Checkpoint Zero/Inov-8 Team Blog
presented by Inov-8

Moab Xstream Expedition
posted Friday, October 31, 2008 by Team Checkpoint Zero @ 10:49 AM - 0 comments


After nearly 3 full days of racing, the Checkpoint Zero / Inov-8 adventure racing team of Jenn Rinderle, Hunter Orvis, Paul Cox, and Peter Jolles crossed the finish line in third place overall. This years edition of the race featured hiking and mountain biking on the Poison Spider mesa, paddling on the Colorado river, trekking in the Manti La Sal National Forest, and a lengthy section of the famous Kokopelli trail.

Having come off a somewhat disappointing finish last year, the team was fired up to make a good showing at this years Xstream Expedition. Armed with the experience from last years race, we were better prepared for what the course might throw at us, or at least that's what we thought.
Very early in the race we started to encounter what would become our biggest enemy over the entire course, Tribulus terrestris, otherwise known as the goathead. The prickly little pods laid waste to our tires and supply of bicycle tubes. We ended up with so many flats, I don't even know how many tubes we went through during the race, but suffice to say, it was the equivalent of several years worth in our usual south eastern terrain.
Aside from our troubles with natures perfect caltrops, the team held up well in the blistering sun, baking heat, lightning storms, and wind driven snow. Even with the variety of conditions thrown at us this year, it was the first time in the events history that the race had not been called off on account of weather.

Adventure racing is notoriously hard on equipment, and this race was no exception. Our equipment suffered some pretty obscene abuse, everything from filling our Inov-8 shoes with sand from dunes, to loading up our Race Pro packs with 2, even 3 bladders to try and keep ourselves hydrated during the 10-12 hour unsupported legs we had to complete. While I'm sure these weren't the conditions the designers had in mind, everything worked fantastically and kept us moving the entire time. Not one team member suffered any blisters on their feet the entire time, which is quite a feat considering how many hours we were on them.

At the end, the team was very happy to cross the finish line after 70 hours of racing, of which, only 3.5 of those was sleep. With a week and a half of recovery under our belts, we're already looking forward to our next event, the Upstate Adventure Race.

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