Holcombe, Pearson win 2010 Yukon Adventure Challenge

Darren Holcombe and Forest Pearson attempted to use a shortcut during the 2010 Yukon Adventure Challenge on Saturday.

Darren Holcombe and Forest Pearson attempted to use a shortcut during the 2010 Yukon Adventure Challenge on Saturday.

Just to throw off the trailing teams.

The two, bearing the name Old Way of Seeing, darted off the beaten path, pretending to find a shortcut, and cut through the forest.

“Yeah, but we got out to the real route and everybody else was already there, so that didn’t work,” Holcombe said.

Nevertheless, the two came out on top, finishing the race in less than 10 hours.

Eleven teams started the 12-hour event near the Icy Waters Saturday morning and ran, trekked, swam, paddled and biked their way to the finish, the zip line at the Takhini Hot Springs, in the evening.

Holcombe said the adventure race was about more than battling the elements. 

“Partly, you’re competing against yourself,” he said.

“It’s just about finishing it,” Pearson agreed.

Father-daughter team Mike and Foreste Marten, The Martenators, came in second with a time of 10:24, followed by the Found Patrol, Wendy Taylor and Leif Austad, who finished in 10:26. 

The morning was cold, but the earth eventually thawed under the sun, making the course damp.

“Perfect conditions,” said Mike Marten, who has competed in the event four times.

The unknowns set this race apart from other events, he added.

“You’re cruising along and you don’t see anybody else, so you’re constantly thinking if they’re ahead of you or behind you, ‘Did they mess up or did we mess up?’ You don’t really know until you get to a checkpoint.”

Foreste, 15, who is a gymnast, said prior to her first time competing in the race, she didn’t hold any expectations.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” she said.

Taylor, who is a runner, said the race is ideal for cross-training, because so many sports are involved.

But success depends on what an athlete’s strengths are, she added.

The biking leg was her biggest challenge.

“In an adventure race you never know what’s going to go right or go wrong at the end of the day,” Taylor said. “There are so many variables that you don’t get in any other sport – and it’s 10 hours – so you push your body to the max.”

There are mandatory equipment lists for most adventure races, and eating and drinking throughout the day is crucial to finishing, she explained.

“The most important thing you can do out there is feed yourself constantly and drink constantly,” Taylor said.

“Sometimes it’s hard; we were only two minutes apart, so we were chasing each other back and fourth, and even stopping to eat in the canoe knowing the next team was right behind us was difficult. It’s about balance.”

Organizer Mike Tribes found himself chasing the lead team.

“It was stressful, I was running around from checkpoint to checkpoint,” said Tribes, who organized a longer adventure race in June. “One of the problems was the lead team was faster than I expected, so I actually had to run around a lot to keep up with them.”

Organizing such an event is no picnic, Tribes said, but is worth the effort.

“Basically I spent a lot of time looking at maps, trying to figure out how to link biking, paddling and trekking together.”

Pearson commended the organizer’s planning.

“The amount of logistics and organizing and figuring things out is a huge amount of work,” he said.

Taylor agreed, and added that she would like to see more people out.

“It would certainly be nice to get more people from different sports coming out and trying it.”