Eastern Mountain Sports Team Blog
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Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Team Eastern Mountain Sports Announces their Offensive for Georgia

A new offensive that could get REALLY offensive! Eastern Mountain Sports is joining forces with their adventure race team to put to the test two competing anti-microbial fabric treatments used on their trademark moisture-management Techwick fabric. How you might ask? By literally cutting apart two shirts, and sewing them together into one! Team Eastern Mountain Sports has committed (or should be committed) to racing the entire 30-hour CheckPointZero race in these "unique" garments. These will be very noticeable shirts as one side is entirely black, and the other is entirely red. Sexy? You decide.

The shirts are the brain-child of the Eastern Mountain Sports Testing Specialist, Keiko Stinson, who got worried when she heard reports from field say that the anti-microbial treatment-- or as it is affectionately known around Base Camp as "the anti-stink" -- just was not that effective. But does it work as well? Some say it does while others say it doesn't. The proof is in the sniffing. So, what better way to find out than to send their champion adventure race team, that has been training in below freezing temperatures for months, into Georgia where the highs will be in the 80s, to race in these shirts non-stop. Yeah-- we won't be changing them, so be careful how close you get! Even Anne, our support crew, will be wearing one shirt for the duration. Talk about being dedicated to product quality. This isn't your grandmother's wear test. Oh, and if anyone wants to volunteer to help sniff out the results, just let us know!

posted by Team Eastern Mountain Sports @ 8:40 PM   0 comments

Friday, March 2, 2007

The South's Gonna Do it Again....now on to Checkpoint Zero...the Race!

I have never heard anyone have anything nice to say about the weather at the North Georgia Adventure Race (NGAR). An overwhelming majority of the teams don't finish the whole course and many drop out or lose a team member due to the cold, rain, snow, wind, or any combination of these. The course is notorious for being brutally challenging--mentally and physically. It's early in the season (or pre-season for those of us "up north"), so nobody is all that well-tuned and oiled, yet the race is a sell-out every year. You know why? Me either, but it's about time that we find out.

The race is now the Checkpoint Zero Adventure Race ace and frankly, we're pretty excited to come down for it. After a mild start to our winter here in New England, the temperatures plummeted in January and haven't given us much relief since. We haven't even had much snow to play with, but then we finally got dumped with snow on Valentine's Day. It allowed Dmitry to go try his first snowshoe race (he won) and for Chad , Frida and me to do the Pittsfield Snowshoe Marathon in the 12 inches of new snow that came to Vermont last weekend. Down here in Boston, however, it's warmer and that meant pouring rain which pretty much melted most of the snow, turning what remained into a sheet of ice. Dave Lamb, in the meantime, has been hitting up the local randonee (mountaineering) races and skinning the peaks in the Mt Washington Valley of New Hampshire. We do what we can, but when you're lucky to get on your bike once a week and the only paddling you have done all winter was at Swamp Stomp, you can't help but feel unprepared. The hills in the area around Helen are looking pretty intimidating and I hope I remember how to mountain bike. But ready or not, here we come!

It will be a huge field which means another chance to see so many of our friends from around the country. It's also a new area for us to race in and that is always exciting, and often so humbling! So, on Thursday, March 22nd we'll load up the CD player with George Strait and the Dixie Chicks and Chad, Dave and I, plus our amazing support person, Anne, will set a course for south of the Mason Dixon line and be on our way. See you all soon!

--Jennifer Shultis, Captain, Team Eastern Mountain Sports

posted by Team Eastern Mountain Sports @ 4:43 PM   0 comments

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