Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25059
I Qiong Hai. A 10-kilometer paddle across the lake followed. Final ly, the athletes sprinted two kilometers up a mountainside and climbed the steps of a local temple to the finish line. SCAR made it up the mountain first. As thousands of local residents looked on from below, they flitted down the ropes with Eco-Internet right behind. SCAR used their biking skills to their fullest, powering toward Qiong Hai in a single-file pace line. Amazingly, Eco-Internet actually gained ground on the bike ride. After a pell-mell kayak across Qiong Hai, SCAR and Eco-Internet began the uphill sprint to the finish just 30 seconds apart. The 'run was a killer-1 .2 miles of paved switchbacks followed by a flight of steep stone steps. Deep in oxygen debt after the kayak, legs dead after a week of cycling and trail running, SCAR began trot ting up Mount Lu. "We looked back and they were on our tail. We were sweating bullets," said Pigg. Schneider and Pigg, Kelly and Huddle; the four members of SCAR slogged upward. They looked back. Eco-Internet seemed so fresh, so alive. Even Andrea Spitzer-whose legs looked exhausted after all the cycling-ran with solid strides. "I told the team that we must never stop chasing them," Nagel said. "That we must never quit. Even if we threw up at the finish line, we must never give in." And they didn't. With every passing switchback, SCAR members looked back • • • • • • • and saw Eco-Internet gaining. And every time they looked back, Eco-Internet sensed the doubt growing in SCAR's collective mind. Except for Pigg. Pigg, the bald triath lete who races anyone, anywhere-just because competition is his drug of choice smelled victory, could feel the finish tape pressed taut against his chest, could see the $30,000 check being placed in his hands. And so he screamed a little. At himself, at Schneider, Kelly and Huddle. And he listened to the little voice in his head that reminded him of a simple fact. "We've been outrunning them all week," Pigg thought, "there's no way they're gonna catch us now." To the cheers of the crowd, SCAR broke the tape. Eco-Internet slowed after that, finishing a minute back. "We put everything we had into it," said Ian Adamson ." 1 ,,--- "')f- .. ,..". -- - ' LuDao a. I • I