| The Border to Border Experience
One of the longest and most challenging
triathlons in North America
By David R. Asp We've been in a time warp the last 12 hours as the "mom and pop" motel we're staying in is right out of the 1950s. The amenities at the single–story Cozy Inn are limited to a telephone and Coke machine that
sits by the office. Since our room has no cooking facilities, my well–used 1992 GMC Safari van is as good a place to have cereal and a banana. With four guys and equipment in a small motel room, it may have been a good place to sleep, too. It was cramped and, with the four of us chowing down on pasta the night before, there was plenty of gas expelled throughout the night.
The morning air is refreshing as I warm up cycling the streets of
Luverne, Minn. Luverne is a rural community of approximately 5,000 people and sits in the southwestern corner of Minnesota. What's big here are farm implement dealers, and grain and seed stores. And, probably unknown to anyone else in town, Luverne is the start of the 19th annual Border to Border Triathlon.
The Border to Border Triathlon – an event of two–, three– or four–person teams – is held each year in Minnesota and is considered
to be one of the longest and most challenging triathlons in North America. The course winds its way northeasterly to the finish in Crane Lake, only a few miles from the Canadian border.
The plan is for myself and two teammates to traverse Minnesota by cycling 400 miles, running 50 miles and canoeing 50 miles. This year there are 35 teams registered, most being either two– or four–person teams. There are teams from all over the United States, including Maine
and Tennessee, and one team from Canada. Our team, Team Red Wing, is one of seven three–person teams. We include Rick Mollgaard, a young physician whose "easygoing" style masks a fiercely competitive nature; Dave Roseen, a 60–year–old colleague and marathoner who looks 40; and yours truly, a 52–year–old psychologist whose family thinks I'm crazy for being here.
For the most part, there appears to be a mixed crowd of participants.
There are teams composed of younger, "hard–core" athletes, mixed with teams of middle–age competitors who seem to have a more relaxed attitude. There are a few women on some of the teams, and at least one all–female team.
For this first day of racing, drafting is allowed for the first 24 miles as a way to spread out the team vans. Drafting, a technique of riding closely behind a rider in front to decrease wind resistance, will cause the mass
of riders to quickly divide and distance themselves farther apart. In a few minutes I'll be cycling 12 miles and then make a transition to teammate Rick, who will cycle to Pipestone. At that point Rick will transition to Dave, who is first to cycle without the advantage of a draft.
Within two minutes of the start, there are a number of spectators standing on the street while cyclists move into position at the line. A
young cyclist with streaked blond hair and a triathlon bike with a rear disc wheel pulls up alongside me. Not what I want to see. After a short announcement of the starting procedure the gun goes off and the blond–hair guy sprints to the sharp right turn, putting us on the highway and heading north to Pipestone. I jump on his wheel and, as we hit the outskirts of town, there is a pack of six riders pulling away from the others. The blond cyclist (a team member of the Canadian three–person
team, the Boomtown Outfitters) continues to pull, intent on remaining at the front. We're hitting speeds between 27 and 32 mph and, after some initial heavy breathing, the ride becomes an exhilarating experience. Coming up on our transition point, I pull out and "put the hammer down" to accelerate past the triathlon bike (this is biker slang to which only God knows what it means and has nothing to do with the local carpenter's union). Rick sees me, we make a smooth transition, and
he's up to speed quickly.
So far, so good. With a lot of relief, I hop into the van as we head north, passing Rick, who continues to stay in the lead group. Kevin Bollom, Dave's son–in–law, is driving and taking the role of team support person for the first two days of the race.
After arriving in Pipestone, it isn't long before we see Rick and two other cyclists who have opened a considerable lead. We jump–start
Dave through a main highway and he is on his way, destined for cycling shorter intervals to save his legs for the run. Our split times are excellent as we and two teams ahead of us continue to pull away from the others. The terrain is generally flat as southwestern Minnesota is prairie country, and although this is corn, soybean and sugar beet country, short prairie grass and a few cottonwoods scattered about and expansive vistas give this a western feel.
Team Segoi, made up of two individuals who have won this race a number of times, maintained their lead throughout the day, with the Canadian team second. We attempted to keep the Canadians within reach and visible. Their three team members traveled 750 miles with their wives from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, to be in this race. It wasn't enough to know that each member has participated on Canadian National Teams and triathlons all over the world.
