Photo by David Bitton (my brother)Here's a shot of me hunting adventure racers with the big glass on the singletrack section of the Wicked Ocean adventure race in the summer of 2005.
I've had a blast for the past two years documenting the exploits of adventure sports athletes in words and pictures. I've traveled to Mexico and Colorado, and explored pockets of Oregon and Washington that most life-long residents of the Pacific Northwest haven't even heard of.
I love chasing endurance athletes around. Trouble is, I can't chase them very far. They start running, I start running. They keep running, I try to keep running. They fade from view, I stop, panting, wishing I could have kept up long enough to at least shoot a few more pictures.
That ends now.
I'm training for an adventure race of my own, that I will not be photographing or writing about for a magazine or website. This time, it's Mike Bitton, adult-onset athlete, not Mike Bitton, adventure sports journalist, at the starting line.
The race is called the BEAST (www.beastrace.com), and it's in Seattle, Wash. Lucky for me, my friend Duncan Sailors of North Bend, Wash., is willing to be my teammate for my first-ever adventure race. The race director says fast teams will be done in about two hours. My goal is to finish in under four hours, and to not make Duncan tow me the entire time.
For this BEAST race, the disciplines include trail running, orienteering and mountain biking. I figure if I can train up to being able to run/walk for two hours, I should be OK for the trekking and orienteering parts. I also figure if I can train up to being able to pedal without stopping for two hours, I will not be an unbearable burden to dear Duncan.
And so, with great trepidation on my part, my training as a real-life adventure racer begins.
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