{"id":853,"date":"2006-05-02T23:40:06","date_gmt":"2006-05-03T04:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shawnbakken.net\/?p=853"},"modified":"2011-04-08T23:56:52","modified_gmt":"2011-04-09T04:56:52","slug":"slash-and-burn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shawnbakken.net\/?p=853","title":{"rendered":"Slash and burn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Okay, I guess it\u2019s time to come clean: I\u2019m not a lethargic sloth. I know it might seem that way, especially given that I\u2019m still living in Studying-For-The-Bar-Exam-Land. It brings forth an image of me hunching over books, flipping through pages and pages of worthless material (if you ask most lawyers who have been practicing for a few years, you\u2019ll discover that most of them have forgotten everything they needed to know on those fateful two days). So I read my books, write on my blog, occasionally get together with my friends\u2026 \u201cWow, he walked from the parking lot into the restaurant! What a powerhouse! I want a piece of that muscular ass!\u201d<\/p>\n

But like I said, I\u2019m coming clean. I wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s a muscular ass, but I hope it\u2019s moving in that direction. As nice as it would be to have extra cushioning when I\u2019m sitting around for hours on end, the jiggling back there while I walk would drive me nuts. Consequently, I\u2019ve been working out. Doing a little biking, doing a little running around, even doing a little rock climbing. Why, you might ask? And I might answer \u201cNone of your damn business!\u201d But I\u2019d more likely say that it\u2019s because I\u2019m preparing for a season of adventure racing.<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t the slightest idea how many eyes may have perked up when they read that, but it\u2019s not exactly a wide-spread sport. You\u2019ve probably heard of the big competitions in other sports: the Super Bowl, the Tour de France, the Indianapolis 500\u2026 you may have even heard of \u201cThe World\u2019s Biggest Gang Bang VII.\u201d (That\u2019s my personal favorite, but the one down side compared to other sports is there aren\u2019t any \u201cdynasties\u201d—the women are one and done. But it\u2019s not hard to imagine why that\u2019s the case.) What you probably haven\u2019t heard of is Primal Quest.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a big adventure race that tests a person\u2019s physical and mental endurance well beyond that of other piss-ant sports. Screw the Boston Marathon—teams in Primal Quest will run for seven days on four hours of sleep. \u2026 Okay, maybe that\u2019s a bit of an exaggeration\u2026 they run on five hours of sleep. If you\u2019re wondering what it\u2019s like to hallucinate but you\u2019re not into stuffing small plastic bags of powder into your rectum so the cops won\u2019t find them, then adventure racing is for you. One day of pushing yourself as hard as you can with a half-hour nap and you\u2019ll be seeing Santa Claus riding a flying octopus and flipping you the bird in no time.<\/p>\n

For those a little more hesitant, a little less fit and a lot more sane, there are a lot of shorter races as well, but they have a lot of the same elements: biking, climbing, orienteering, etc. (Since I\u2019m too lazy to write out a long description of everything that adventure racing entails, click here<\/a> to learn more.) Given that it\u2019s a team sport, I\u2019ve joined up with my older brother Brent to form GT Frost. (Even though I feel obligated to not be too lazy to write a description about the team, you can still click here<\/a> to learn more.)<\/p>\n

Our adventure racing careers spawned in the wake left by my little brother, Justin. He\u2019s a seriously hardcore, total badass when it comes to adventure racing. If you need proof, check out WEDALI\u2019s website<\/a> and see how many people\u2019s worlds they\u2019ve rocked. But for Brent\u2019s sake, Justin broke away from his team for the \u201cSpring Sprint\u201d the last two years and joined \u201cTeam BEK-N\u201d (we figured that was the best way to get people to pronounce our last name properly). The three of us would find a female to fill our roster, then hit the trail in the middle of May to enjoy the glowing sun shining down and a cool breeze in our faces. Or not-so-enjoy heavy rain spewing from the sky and an icy, gusting wind that made our nuts shrivel up into sperm-filled raisins. Amazing how much the elements can change from race to race, year to year\u2026<\/p>\n