The course continued flat, with occasional long, gradual inclines not allowing any break in pedaling. With that, and a steady headwind that began midmorning, we knew we were in for a tough day. Thanks to heat and exertion, we went through a tremendous amount of water/Gatorade. We also rotated our bikes, with Kevin insuring that the bike of the person "on deck" was in the van and ready to unload; not an easy job considering all the gear, clothes, food, etc., crammed into the van.
Packing all the gear plus two other bikes was challenging. It became even more intriguing when at race registration each team member was given two cases of water and/or Gatorade. At that point it wouldn't be long before the van would look more like a recycling center than a vehicle. It took approximately three seconds.
As we approach the Mississippi River and closer to St. Cloud, the terrain changes to a landscape of rolling green carpets of larger hills,
broad valleys and thicker forests. By the time we pulled into St. Cloud, our time of 8 hours and 41 minutes placed us second in the three–person division and third overall. Although the Canadians had beat us by 25 minutes, the next three–person team, Twisted Chicken, crossed the finish in fifth place, and were 30 minutes behind us.
At the Event Meeting, Steve Kargol, assistant race director, fires up the overhead projector, looks at us from over his reading glasses and leads
a very detailed description of tomorrow's cycling course: very, very detailed. The minutes pass slowly, and one can begin to hear silent thoughts in the room … "Steve, enough already!"
The next morning is another mass start with drafting allowed for the first 20 miles. In the semidarkness, a group of 10 riders forms and pulls away. The pace is slower and the Canadian rider with the bleached hair is pacing himself and expecting others to lead. I take a couple of turns at
the front as a way of making a statement. What kind of a statement is in question, as I quickly tire and drift back to get on someone's wheel. As we get to the 10–mile mark, I accelerate and get five to six bike lengths ahead to make another successful transition with Rick.
By the time Dave takes over for Rick, we've pulled away from most of the riders and are again in third place behind Team Segoi and the Canadians. Today's route takes us to the southeast shore of Mille Lacs
Lake, a 22–mile–long and 14–mile–wide body of water named by early French explorers for "1,000 lakes." Heading farther north, the economic conditions of the area have become more depressed. There are fewer houses, many are rundown and surrounded by an extra junk car or two. While appearing unoccupied, many seem to have a couple of 200–pound attack dogs named Jaws or Spike that sit waiting for some poor sap in lycra tights to come by. Today, I'm that sap. At one
point, a black team car pulls by me, parks in a gravel driveway about a quarter–mile up the road and prepares to transition their riders. Within seconds, two foaming beasts the size of polar bears are charging in full pursuit toward the black car, obviously thrilled that some fool would venture into their territory. In a split second, and with spattered gravel, the team car catapults out of the driveway and down the road, leaving
these mongrels with only one likely target – me – now approaching in lycra tights, scared to death and feeling bare–ass naked. I stand on the pedals pushing as hard as I can go. My heart rate jumps and I'm in anaerobic debt. I veer wide, planning for their chase, but they only look at me as if they are granting me asylum into the farther, darker reaches of the north. After passing safely by, I slow down to catch my breath and wonder … what the hell am I doing here?
Facing a brutal headwind, we finally pull into Eveleth. Eveleth lies on the Mesabi Iron Range, once the richest source of high–grade iron ore in the world. Beginning in 1884, ore was shipped from this area to the steel mills on the lower Great Lakes. Later, taconite, a material refined from low–grade iron ore, was produced in the 1950s and shipped to refineries on the lower Great Lakes. We see reminders of the mining activity from the past and present. Thick stands of aspen have
re–established themselves on the massive piles of tailing, helping to reshape much of the landscape into a blend of hills and deep pits filled with cold, clear water. One such hill lies in the final approach to Eveleth. From a distance, it looks formidable, but once on it, it isn't long to the summit and the finish at the IGA store in town.
We check into the Eveleth Inn, site of the event dinner/race meeting, and adjacent to the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame. As we check in, Chuck
Balzer arrives from Red Wing with our canoe. Chuck is a fellow athlete who has consented to drive the team van and provide support the last two days of the triathlon.
