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Luck was not exactly on the side of adventure racing team Silly Rabbits at Primal Quest Utah 2006. Blistered feet, dehydration and sleep deprivation conspired against the Sillies to bring them in at 16th place, which is a lot lower than they had hoped to finish.

Jennifer Ratay, who has only been adventure racing for one year, felt energized and ready to take on Primal Quest two weeks ago. This morning, after a shower and some food, she reflected on the experience.

"Our strategy was to start slow and ramp up the speed as teams began to drop out," she said. "Just as we were doing that, on the third day of the race, I got heat exhaustion."

The team was making its way through a narrow canyon with high stone walls that intensified the triple-digit heat already punishing anyone in the area. The Rabbits were in the oven-like narrows for six hours.

"The last two hours I was weaving back and forth," Ratay said. "Finally we hit a river and I was able to climb in and cool down."

Her resulting cool-down appears to have backfired. In the following paddling section, Ratay was no help to her teammates. "All I could do was sit in the front of the boat and shiver," she said. "I went from one extreme to the other in a matter of minutes."

John Moss was hobbled early in the race by blisters, a malady he said he has not suffered in five years.

"It was really frustrating for me," said Moss, who figures he got blisters from running in the sand. "I normally have thick calluses on the bottoms of both of my feet from running," Moss said. "Out here, I got blisters under those calluses, on both feet."

"Usually my role is to tow and set the pace," Moss said. "I couldnâ??t do it. Poor Rick (Baraff) had to do a lot of the work by himself."

Moss believes equipment better suited to sand would have changed the race for him. "I just never felt like we could go all out," he said. "You need four healthy people to go fast, and we didnâ??t have that."

Jason Quinn said the breadth of ecosystems the course traversed was astounding. He especially enjoyed all the rope sections. The sand, however, got old pretty fast.

Sleep deprivation was also a problem for the Silly Rabbits, Quinn said.

"At one point, Jen was sleepwalking and started laughing hysterically," Quinn said. "She fell backwards over a bush, giggling. Before she got all the way to the ground, she was snoring. There she was, sprawled out backwards over a bush. She woke up 15 minutes later."

Quinn said the real low point of the race is that the Silly Rabbits did not log a top-10 finish. "When we were moving we were fine," Quinn said. "Getting ourselves to get going we weren't as good at. Our transitions were too long, and we stopped too many times."

Silly Rabbit teammate Rick Baraff was not available for an interview because he was asleep in the team's room at the Red Cliffs Lodge, headquarters of Primal Quest Utah 2006.

"Just put his comments down as 'Zzzzzzz, zzzzzzz, zzzzz'," Quinn suggested.

Report Mike Bitton - Photo by Side Light/Corey Rich

They're like 3 hops from the finish. The Rabbits are on the final ropes course after which they have a short 2-3 hour trek to the put in for the paddle into the finish line. I'm working on lining up an interview at the finish.

Well it wasn't me, but someone finally tracked down the Rabbits at McDonald's in Moab last night. Read on to find out who's taunting Jason and whether or not Rick wants fries with that.

I still haven't managed to catch up with the Rabbits. They made it out of CP28 on Poison Spider mesage at 7:38 earlier this evening. That would put them in Moab (and Denny's) at around 8:30. Ahead of them is the rest of a grueling bike leg and then a transition to trekking in the mountains at TA9/CP29.

The Rabbits hopped out of TA8 at 8:19 this morning. That should put them in Moab sometime this evening. I'm going to do what I can to catch them on their way through town. If not I'll try again tomorrow morning at TA9/CP29.

They put in at Ruby Ranch at 8:15 Tuesday night and hit the take out at TA7 at 7:28 yesterday morning. That's quite a bit longer than it should have taken them to paddle that leg so chances are they stopped for some shut eye.

From TA7 the left on the canyoneering section at 8:47 AM and got to Hell Roaring Canyon and the 400' rappel at 6:30PM. It'll be hard to catch them until they hit TA8 which will probably be sometime this afternoon.