But the organizers have changed the system this year: because people have been holed up all winter and want to get the hell out into the woods, the sprint race will be in the summer and this spring is supposed to last closer to 8-12 hours. Surprisingly enough, we opted to exert our independence by letting Justin return to WEDALI and running as a two-man team. In doing so, we abandoned Team BEK-N and became GT Frost.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow the hell did you come up with a name like that?\u201d, you might ask. Once again, I might answer \u201cNone of your damn business!\u201d But I won\u2019t this time. I\u2019ll fill you in as best I can in a paragraph or two. Our team is sponsored in part by IOGT (International Organization of Good Templars). And if you\u2019re wondering, there\u2019s no relation to the Knights Templar, who decided that the Crusades were a little too boring, so they went on a murderous rampage across Europe en route to the Holy Land: Starbucks. Come to think of it, Brent and I might be rampaging through the woods\u2026 a lot\u2026 but no plans for murder. We\u2019re bringing energy bars, so killing and eating anything shouldn\u2019t be necessary. Which is good, because it could cost us a big chunk of time to cook it properly.<\/p>\n

Okay, so you know IOGT wasn\u2019t really into the Crusades, but what is it? Basically, someone decided over 150 years ago that he was tired of seeing so many poor, destitute people on the streets, their lives ruined \u2019cause they kept gettin\u2019 liquored up. So he went on a murderous rampage. But he created IOGT as an anti-alcohol group, gathering people who didn\u2019t drink and trying to help people who did. It\u2019s kind of a cool history\u2026 you can read about it here<\/a>. The tradition has continued up through now, though in our area, we\u2019re trying to expand that focus to a generally healthy lifestyle. No alcohol, no drugs, constant adventure racing—aaaaah, that\u2019s the life of a member of IOGT. Or not.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m not going to let you ask about the Frost part—I\u2019m gonna make it part of your damn business if you\u2019re still reading this part. I\u2019m not sure how it occurred to Brent, really. We\u2019d talked about names relating to adventurers or scavengers, but one day he called me on the phone to ask about a poem. He had a vague idea about the title, so given my English major in college, I only needed to rummage through two books before finding what he was looking for: The Road Not Taken<\/i> by Robert Frost. And he thought about that poem because of the last few lines:<\/p>\n

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I\u2013
\nI took the one less traveled by.
\nAnd that has made all the difference.<\/p>\n

Sounds kinda cool, doesn\u2019t it? Well, I<\/i> think it does and this is my<\/i> blog, dammit! So there<\/i>!<\/b> (Admittedly, I\u2019m sometimes concerned about how well it applies considering how often we go running straight through the woods and ignore the roads completely\u2026) But the point is that we took that last part of the poem as kind of a slogan and honored its author by stealing his name and using it for our own benefit, thus creating the team name \u201cGT Frost.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hmmm\u2026 I guess that took more than one or two paragraphs. Maybe I should get back to the original story\u2026 <\/p>\n

I headed over to Brent\u2019s place on Monday and spent the night there so we could get an early start. It was a good plan, one that would have worked had we put it into action properly. It allowed us time to go running, do a little climbing and hit the roads on our bikes for a couple hours. Like I said, it was a good plan.<\/p>\n

We ended up waking up and getting started a bit slower than we intended, but unlike previous weeks, we already had our stuff ready to go. The upcoming race has a list of required gear, so we bought everything we\u2019d need, divided it up so we were carrying approximately the same weight and jammed it all into our matching packs\u2026 did I mention that almost all of our gear is the same? We went shopping and got the same jerseys (they\u2019ll have \u201cGT Frost\u201d patches on the sleeves), the same tiny backpacks, the same climbing helmets and climbing belts, our running tights look the same\u2026 aside from accessories like shoes, bike helmets and my glasses, we could be clones! Except one of us says he needs to lose some weight! And he\u2019s glad that the jersey helps hide his gut!<\/p>\n

So we jumped into Brent\u2019s Tahoe and drove to a park that had multiple orienteering checkpoints set up. We opted to do the most difficult course, which meant we would start at the shelter, then find a metal pole with a 5 on it, then on to point 16, 12, etc. We were equipped with a map, compass, protein bars and water\u2026 everything we\u2019d need to survive. Unfortunately, that was about all I was prepared for: survival. Comfort was an entirely different story.<\/p>\n

I was wearing bike shorts instead of my tights, joking that I was going to get a bit of color on my legs. Within a few hundred yards, I remembered once seeing Justin with tanned arms, but lots of white lines on them because when his skin healed from all the scratches he picked up while adventure racing, it was a much lighter color. I sympathized with his arms. A lot.<\/p>\n