It's another early start the next morning as the run begins at 6 a.m. Dave gets dropped off at the start as we drive to the two–mile transition point to wait. There I meet Paul Smith, a Twisted Chicken team member who is challenging us for second place. Paul is a friendly guy looking like an
athletic Ralph Lauren, who tells me that he's psyched up for the run since that's his team's forte. He also lets slip (intentionally?) that his team canoed the Vermilion River a few weeks ago to familiarize themselves with the canoe route. Anxiety begins and silently I curse Paul for ruining a perfectly contented morning.
Dave's first segment is back over the iron ore tailings hill that I biked yesterday, a significant hill to run. Within the first two miles, the runners
have begun to stretch out, even though team vans are in closer proximity to each other as transitions are more frequent. Dave comes into sight and before long he's upon us. We make our transition and I'm off.
After leaving Eveleth, the route takes us into an isolated area with little traffic and few houses. Surrounded by forest, the 50–mile road to the town of Cook is quite scenic. Initially things go well, but a third into the
race it become painfully clear that Dave's pace has slowed. He's reinjured a hamstring on his right side and we're losing time. Rick and I decide to cut our splits to one–half mile to pick up the pace. It isn't long, however, before Dave's hamstring becomes progressively worse and, at the 25–mile mark, Dave loses most of the power in his right leg. As we turned back to pick him up, we all knew the gallant effort he made to hang in there. Even though there was concern as to how Rick
and I would finish the next 25 miles, the greater concern and sympathy was for Dave, knowing how hard it would be for him to sit in the van.
There was no question we had lost time. Team Roadkill, whom we had been even with for much of the race, had pulled away. We knew the Twisted Chickens were ahead by a large margin and there was a general sense of anxiety about our position. Rick and I had a formidable challenge ahead of us. Here we were, two "nonrunners," who needed to
pick up time, and 25 miles between us.
We continued the half–mile segments and informed Chuck of our times immediately after the run. Despite little time for recovery, we maintained a consistent pace and began to close in on the other teams. Our confidence was growing as van commander Chuck renamed the Twisted Chickens the "Toasted Chickens" and was recording our times and distances. By mile 40 our splits were down to three–tenths of a
mile, and it's all I could do to complete those. Until we reach Cook, a brief rest in the van was my heaven on earth.
After the finish, we headed to the Montana Cafe in Cook to replenish calories lost. The cafe was the busy place in town, packed with Border to Border participants anxious to eat real food in a down–home atmosphere.
An hour later, we're in a nearby park listening to Steve take us through the canoe venue for tomorrow. Once again, he goes into minute detail
regarding the canoe course, including each of 11 portages we'll have to traverse, every wet rock we'll see, and every wave we'll paddle through. With each detailed description of river characteristics, portages, rocks to watch out for, etc., my anxiety begins to grow. With anxiety increasing, fatigue overwhelming, I'm feeling sick and want to get the hell out of there and sleep for five days.
In what seemed like an eternity, the meeting ordeal ended and we finally
settled into a bed and breakfast nine miles outside of Cook on Lake Vermilion. Lake Vermilion is the start for the canoe portion of the race. It's a big, beautiful lake, 40 miles long with 1,200 miles of shoreline and 365 islands, but I couldn't have cared less about the scenery – my goal was to find the nearest bed and rest the body.
A two–hour nap later, I wake to find Chuck, Dave and Rick discussing tomorrow's canoe event. The main concern was where to make the
transitions, since Dave's hamstring will hamper him from running the portages. After studying local topographical maps of the region, Chuck finds fire road 601 that will bring him to the river and where it appears we can make a transition. This spot looks perfect in that it splits the course up more evenly and gives Dave only one portage to negotiate. A call to a local resort reveals that the road is passable, albeit somewhat
bumpy in places. That information confirms our decision and it's a go for tomorrow.
The canoe event has always seemed to be the soft underbelly of our team. Now being "up north" and on the eve of the challenge, the reality of canoeing 50 miles and running 11 portages in the wild reaches of the north woods is both exciting and frightening. Rick and I will begin, and canoe the first 15 miles, taking us to Buyck Bridge. There, Dave will
replace me and Rick and Dave will canoe to our "new" transition point. At that point (if I'm still alive), I go back in the canoe and relieve Rick. Dave and I will then canoe to High Falls, where Rick will replace Dave, and we then will bring it home at the Crane Lake finish. The start is at 5:30 a.m., with a required check–in at 4:30 a.m. We head to bed early.
