Mike Kloser, Monique Merrill & Chris Forne charging in Portugal

The Adventure Race Worlds Championships have been very difficult to follow.  I honestly have no idea how Team Nike Beaver Creek is doing as far as the race lead is concerned.  The format of the race is very different from other races especially expedition races.  Most checkpoints are optional and if a team actually gets the checkpoint then it will be used as a time bonus at the end of the race.  For the first few days it was being reported that Nike was the only team to have received all the checkpoints (even Orion Health had skipped one or two) but at this point I’m not sure if Nike has gone to all of them.

Coverage and tracking is very confusing because most teams are in the same vicinity even though many have skipped most checkpoints.  I’m not sure how I would feel racing in an expedition race not knowing how the team is doing due to many variables.  Strategy is usually based on position of your team and judging whether you have time to rest or have to continue racing all out.  I know this is difficult for Mike Kloser, Monique Merrill, Chris Forne and George Christensen as they are unaccustomed to this race format.  They have a day or so more of racing so we will continue to cheer for them from afar and then wait while all time, penalties and bonuses are tallied up to determine the 2009 Adventure Race World Champions.

In the mean time, continue to check out the race site, SleepMonsters, Cris’s blog (Nike’s support crew) and Twitter for as many updates as possible.