At nearly midnight on day one of the USARA National Championship race, volunteers and family waited anxiously at transition area 3 in Jeffersonville, Vermont for the last two teams on the course to finish a 22 mile paddle along the Lamoille River. Team #206: Tug Hill Outfitters and the aptly named Team We don’t Quit (#131) were still on the water as temperatures began to plummet and fog settled in on the river. With GPS tracking, adventure racing spectators can watch their friends and family compete. Each team wears a GPS beacon that tracks their position live on a map of the course. Each team has a dot on the map so race organizers and fans can see where they are and how they’re moving.

We Don’t Quit and Tug Hill Outfitters were still moving steadily, but their pace had dropped significantly as darkness and fog enveloped their route. Onlookers stared at their cell phones in the darkness (im)patiently refreshing the tracking app, hoping to see more progress from the teams. Every few moments or so, we would get an update: the teams’ dots just moved a few millimeters on the map. That was enough for a quick wave of joy and relief from the group at the transition area. Then we went back to waiting for the next update, peeking around the bend in the water, hoping to see headlamps appear.

As we continued to watch the dots on the tracker, it became clear that We Don’t Quit and Tug Hill Outfitters had decided to work together to finish the paddle. The dots never strayed too far apart for most of the paddle, implying a partnership for the Lanterne Rouge. Borrowed from the Tour de France, The Lanterne Rouge is seen as a badge of courage by those in the adventure racing world. The phrase refers to the team or teams who find themselves at the back of the pack; the team that, despite adversity, refuses to stop racing until they have nothing left in the tank. These are the teams that display the spirit of adventure racing at its very core.

The dots moved closer and closer until we began to hear faint voices in the distance and headlamps pierced the thick fog. We Don’t Quit and Tug Hill Outfitters then finally came into view to the cheers of friends, family and race volunteers. After hauling their boats up a muddy embankment, we could plainly see the toll the stage had taken on these two teams. They were exhausted, hungry, cold and completely soaked through. Some of the team members had been fully submerged during a moment earlier when their boat had capsized.

It’s important to note here that at any time during all of this, any of the six racers could have simply opened the required sealed bag with their working cell phones to call for help. Race staff would have rushed to their aid immediately. Warm, dry clothes, food, water and other support were just minutes away at any time… all available with a single phone call. However that phone call would mean the end of the race for those teams. Pushing on past the ever-growing desire to simply stop is what the Lanterne Rouge is one of the more inspiring aspects of adventure racing. It never gets old to see teams fighting tooth and nail against these monster courses and just refusing to quit.

Race staff and family members restarted the campfire that had faded to embers and the two teams took stock of their positions and began to recover. It took quite some time for the teams to re-warm themselves and get into dry clothing. During that time they were able to tell us about the experiences they had on the Lamoille River: finding each other on course, working together, and gutting it out at the end.

This was just the end of stage 3 of 9 and the incredibly difficult course set by the Green Mountain Adventure Racing Association was only going to get more challenging as the next stages led teams into the higher elevations in Smuggler’s Notch. After 90 minutes, neither team had yet to leave the transition area. They were still making progress though. They were drying off, making plans, refilling water and readying their bikes. “Are they really going to go out for more of this?” I thought. As it turns out, yes. In the face of total darkness and an increasingly tough course, both of these teams got back up, got on their bikes and rode off into the night to the sounds of coyotes howling in the distance.

Watching acts of courage and determination like these are what adventure racing is all about for me. We often forget that in our sport we are competing just as much with the course itself as we are with each other. Wild spaces are incredibly difficult to navigate with only map and compass. Weather can turn at any moment, and darkness grinds movement to a crawl. It is in moments like these where teams realize that working together is more important than racing. The willingness to team up that we see so often in the Lanterne Rouge is the embodiment of adventure racing’s spirit. At the Premiere level, Adventure Racing is a co-ed team sport and veteran teams know that teams can move faster than individuals. That team spirit applies everywhere, especially in the dark of night when two teams facing the daunting task of finishing a grueling paddle section decide that by working together, they can be stronger.

Want to know more about these teams and adventure racing in general? Check out these great resources:

We Don’t Quit: At WDQ Adventure Racing Club, we're all about getting more people of color outdoors and active through participation in the exciting sport of adventure racing. We have members that cover the spectrum from just starting their fitness journey to competitive triathletes.

Tug Hill Outfitters: We offer a variety of guided & self-guided kayak and canoe trips in the Central New York region between the months of May and October. We are also experienced navigators and adventure racers, and offer hands-on map and compass navigation clinics, adventure races, and orienteering challenges.

USARA: United States Adventure Racing Association: The United States Adventure Racing Association has been the primary national organizing body of adventure racing for over twenty years. Troy Farrar founded USARA in 1998 with the intention of making the sport more accessible to novice racers while creating more robust safety standards and offering high quality insurance at an affordable price for race directors. Since then, USARA has sought to advance the sport through various initiatives and programs including the Women in AR campaign, USARA-sanctioned calendars and rankings, individual mentoring for race directors, and the organization of a National Championship with a corresponding sponsorship program for regional champions.