Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25121
Organizers also misjudged the effects of altitude on people, which made it a much slower race. Cotopaxi was difficu lt because of where it was placed in the race. It was the smoker. At the midway refuge, they took blood samples from the racers. Racers were being pulled because they didn't have enough red blood cells. On the eighth day, race officials told us there was going to be a violent transportation strike that would close down the country. All of a sudden the whole race went to shit. The situation split the race in two: half of the teams that had already finished went back to Quito to get a plane out as quickly as possible, the other half went to the finish line on the beach to wait for the other teams to complete the course. The Minister of Transportation came to the beach, chartered two planes and got all the rac ers out in one day. A military convoy escorted our support teams back to Quito. Vans were put in a guarded parking lot. It was like the fall of Saigon! I have a picture of me with security police holding machine guns. BLUE: AT WHAT POINT DID YOU KNOW THINGS WERE GOING WRONG? JG: As soon as we got the horses, when we saw what was left. It was their last ride. Dragging those things up and down 3,OOO-foot gains, I knew to get to the cutoff it would be down to the last minute. It's so frustrating to have that happen and know that it's out of your control. BLUE: HOW WELL DID THE RACE SUPPORT TEAMS WORK? JG: I don't know what would have happened in an emergency situation. But you felt that if you were a middle- or end-of-the pack team you were abandoned. There was very little infrastructure left for you. So you felt like, Why am I here? The whole setup was gone, the water trucks, the com munications equipment and the security. You're standing in this field in the middle of Ecuador with this promise that they will come pick you up and you think about how the race has been run the last two days and you say, Screw that! BLUE: W A YO S GO G? JG: It's luck, planning and coordination that gets you through. It's hard to keep that in perspective. If you were to stand on the mountaintop and see as far as the eye could see and know that you have to go beyond that point, you would explode. It's demoralizing. These races are an exe"rcise more. All that matters is when you will be warm again, or when the sun will come up. You get back to basic human elements of being hungry or not hungry, cold or hot. BLUE: ADVENTURE RACES ARE SPRINGING UP EVERYWHERE. ARE ORGANIZERS SPENDING TOO LITTLE TIME ON SAFETY MEASURES? JG: I would hope not. But if you are a race director and don't have any experience as either a racer or an organizer, there are things you won't be prepared for. In your quest to be the next Raid, you're going to forget some things and you won't be able to solve them and that's going to be the end. Even in the Eco they hang on by the skin of their teeth. There are some things that go down in which people are lucky to be alive, but they're obviously not going to publicize that. Eco has a huge infrastructure, insurance, lawyers, etc. Then you get these extreme environment races like Desert Quest-I hear nothing but disaster about them. ESPN doesn't do adventure races anymore because logistica lly it got to be too dangerous. I do worry about that. On a five or ten-kilometer race if you don't have a water station, you don't die. On a ten-day race if medical personnel can't get to a place, or the weather changes, or there's not enough water, you can die. i rent rms I t now adventure racing is sort of in the geek factor. People are like, Wow you do that no way! They want a flavor of it, Hey I can do a one- or three-day race. You're starting to get more participation on different levels. The Hi-Tec series has a corporate division, a police division, all these different divisions and more peo ple are coming in. There's a lot of the "no pain no gain thing," but it makes for amazing water-cooler stories. You get lawyers who have a trippy experience for $5, and you get people like me, and we can both say "Hey I did an adventure race." But I think some racers take offense when someone says "I'm an adventure racer," and they only did a one-day race. So maybe the name will change to accom modate that-sprint races, expedition races. Will adventure racing ever be in the Olympics? No. Is it quantifiable, consistent, ticketsaleable? No. But it doesn't hit the mass media. It's media-friendly only in the way that car racing is-people watching for crashes, not for the joy of the surroundings. Every course is different so you can't be consistent like a football game. It's hard enough to set up rules. BLUE: DOi X0l! THIN�� TH§RESUL TS O J}�! !iE' J.�§J l:l��! ��.W�L �r&� AFFECT THE FUTURE OF THE SPORT? JG: It might. It disappointed an enormous number of people. It tarnished the image of the grandfather of all races. It kind of cheap ened it. Will as many teams want to be involved? I don't know. Maybe because it will be the tenth anniversary and it will be held in unique places. Those two points might keep it alive for another year. But if the race in Nepal is run like the one in Ecuador, I don't think the Raid will be around forever. BLUE: WILL YOU DO IT AGAIN? JG: The races are getting to be about winning, not experience. Who wants to put a year of their life and thou sands of dollars into something, only to be told you're not allowed to finish the course? No one. You can spend half as much money and time but get twice the experience by hiring your own guide and going to Ecuador to climb Cotopaxi with your friends. �1J: of being just in the moment. Watches have no