That difficult course required a lot of trailblazing almost immediately (running over the river and through the woods, to checkpoint 13 we go!). Branches, brambles, sticker bushes, small woodland creatures with sharp claws\u2026 everything seemed to take a liking to my legs all at the same time. Meanwhile, back at Brent\u2019s house, my tights were in my overnight bag, laughing their seams across the ass off. I\u2019m not sure just how much ground we covered, but during the course of two hours, my legs looked like I got into a wicked knife fight with a midget with a bad attitude. And I lost. (I knew it was a midget because the scratches only made it to the middle of my thighs, so I didn\u2019t take any severe damage to my junk. Meaning I can still have babies and teach them to bring tights to orienteering courses and wear<\/i> them!)<\/p>\n

At least I can take a little comfort in knowing that my legs weren\u2019t the only casualty during our trailblazing adventures. For one thing, Brent was bitching about picking up a few scratches of his own through his tights. He didn\u2019t get any sympathy from me. But the damage to his shoes was worse. We ran through an area that looked like it might have been a seasonal pond because it had some plants that normally only grow on a shoreline. After a little while, Brent had to stop, kneel down and retie his laces—when I glanced down at him, it looked like he\u2019d picked up a milkweed on his shoe. It was a huge, white puffy blob attached to his shoelace that actually was<\/i> his shoelace. The thing literally exploded on his foot and was barely holding itself together as we were ran through the woods.<\/p>\n

Once we finished the course and got back to the Tahoe, Brent messed with his shoes some more as I felt massive stinging sensations throughout my lower legs. If Brent had followed through with his joke about lemon juice, I imagine anyone within about two miles would have heard my scream and the snap of his neck immediately thereafter. Thankfully, the brambles were mostly satisfied with taking pieces of skin versus chunks of meat—we were having enough fun lugging our packs around. If I\u2019d needed Brent to carry me out of the woods because I couldn\u2019t use my legs anymore\u2026 so much for survival.<\/p>\n

We managed the climbing part without incident. After getting permits at a park station, Brent set up a climbing rope and we lowered ourselves down a rock wall for practice (it could be part of the upcoming course, so I\u2019d prefer to waste a little time during our training than get to the race and want to wet my tights looking down over a cliff while the clock is running). We got some confused looks from people walking along the trail where we were rappelling, but we knew what we were doing. Mostly. Sorta. Okay, Brent knew what he was doing, but at least I knew enough to not slide down the rope and end up landing on the people walking along the trail.<\/p>\n

After getting some food at a nearby Arby\u2019s, we drove back to Brent\u2019s house and thought about going for a ride on the bikes. And we thought some more. And then we decided that our legs had taken enough of a beating for one day. We headed inside his house and thought about watching a movie. And thought some more. And then Brent was on the verge of passing out because he was so tired (a combination of exercise and a lack of sleep isn\u2019t conducive to a state of wakefulness\u2026 and if that\u2019s not a word, it should be\u2026). So I drove home from there, legs still stinging from the orienteering course, ignoring the speed limit to an extreme degree for the sake of taking a shower and ridding myself of the constant itchy feelings I picked up during the knife fight.<\/p>\n

Note: this all happened last Tuesday, April 25th. The first event of the season is an 8-12 hour race, taking place on May 13th. Given that we were kinda pooped out after two hours of running through the woods and some rock climbing, it could be interesting. But for people who aren\u2019t in the greatest of shape to run, bike, climb and kayak for that long\u2026 that sounds like a road less traveled by. And that will make all the difference. GT Frost represent!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay, I guess it\u2019s time to come clean: I\u2019m not a lethargic sloth. I know it might seem that way, especially given that I\u2019m still living in Studying-For-The-Bar-Exam-Land. It brings forth an image of me hunching over books, flipping through pages and pages of worthless material (if you ask most lawyers who have been practicing … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Slash and burn”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[100,111,57,54,102,113],"class_list":["post-853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","tag-adventure-racing","tag-brent","tag-gt-frost","tag-iogt","tag-justin","tag-team-bek-n"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1muBs-dL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnbakken.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnbakken.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnbakken.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnbakken.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnbakken.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=853"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnbakken.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1101,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnbakken.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853\/revisions\/1101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnbakken.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnbakken.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnbakken.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}