CP with all their gear and not the boat. It slowed them down a bit, but the crew was able to grab this pile of gear and hustle the team to their transition area. We learned to throw a spare dry bag in for the possibility in the future. Silly Rabbits looked good and were talkative. They said most of the kayaking was enjoyable, except the last bit from the last paddle CP to TA, which was straight into a headwind. Lyn was cold coming into TA1, but we warmed her up, got the team fed, changed for a trek and out on the next leg, lickity split.


More Rabbit news coming…

[ktubbsar]

Silly Rabbits first night out…

Sunday night/Monday morning, TA2…





Team Silly Rabbits had trained in the general area of their first trek leg just a month prior to this race so they were familiar with the terrain. Afterwards at TA2 though, navigator, Jason Quinn, said that didn’t help at all with navigation, as he expected it would. The navigation on this leg was very difficult and mostly off-trail. The team felt they crisscrossed all over the mountains on this section and thought for sure they had lost many places, but they came in the same ranking as they left. That buoyed their spirits as did the fact that several top teams were still in TA sleeping, so they could afford a nap before heading out on the long, tough leg to come.

Classic Andy TA look--nice tights!



Rick and Jason get some “AR vitamins” from Nurse Debbie…mmm, Ibuprofin.



Team Silly Rabbits got a little over an hour’s sleep and then Team Silly Bunnies (their crew) woke them up and kicked them out into the cold early morning fog.

Now this is one supportive hubby!



The team was leaving on a bike & tie to an assisted checkpoint where they picked up two more bikes to do a 68+ mile mtn bike ride with no crew aid. Although we hurried, we barely made it to the bike drop in time. As we were rushing to put lights on bikes, here comes the team. We weren’t allowed to interact with them, but we waved and wished them luck as we drove down the street and snapped off a few pictures while they silently went about getting ready to bike. We saw Team Wellsports ride in as we were driving out, so we got to cheer them on as well. Unfortunately their crew wasn’t there yet, but the team only had to wait a couple minutes—woosh, that was good. All of us crews are glad that the TA’s will be spread out a bit more for the remainder of the race as the first few are always hard to set up in time.





Now the Rabbits are off on what looks like a 30+ hour bike ride. More updates when they return…until then, the Rabbit crew hopes to actually sleep—what a luxury!

Think speedy Rabbit thoughts…

[trainDaBrain]

wow that looks miserable! how is everyone handling the wet?