I wasn't able to catch up with them on the course today, but the Rabbits have moved ahead in the rankings from 42 to 27 since yesterday. Their strategy of steady even progress is paying off. As of 8:15pm they were out of Ruby Ranch 179 miles into the course.

I spoke with the Rabbits a couple of times today at TA4. First when the road in off the long biking section and again when they completed the river swimming section.

When I asked Jen what she made of the whole water situation she said they really didn't have any problems on either the horse trek or on the desert trek that followed. I mentioned that many of the top teams were complaing about there not being enough water stations and she laughed. "They're just not carrying enough. We each carried two 100oz bladders and two 25oz water bottles and did just fine."

It was primarily the leaders that were griping late on Sunday. Jen's theory is that they were carrying less water thinking that because they were planning to push hard and race fast they'd be spending less time in the desert and could get away with skimping. I tend to agree.

In addition to pacing themselves and bulking up on H20, Jason mentioned that they'd camped out in the shade at TA2 from about 1pm to 3pm (the hottest part of the day) in order to stay cool rather than press on and wear themselves out.

They spent much of the night on their bikes and hit the back to back water sections today at 11:30. At first blush you might worry that they're fairly far back in the pack. I think that's misleading. While the teams out front are testing themselves against all the desert has to throw at them the Rabbits are clearly taking a more strategic approach.

I'm betting that they won't have to pass that many teams to rise into the top ten...many of the teams in front of them will either drop out or slow down as the heat and dehydration takes it's toll.

The Rabbits are grieving.

Despite months of preparation they have come face to face with a horror they could never have imagined. The desert wastelands of southeastern Utah are teeming with long eared jack rabbits...and predators.

"I just wasn't prepared to see so many dead rabbits," sobbed John, as Jen slowly rubbed his back and whispered that everything was going to be ok.

"You know I understand that it's the cycle of life and all that crap," commented Jason, "but come on...there are prairie dogs out there too. I'm telling you...the coyotes out here are committing genocide and nobody even knows about it."

I noticed that Rick had wandered off and was sitting quietly against a tree with his head in his hands. I asked Jen if he was ok.

"He started counting how many dead rabbits we came across and just lost it when he got to like 34," she replied slowly...looking concerned. "He seemed so happy when we finally hit the highway, but he had forgotten about the whole roadkill thing."

Ok, it's not TV, but there is a video interview of the rodents...er...Rabbits waiting for you to check it out on the PQ site.

I caught up with our favorite furry racers this morning just after they picked up their horse at the start. They were feeling rested, well fed and loved. I scratched behind their ears and stroked their tails...ok we'll leave that alone.

Suffice it to say, they were dialed in and ready to race. I chatteed a bit with Jason about their take on the heat and how much food and water to carry. Basically their going to evaluate their fluid intake as they go and gauge how much to carry out of each Water Station based on the rate they're guzzling up to that point. You gotta strike a balance between not bringing enough and weighing yourself down.

He also mentioned that they'd packed a ton of food to ensure they wouldn't run out of...pellets...before they got to their food boxes up the course.

They're going to be wearing the same clothes for 3 days at least. Right after I finish this post I'm going to check and see if smellyrabbits.com is already registered.

Oh ya, I had the fortune to ride around the course today with the Outdoors Editor of Men's Fitness magazine, Noah Johnson. He's a New Yorker through and through and came packing an iPod stuffed with a fat library of great music I've never heard. What do you want...the music scene in Greenville, SC just isn't what you're gonna find in his stomping grounds. We got chatting about the Rabbits and he mentioned that he's been talking to them about a piece in a future issue.

As of this post the Rabbits are hopping along in 42nd place. Frankly a comfortable spot in the middle of the pack might be the place to be this early in the race. Given the heat I experienced today, odds are at least half the teams in front of them will simply drop out for having pushed too hard too early. That and the fact that between them our crew is sporting 16 lucky feet bodes well Rabbit fans :-)

I'm hitting the course early tomorrow morning. Be back shortly thereafter with pics, quotes, smart remarks and more of the same non-sense you've come to love and expect.

Hop on hommies,
Yak