It's quiet in the B&B, and most of the lights are out as I lay out clothes
and equipment for tomorrow's race. While the canoe is outside, my expensive racing paddle sits securely close to the bed. Months earlier, we struggled with the question of buying paddles. Did we need an expensive, ultralight, carbon paddle curved to improve efficiency? If so, would all three of us need to purchase a paddle, since only two are in the boat at one time? Could we rent them to save costs? It was an issue for me knowing that a racing paddle costs around $200, and my wife
threatened to disown me if I spent another penny on this race.
Over my wife's objections, I drove south to the We–no–nah Canoe factory to check out paddles. The factory had a small showroom and a young, attractive female shows me the paddles they carry. Checking out the $150 carbon paddle, I make a conscious effort to look like I know my way around canoes and paddling. I begin a nice smooth paddling motion as if I'm cruising down Crane Lake in first place with the finish
line in sight. And there on the shores of Crane Lake are hundreds, no, thousands, of people cheering, waving, chanting… go… go… GO! Nike representatives are there with contracts in hand! Suddenly the young lady, whom I now realize has been watching me with puzzled attention, says, "Sir?"
"Yes," I say.
With a slight hesitation she adds, "You're holding it backward."
"Oh," and with that, I quickly turn the curved side around, buy the damn paddle and head out of town.
It's early the next morning as Rick and I paddle out to the start and wait for the flare to be shot off from a speedboat 50 yards away. The minutes pass and my anxiety creeps skyward. We're fighting small waves to keep the boat pointed straight ahead and away from the others. The initial push will be hard. We've never seen the course or experienced a race like this. Damn, this canoe is tipsy. What if we swamp it? I try to keep my mind on positive thoughts – we've handled
this canoe before, sex, we're in shape, sex, we're used to the water, sex, etc. It doesn't work. (Or maybe it did?)
It's deadly quiet when, suddenly, the flare rockets into the predawn sky. We're off and completely out of sync, and the boat heaves to one side. Waves from the other boats seem to make our canoe more vulnerable. We attempt to quickly adjust to get in sync and are able to pull through a close–call disaster. As the stern man, it's my job to steer the boat,
keep it on course and safely away from those around us. Slowly, across the four miles of Lake Vermilion, we begin moving up. Rick periodically demands to pick up the pace on a count of 20. I bark out commands of "hut" to switch paddling sides. By the time we reach the Vermilion River and our first portage, we're in sixth place, some distance ahead of the boats behind us.
As we approach the first portage, it's semidark and difficult to see
where to enter. Fortunately, there is a boat just ahead to guide us to the landing spot. I can see large boulders under the water on my right. We grab the life preservers, paddles and canoe, and begin to frantically run the portage as fast as possible. It soon becomes obvious that being in the back and running with the canoe in the down position does not work well. With the canoe down and still semidark, I'm unable to see the
narrow path. And, frankly, it's not much of a path, as it's up, down, and crammed with rocks and roots. We periodically bang the canoe into trees, stumbling along with tennis shoes and pants that are soaked. The water container around my waist is loose and the thought goes through my mind that I look like a clown.
In the first five miles of the river, there are a number of portages similar to the first, with the longest one about a mile. By that time, I learned to
buckle my life preserver into the canoe and Rick took over the canoe running while I handled the paddles. In the canoe, Rick continues to keep a good pace with periodic demands to "pick it up at the count of 20." Then he spots the Canadians, who up until then had been ahead of us and out of sight. Rick's competitiveness explodes! There are more demands to "pick it up on the count of 20." Gasping for air, I remind him that he is 30 years old and I, at "near death" 52. At the next
portage it appears that we may pass them. Frantically, we land the boat and begin our run. Rick is in a "zone," focused entirely on passing the Canadians. As hard as we go, they make it to the put–in location ahead of us. As we reach the put–in location and begin to launch the boat, Rick slips on a rock and falls into the water. The cold water dampens his fire a bit and I caution the need to avoid major disasters.
