Captain Blain Reeves leads his team into an almost impenetrable tangle of brush that makes the Panamanian jungle look like the third green at Augusta. After jumping off at a point 50 miles to the rear, they plunge into six miles of bushwhacking before climbing 3,500 feet in less than a mile to the top of Lone Goat Peak. The target is still almost 300 miles beyond the summit. If you’re thinking Reeves’ team is on a special Op’s mission, guess again. Team Live Hard does this for fun.

They call their sport adventure racing. The four men and one woman of Team Live Hard, of which only Reeves is a servicemember, were in British Columbia’s untamed wilderness competing in Eco-Challenge ’96, adventure racing’s crown jewel. Between the start and finish, 70 teams of five faced crevasse riddled glaciers, Class IV white water rapids, rocky peaks, and hundreds of miles of cross country trekking and mountain biking. Three teams finished.

Pushing the human body beyond its limits has led to a sport that makes the Ironman triathlon seem like a warm-up. What marathons were to the ‘70s, and triathlons to the ‘80s and ‘90s, adventure racing may be to the 21^st century.

"Adventure races blow triathlons away," says Reeves, a light infantry company commander at Ft. Lewis, Wash. "Triathlons are a sprint compared to adventure racing. The Ironman is hard, but the fastest times are only around seven or eight hours. It’s a lot of miles, but it’s all done in less than a day. A triathlon taxes your body, but it doesn’t beat it up like doing it over seven to ten days. An adventure race is more like Ranger school. It’s an extra long gut check where you’re going and going, and not eating or sleeping a whole lot.

"You’re probably doing several Ironmans in a row," agrees adventure racer Jack Crawford publisher of the Beyond Adventure Sports newsletter. According to Crawford, an adventure race is a multi-day, multi-event, team race. "Unlike triathlons, doing well isn’t a matter of trimming seconds off your time by improving your swimming stroke, or having aerodynamic wheels on your bike. It’s more a matter of team dynamics, and making the right choices in route selection."

Though U.S. Teams competed in earlier adventure races, it was the Eco-Challenge’s 1995 inaugural run through the Utah desert that brought the sport to a wide audience in the U.S. Extensive media coverage encouraged more American teams to enter adventure races, but so far no U.S. team has won a major event.

When the finish line is more than 300 miles away, just completing the race should be enough. The requirements to finish, however, are as harsh as the course. To earn official ranking, the entire team must cross the finish line. Lose a team member due to injury, illness, quitting or the unthinkable, your team is disqualified. Show up for an inspection wile en route without a piece of mandatory equipment, see you next year. Receive extra food or water from outside sources, adios. Reeves’ Team Live Hard succumbed to injury.

This year, the Eco-Challenge goes down under to Queensland, Australia for an August 12-23 run. Teams drop to four members, and they will be required to traverse deserts, rain forests, and lava tubes before it’s over.

If the Eco-Challenge is adventure racing’s crown jewel, its holy grail is the Raid Gauloises. Begun by Frenchman Gerad Fusil in 1989 the "Challenge of the Warriors: is the standard by which adventure races are measure. Changing locations each year, the Raid has challenged teams in some of the harshest environments on earth, including Madagascar, Borneo, Patagonia and, earlier this year, South Africa. Next stop, the Philippines.

Longevity and a strong international following are in the Raid’s favor. French television features nightly race updates, and there is an active Internet site. Like the races it inspired, the Raid launches five-person mixed-gender teams across hundreds of miles of the earth’s most spectacular and rugged scenery using a variety of non-motorized transportation modes. The first U.S. team to enter this French dominated event finished ninth in 1992, the best U.S. showing to date.

No standard format exists for adventure races, but mixed-gender teams of three to five persons are the norm. Having female team members is definitely not tokenism. Two years in a row, a four-woman, one-man team finished third in the Raid. France’s Dominique Roberts is the only person to ever win both the Raid and the Eco-Challenge.

Major races change countries, and often continents, each year. Competitors don’t learn the race route until just before the start, and support teams can’t tip competitors off about the next leg.

Newer, and closer to home, is the adventure race portion of ESPN’s Extreme Games. Starting on Mexico’s Baja peninsula on June 21, 12 teams of three will race over 300 miles to finish in San Diego.

ESPN’s adventure race differs from others, according to the X-Games’ Chris Stiepock. "while other races go 24 hours a day, seven days a week, we start and finish at an exact location each day. Each day except the last, the 12 teams all start at the same time."

"That way," says Stiepock, "we guarantee that whoever crosses the finish line first is the ultimate winner. Doing things in stages allows us to televise the race a little easier.

In a sport where calendars replace stopwatches, the 1996 C-Games delivered the closest finish in adventure racing history when, after several days of racing, the second place team beat out third by a mere two feet in a canoe duel.

This month, the Four Winds Adventure Race makes its first run through the Rockies amid bold claims. Billing itself as 1997’s "only major endurance adventure race in the Western Hemisphere," and the "Supreme Adventure Race," the Four Winds kicks off in Durango, Colo. on June 14. More than 300 miles later, survivors will begin crossing the finish line in Taos, N.M.

The Four Winds’ innovations include cash and prize awards to teams winning stages of the race, and a course designed to enhance spectator viewing, a feature notably lacking in other adventure races.

Clearing the financial hurdle is the first challenge an adventure racing team faces. "With a $10,000 (Eco-Challenge) entry fee for the team, insurance, airline tickets so you can hook up to train together, and the many other things involved, it costs $30,000-40,000 dollars to get a team into a race," estimates Reeves.

That’s a bit step for most, so Team Live Hard found a sponsor -the maker of the Live Hard clothing line- to help defray the cost of racing. Considering that Team Live Hard plans on entering the ESPN X-Games and the Raid Gauloises, sponsor support is indispensable.

Training is a year-long effort and Reeves offers this advice on getting started: "Work your way up, not just by running, to where you can do some sort of activity for a couple of hours. Keep your heart rate up, but don’t go anaerobic."

Once there, pile on distance. "The biggest thing is getting the mileage base," he says. "Try to do a 50-mile walk, maybe not with a heavy pack, but with some comfortable boots. That’ll take you a good day, day-and-a-half, maybe more."

Reeves is big on road marching and "ruck running" (with a backpack) to toughen his feet and accustom his shoulders to carrying loads for long distances. Towards summer, he steps up his biking for additional leg strength.

Most adventure races are run around the clock, and sleep becomes a luxury few teams can afford. "Try sleep and food deprivation, if you’ve never done it before." But, pump fluids. "Water is key," he warns. "You’ve got to keep hydrated, or you’ll fall down quick.

Remember, this is a team sport, Crawford point out. "You and your team are really going to have to get to know each other. Train together as many weekends as you can."

Crawford’s team uses those weekends to simulate race conditions. "We start Friday night, and go hiking all night. Someone would have mountain bikes waiting, and we hop on the bikes and go riding for 30 miles. (then) we hike back."

Adventure racers also need other skills to reach the finish line. Previously, racers learned sea kayaking, mountaineering and orienteering on their own. Now, adventure racing schools teach these tools and the rules of the game. For just over $600, the Eco-Challenge Adventure School in Malibu, Calif, will spend three days rappelling, climbing, kayaking and hiking your butt into the dust.

To take on the world’s toughest sport, you’d better be ready. Adventure racing, Reeves says, "is designed to make you hurt, to make you cry like there’s no tomorrow." He ought to know.

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Mike O’Rourke is a freelance writer living in Yelm, Wash.
Off Duty Magazine, June 1997