Gargantuan Gatorade Reserve to Defeat Dehydration at Primal Quest

Photo by Mike Bitton (with self-timer)
Mike Bitton tries out a forklift while viewing hundreds of cases of Gatorade at Moab's Red Cliffs Lodge, headquarters for Primal Quest 2006.

Today I wrote a story about hydration for the Primal Quest website. The story is exactly the type of nuts-and-bolts work I am expected to deliver at least once a day until the race wraps up July 4. Here is a link to the story.

Before I took on what has come to be known as "the Gatorade story," members of the Primal Quest Media Team took a short walk to the volunteer headquarters to officially check in and receive our swag or schwag. The good gifts were considerable! They included:

Merrell Overdrive shoes
Gregory Reactor backpack
Nike Dri-Fit T-shirt with official Primal Quest Utah 2006 logo
Headsweats ballcap with official Primal Quest Utah 2006 logo
Water bottle with official Primal Quest Utah 2006 logo
yankx (lower-case, with a "z") shoelace replacement system with official Primal Quest Utah 2006 logo
Official Primal Quest Utah 2006 patch
Myriad other free stuff like sunblock, energy bar, lip balm, and even some stickers for my Jeep!

Heat continues to be a fact of life here that slows everyone and everything down. Yesterday, when the mercury was clearly above 100 degrees, was worse than today, which is only in the 90s. I know I'll have some days out on the course, basking in the brutal heat, but for now, typing away on my laptop in the air conditioned media room at race headquarters, I'm as comfy as can be.

Because I've been working on writing team profiles for the Primal Quest website since last fall, I've built something of a reputation as the go-to-guy on these things. I've already written team profiles on DART-nuun, Silly Rabbits, Don't Look Back, Jen's Men, Merrell Wigwam Adventure, Millie, MPGear.com, Nautilus Pearl iZUMi, Silicon Valley, and SOLE Custom Footbeds. That's a lot of profiles! All that work has given me so much practice, I believe my writing is back to the level it was when I was churning out award-winning features on deadline at daily newspapers.

One of the goals of our race coverage on the Primal Quest website is to write about, photograph and videotape every team. Having already polished off 10 team profiles, I've taken a sizeable chunk out of the writing workload. The photos and video will fall to professionals and volunteers in those departments.

There is still much writing for me to do. As of today, specific assignments for more team profiles include Adventure Racing Concepts, Dynamic Earth, GCAR Moosejaw, Hombres de Maiz, McKinley, Mighty Dog, NEMO, NW Nike ACG, Odyssey Adventure Racing, Stinky Feet/Kilt Racers and Wicked Adventure Racing.

I don't know if it's actually possible to write that many team profiles before the race starts. I may have to do micro-team profiles on the course when I see some of the teams at checkpoints or transition areas. I love a challenge, and getting all this work done, plus the other stories Gordon assigns to me (like today's Gatorade story) will certainly be that!