Inspired by “reality” television shows stressing survival in the wild, adventure racing is a holiday whose time has come. “We went from 50 races a year to over 300” since 1999, says Troy Farrar, president of the United States Adventure Racing Association. The races attract some hard-core athletes, veterans of triathlons and iron-man competitions. But most participants are just professionals looking for a type-A-plus vacation. That’s too demanding for some, as it turns out; Farrar says about 15 percent of the racers fail to finish in one-day competitions, while the washout rate in the longest, toughest races is about 75 percent. But well-heeled thrill seekers aren’t inhibited. “Doctors and lawyers who sit at a desk all day see exciting stuff on TV but not in their own lives,” says Don Mann, a former Navy SEAL whose firm, Odyssey Adventure Racing, charges teams $750 and up to arrange wilderness competitions. “We have that instinct to push ourselves.”
Pushing harder than most, Joseph Desena, a Wall Street trader, ran the grueling, 350-mile Iditasport race outside Anchorage, Alaska, last winter. He spent eight days traveling by foot, bicycle and cross-country skis over the same tough course used for the famous Iditarod dogsled race. “Everything else–losing money–is easy after that,” says Desena.
Most competitors look for something a little less Darwinian. Jason Bagby, a Los Angeles salesman, says he shed his competitiveness during a weeklong Supreme Adventure Race through Idaho’s Teton Valley this summer. “We saw bear, deer, sheep, sunsets, sunrises,” he says. “We saw sides of each other our spouses have never seen.” Bagby’s team came in second out of 12, but he says, “It’s more than just a race.”
Sometimes much more. The Mild Seven Outdoor Quest charges competitors $2,900 each for a travel package that includes hotels, meals and airfare from Hong Kong to the race site in Li Jiang, China. The racers travel a 217-mile course by bike and by kayak on the Yangtze River. But instead of racing at night, as competitors do in many other events, they are tucked into bed at the end of each day. “We want to have fun and see a part of the world we would normally not see,” says Lee Torbett, 57, a Realtor from Irving, Texas, who plans to take the trip with his wife, Gail, 51. They have done two previous races and are used to being the oldest couple in the field.
Some races are cushy to start with and then turn tough. Competitors in a two-day sprint across Grand Bahama Island organized by X-Treme Challenge Adventure Racing arrive on a cruise ship. They start the actual race with a round-trip, 1i-mile swim to an offshore islet, wearing backpacks designed for swimming. After her swim in a race last June, Jessica Koelsch, a marine biologist from Sarasota, Fla., looked back across the water and saw shark fins. (Two shark attacks have been reported off Grand Bahama this summer, neither involving racers.) The rest of the race was equally arduous. “We had long periods without water and a blinding gale out of nowhere,” Koelsch recalls. “You’re asking yourself, ‘How is this fun?’ But 15 minutes later, you’re having fun again.” No pain, no gain, as the type-A mantra goes.