Following the last portage, the river opens up and a new challenge
confronts us – fog. Drifting into it, a brief period of quietness surrounds us. We're taken aback by this unforeseen challenge and are unsure as to which way to go. At one point we see our Canadian nemesis disappear silently into the heavy fog, not really knowing if they're headed in the right direction. The white–gray fog hung low to the water, making it difficult to see the shoreline. Above, tops of the evergreens were visible in the morning light. Uncertain, but thankful for the moment
of rest and the silent beauty and mystery of the fog, we follow them, hoping for the best.
The Canadians drove as fast and as hard in their canoe as they did on their bikes. After 15 miles of hard, and at times frantic, canoeing and portaging. Bucyk Bridge and the transition point loomed ahead. At the bridge, I got out and Dave jumped in the bow position. Chuck and I headed to the next transition point, fire road 601, while Rick and Dave
proceeded on through the dreaded "snake pit" section, a long and grueling section of the river that would seem nearly endless.
Chuck and I find fire road 601 and head to the river. We're deep in the woods as we come to the end of the road. Here we can see the river and a small log cabin named Finn Camp. The first–place boat, Team Segoi, goes by and is soon followed by Team Penobscot, a two–person team from, you guessed it, Maine. The Canadians go by, and 30
minutes later Dave and Rick appear at the bend of the river, ecstatic to find us where we were supposed to be. After almost 30 miles of paddling, Rick was out of gas.
While I'm reluctant to return to the canoe, before I know it, Dave and I are off paddling the second half of the "snake pit." These miles turn out to be long, with the only race–sponsored food stop for the entire triathlon near the end, and a welcome sight. After the food stop, it was
only a few miles to go to the last transition.
At the transition point we portaged three–fourths of a mile and, with the 30–year–old Rick re–energized, we put the canoe in the water for the final push to the Crane Lake finish. Once in the lake we picked up the pace to finish strong. As we came around a bend in the shore, we could see the orange flags of the finish and heard the announcer call out our team name. Finally, 500 miles and four days under our belts, the race
was over. As per tradition, we rolled the canoe and collapsed into the icy waters of Crane Lake. Damn, it felt good!
With burgers and beer, we toasted ourselves at a resort near the finish. It was a time to bask in the accomplishment, reflect and review the race. In four days our team had come from the flat prairie land of southwestern Minnesota to the mystical north woods and "land of sky blue waters." We worked and shared efforts to accomplish this test of
endurance and, perhaps, somewhere in there was the explanation of why we had all done it. In the weeks before, I'd theorized many times as to why I was putting myself through the training leading up to this event. As a therapist who spends much of his day facilitating others to understand their behavior, it seems as if an answer would be simple. Yet strangely, as so often in the lives of my clients, an explanation was elusive.
Perhaps it's the camaraderie, the working together toward a common goal, and the connection made between men. Maybe it's the intrigue of the challenge – doing something only a few have chosen to try and fewer still have actually completed. And, finally, maybe it's the knowledge that somewhere, sometime, months or years from now, there will be that faint smile, that moment of satisfaction that arises from a fleeting memory of the experience, particularly the joy we're feeling
now. I ordered another beer.
BORDER TO BORDER TRIATHLON 2000 TOP TEN
Time Team People
1. 31:05:51 Team Segoi 2
2. 32:27:18 Boomtown Outfitters 3
3. 33:53:39 More Jerks 4
4. 34:11:10 Team Red Wing 3
5. 34:19:20 Rajalta Rajalle 3
6. 34:57:52 Twisted Chicken 3
7. 34:58:27 Team Penobscot 2
8. 36:08:32 Partners in Crime 3
9. 36:34:34 Team Iron Curtain 4
10. 36:40:53 Santa's Hos 3
A total of 34 teams started: 17 two–person teams, 7 three–person teams and 10 four–person teams. Teams were from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Maine, North Dakota, South Dakota and Canada.
A total of 30 teams finished:
Cycling – Team Red Wing placed third (second in three–person division). Time: Day 1 – 8:41:00; Day 2 – 9:59:21.
Running – Team Red Wing placed 11th (sixth in three–person division). Time: 6:02:09.
Canoe – Team Red Wing placed 10th (third in three–person division). Time: 9:28:40.
Final results – Team Red Wing placed fourth overall and second in the three–person division. Time: 34:11:10.
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