Musing and Errata on the world of Adventure Racing from the Yak
presented by MPGear.com

With Nathan Fa'avae and Kristina Anglem retiring after last month's Southern Traverse, adventure racing heavyweight Richard Ussher has decided to join Nike/Balance Bar.

Hard to say how long this will last. Richard points to the difficulty in re-building a competitive Kiwi team from the ground up and arranging sponsors as the primary reason for making the move, calling it a "business decision".

Details here.

I'd like to welcome aboard our latest sponsor, nuun. Here I'll help you out...it's pronounced 'noon'. These guys have developed an electrolyte replacement product that actually works. It works better than sports drinks, better than water...better than whatever you're using now. The best part...it's a tablet...all you gotta do is drop it in water.

To help spread the good news and convince you that this product should be in your pack at every race, nuun has offered to go beyond a button ad and will be providing free samples each month for 3 lucky subscribers to the Checkpoint News. All you gotta do to win is make sure you're signed up to get the newsletter..see the homepage.

According to a recent post on the WeCeFar message boards at least one racer who competed in the USARA Nationals in Tampa last month has been diagnosed by the Centers for Disease Control as having contracted Leptospirosis.

This rare bacterial disease is typically contracted by humans when open wounds are exposed to fresh water containing urine from infected animals. If left untreated it can have serious complications including liver or renal failure and in a small percentage of cases it has been fatal. Some of you may remember the Lepto outbreak that resulted from the 2000 Eco-Challenge in Borneo.

It is often difficult to diagnose Lepto and in many cases those infected exhibit no symptoms at all. If you were in Tampa last month and have any reason to believe you could have been exposed you should contact Tom Clark at the CDC for more information and to arrange a blood test.

We will continue to report on this story as more information comes to light and as more racers who reported illness after the race are tested.