Much has been made about the GPS and website leaderboard at Primal Quest. As a volunteer for both the Lake Tahoe and San Juan Islands races, I’ve got some experience in the technology they are using. I’ll explain a little about how it all works.

GPS: Each team carries a GPS device that is equipped with a satellite phone. In Lake Tahoe, the device was housed in a little dry bag with an antenna sticking out. Obviously the antenna had to have a hole to come out of the bag, so the dry bag wasn’t entirely waterproof. A ton of them stopped working on the first paddle leg on Lake Tahoe so they moved the working units up to the leaders and then had to dry the rest of the units before redeploying them back to the teams. I didn’t really see the units in the San Juan Islands race so I’m not sure if they changed or not. The antenna is attached to the pack of one racer and they are instructed to try to keep the antenna facing the sky at all times. At certain TAs, the Competitio staff replaces the batteries of the GPS and satellite phones.

The GPS records their position in one minute intervals (if I recall correctly) and then every hour transmits the data via the satellite phone up to the database where it becomes live for everyone to see. When you see a team disappear on the GPS or stop moving, it could be that they antenna doesn’t have a clear view of the sky, the unit is having some type of problem, or the team stopped to rest. The satellite phone can also be used in case of an emergency.

Website leaderboard: The website leaderboard is not in any way linked to the GPS data. The website leaderboard is powered by data received from checkpoint staff. Each CP/TA has its own PDA with a custom leaderboard application built in. The leaderboard application shows the time each team reached the most recent CP and shows their team status (Unranked, withdrawn, etc). When a team checks into a CP, the staff records their time into the PDA. When the staff has some free time, they hook the PDA up to a satellite phone and send their data off to the database. Once the data hits the database, it’s live for everyone to see.

Occasionally teams will switch between withdrawn and active, or vice versa, on the leaderboard. This is most likely due to checkpoint staff accidentally changing the team status on the leaderboard application and sending the data in. A simple wrong click on the leaderboard application can change the status of a team. You sometimes will see a team skip a checkpoint on the leaderboard but later on it shows the team having reached that CP. If two checkpoints are close together and the later checkpoint sends in the data from the PDA before the previous checkpoint, this can happen. Once the earlier checkpoint sends in their data, the website leaderboard will be updated. That’s the gist of the system.

Apparently that was the choice Kirsten Gum had to make. For the last several years, Kirsten has been a commentator during the Tour de France with OLN. This year she’s actually out at Primal Quest racing with team Bulleit. That’s a huge change from one year to the next. One year you are reporting on the Tour de France, one of the hardest cycling races on earth. The next year you are racing in one of the hardest adventure races on earth. Right now team Bulleit seems to be doing fairly well, currently in 62 place and moving along at a good pace. Team Bulleit is an all media team made up of a freelance writer, TV personality, syndicated newspaper columnist, and a Backpacker editor-in-chief. You can also follow the team with audio as they are podcasting from the course via satellite phone.

The beginning of Primal Quest this year is a little strange for me. This is the first year that I’ve known about the race that I’m not actually there. I heard about the race in 2002 at a TrailblazerAR meeting just after it had completed. A team that raced had presented a slideshow at the meeting and I thought it was the coolest event. In both 2003 and 2004 I volunteered for the event and have some amazing memories from my time spent in Nevada, California, and Washington. I would have volunteered this year as well except that I didn’t have enough vacation time to do both Primal Quest and my honeymoon. I don’t think I would have a honeymoon to worry about if I had chosen Primal Quest instead. Good thing I didn’t go. I still miss not going though. I wish everyone the best of luck out in Utah.

A few weekends ago, during the Adventure24 Adventure Race, I had the task of doing something I had never done. Team throughtprocess.net/Alpine Shop had a great race and had just come in fourth place overall and handed in their passport. As they were standing around the table, they began to explain their route to some others who were hanging around the finish table. As I was entering in their finish time, I watched as the navigator retraced their route to the last few checkpoints. Right before my eyes, I watched as he retraced his route right down a prohibited road. I tensed up as I knew what was likely going to be the outcome. I said, “You do realize that is a prohibited route don’t you”? “What”, was the response I received. After showing them the passport instructions with the prohibited route and sitting back down, I verified their passport (they got all the points correctly). Just to be sure, I went to find a copy of the rules to verify what the penalty was for unauthorized travel. I went back to the table and delivered the bad news. “Guys, I’ve got some bad news; I’m going to have to disqualify you”. Needless to say, they weren’t too happy about it.

As a race director, you want everyone to have a safe race as well as having a great time. I certainly didn’t enjoy basically ruining their day. One important aspect however is that you also have to enforce the rules you create. I hated to DQ them as they had an excellent race and their travel was completely inadvertent. But rules are rules, and if you don’t stand by the rules you create you loose your credibility as a race director. I think we both learned a valuable lesson though. For me, since safety was part of the reason the prohibited route was in there, they suggested I mention if there are any prohibited or mandatory routes in the passport at the pre-race meeting so racers will be on the lookout for them. I think it’s a good idea so I’ve already added it to my list of pre-race topics for next year. For them, they learned that even when plotting on the clock, it’s a good idea to make sure they read the entire passport instructions. An extra 10 seconds of reading would have netted them second place coed elite and likely the USARA National Championship Qualifying spot they were looking for.

Go For Adventure Racing (GoFAR) is a new adventure racing specific podcast that recently launched. Currently it offers interviews with racers but it will also feature audio coverage from Primal Quest once the race begins. After Primal Quest it will also feature podcasts from some of the biggest races in the world. I just listened to part of the Issac Wilson podcast and it seems like it will be a good podcast. I certainly hope though they can fix the audio quality. I’ve listened to a number of podcasts from various sources and I have to say that the audio quality on GoFAR is the worst I’ve heard yet. If they can fix the audio quality, I’ll be sure to tune in more often. Endurance Plant (formerly Endurance Radio) is another source of endurance based podcasts.