Primal Quest Day 4

06.26.08

The team had dropped their bikes at another unassisted TA for an extended trek through the Crazy Mountains, or the Crazy Woman Mountains, or 'The Crazies' if you are a local. Apparently it is named after a woman who went insane and lived somewhere in the mountains after her family was killed in the western settlement movement. The Crazy Woman Mountains is the English version of a Crow Indian name. It is unclear to me from the Wiki article whether the woman was a Crow Indian or a settler.

I hung around the RV most of the day. I had no way of knowing exactly where the team was going to pop out of the woods, and I was getting a little distressed at all of the waiting around. Around sunset the team rolls in with grins on their faces. Dave Boyd has a hole in his shoe. Dave's own size 14 and Nathan's size 11.5 had been placed in his pack for pickup at the unassisted TA, and he had no choice but to make it work for the extended trek through The Crazies. He had to cut a hole in tip and remove the insole so that his foot fit, and luckily it did. The shoes themselves were identical in every way, expect for the size. Looking at the shoes on Dave's feet there was an obvious difference, but when they were placed in the pack it was not so clear. It is also unclear who was responsible - it could have been any one of the three of us. Because I had been providing assistance, generally handing things to people when asked or microwaving things - all seemingly trivial tasks - I did not feel that my actions had significant consequences. This was clearly not the case. MOAT and all the other teams racing Primal Quest teams are only as good as their support. Support crews are critical, rate limiting, equally important as the racers themselves.

Dave did not seem bothered by the incident. He even said, seriously or sarcastically, that the smaller shoe was lighter and it felt good - the only harm done was ruining the shoe. Obviously this could have been a disaster. From this moment forward I did not provide any direct support and focused solely on photography. However, because of my lack of autonomy, opportunities were far and few between....frustration levels were starting to build.

........

Footnote:

Yesterday, or maybe it was the day before, while riding with Rick to the next TA I saw a little bird attacking a hawk. I watched it for a while out of window of the SUV. I turned to him and described what I saw. Without saying a word he reached over and flipped down my visor so that I was looking at myself in the mirror. This pretty much sums up our relationship. I can blame this friction on lack of sleep, but most likely even in the best of circumstances our personality types are not terribly compatible. To make matters worse there was a conflict of interest between me and the support crew. My goal was to get images of the team, especially action photos, where the crew was entirely focused on providing support. This included transporting critical gear, feeding and providing a comfortable place for the team to sleep and helping with strategy decisions. Obviously there was a hierarchy of priorities. However, I was supposed to have had access to a vehicle in order to be able to work independently and to prevent any conflicts of interest - this was not made available to me. The second vehicle instead was solely an additional support vehicle. To make a long story short without going into too much detail, I felt very limited in my abilities to follow the team.