Adventure Racing: Brian Wickenhauser

February 11, 2005

EnduranceRadio.com

<<Tim Bourquin>>:  “Welcome back to www.EnduranceRadio.com.  Thanks for joining us for another interview today.  I appreciate it.

We’re going to be speaking with adventurer racer Bryan Wickenhauser and he’s with Team Newcastle and Mount Crested Butte and we’re going to be talking about the season they just finished in 2004 and what’s coming up for them in 2005 and maybe be getting some information about how they train as a team and some team dynamics information as well.  This goes on to continue to build our library of adventure racing interviews, so we always looking for new interesting adventure racers to interview, so make sure you send us an email if you know of somebody or you would like to be interviewed on www.EnduranceRadio.com, and we put out a new interview every Monday, Wednesday and Friday as you know.

So the Race of the Day today is the 8^th Annual Elk Mountain Grand Traverse.  It’s a back country ski race from Crested Butte to Aspen.  Its about 40 miles long and it starts at midnight in Crested View, Colorado and goes over two mountain passes, about 11,500 feet, and finishes in Aspen.  So you can find out more about that race by clicking on the Race of the Day link right below the link to this audio.

Bryan thanks very much for joining us today.  I appreciate you taking the time out of your schedule to talk to us.”

<<Bryan Wickenhauser>>: “Absolutely Tim.  Thanks for having me.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “So talk about your 2004 season.  Sum up for us how it all went for you.”

<<Bryan Wickenhauser>>: “Overall it went really well.  We’re kind of a new team.  This was roughly our second year, and I say roughly because we had one team member change throughout the year, we added one new team member.  With all that we had, I felt, a lot of great success and the team, I think, feels the same.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Now you were just featured on the Primal Quest.  On CBS they just showed it yesterday, as we talk about this now.  How do you think the coverage went for the Primal Quest?”

<<Bryan Wickenhauser>>: “Well two fold.  I thought it went great for our team and also, when I look at the bigger picture for the sport, I think for the sport it went really well.  I think most adventure racers out there were really curious to see how the media was going to portray the death of Nigel Aylott from AROC.  After having seen it yesterday with the team and friends, family and supporters yesterday, we thought that the media did a really great job of handling that difficult situation and going forward.  Hopefully a lot of sponsors, industry sponsors and outside the industry sponsors are still supportive of adventure racing.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “At TV you always think that a lot of times they may focus on the drama of it all because that’s was sometimes makes good reality TV, but did they give a good overall view of what adventure racing is, and not just the team fighting if there was any that, but just about the sport in general?”

<<Bryan Wickenhauser>>: “Yeah I thought they did because, like you said, I think theres really kind of two ways to portray it.  You can portray it as a realty television show or you can portray it as an athletic situation, which it totally is, and there happens to be some team dynamics that gets into the realty TV situation a little bit, but I felt they did a great job in balance as far as focusing on both aspects and didn’t really dwell incredible amounts of time on just team dynamics, which is very important, but they love to, as you kind of hinted, portray some of the finger pointing that can go on.  So I thought it was really well balanced and it wasn’t by any means skewed towards what we might interstate with some of the realty television shows where you’re getting the leader from the island or something.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Good, good.  Well how did you find your team mates, your current team mates now?”

<<Bryan Wickenhauser>>: “Yeah, I was really lucky Tim.  We all live here and knew each other basically before we even started racing, and we’re all individual athletes pursuing typical mountain town sports, if you will, and all liked to go long and do the endurance type events like Dallas Mountain Grand Transverse etc, and 24 hour mountain biking events.  So we always loved it and, so to speak, trained together.  We knew each other personality wise and we’re a good cohesive bunch.  I think it’s a great asset to us, not only are we great athletes I think, but also the fact that we live here and we have great personal dynamics on the team because we all live here and understand the same environment that we race and train in, and can train together daily and talk with each other and communicate with each other nearly daily.  Even in the off-season we’re working on getting future sponsors lined up and determining what races we’re going to do.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Do you think that helps that you’re able to train together because a lot of adventure racing teams that I talk to they train separately and just come together for the events?”

<<Bryan Wickenhauser>>: “Yeah absolutely, and I think that can be found in the fact that we’re a second year team that’s done really well considering we so young.  I mean the oldest athlete on the team is 33 and we’re all 27 to 33 basically, and second year.  I think a lot of it is just great chemistry and we live and get to train together versus a lot of our competitors, as you hear, they have one team mate on the east coast, one on the west coast and two others dispersed elsewhere as well, or maybe two of the four live together.  You know it’s just not always that cohesive of a team maybe in that it doesn’t always get to stay together or has some team dynamics issues and it’s just so much easier to facilitate a team like this when we all live and train together.  It’s kind of special.  You’d think that’s the way it should be but it’s not always the case with a lot of teams out there, but we’re lucky to be one of those I think?”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Do you favor the kind of races that have the winter sports with the cross-country skiing and that sort of thing, or do you have a preference either way?”

<<Bryan Wickenhauser>>: “You know we absolutely love the winter sports, that’s why we all moved to the Crest Butte area just to do the winter outdoor pursuits.  We also knew that Crest Butte had great mountain biking, I think, when we all moved here.  But we definitely love all the different sports that are in a mountain town and especially the winter sports.  But as far as adventure racing, we really haven’t done too many pure multisport winter events as a team.  Now we do do two individual sports, well actually Dallas Mountain Grand Traverse is a endurance back country ski race to Aspen, and that’s in pairs of two, and then we do one other individual multisport race, its called ‘The Mount Taylor Quad’ down in New Mexico, and it involves some skiing and snow-shoeing and running and biking, and we love to Nordic ski and downhill ski and telemark and just get into the back country and do a lot of back country skiing and touring.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Now in terms of training, do you get real scientific in terms of planning out your entire season of training?  Is it more informal where you’ll just call one another during the day and say, ‘Hey what’ll we do today?”

<<Bryan Wickenhauser>>: “Yeah.  It is a lot more informal like that.  We try not to take it terribly seriously, but yeah we definitely have a focus and a drive behind our training.  We definitely try to get out, especially in the off-season, just get out and have fun.  It’s a great area we live in to get out and have some fun.  I mean theres so many options as far as what to do today.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Do you all have full time jobs?”

<<Bryan Wickenhauser>>: “Yeah, we all mix in about 35 to 45 hours of work a week, but that’s usually dispersed between, a lot of my team mates at least, between two jobs.  I have one full time job that affords me a little bit of flexibility for training.  I certainly schedule out my day so that I have a lunch break or late afternoon training session almost daily.  My wife is a distance runner so she gets out and yanks me out of the house if I’m lacking motivation that day, or the team mates are real close.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Now what’s in store for you and your team for 2005?  How many races and which ones do you think you’ll be participating in?”

<<Bryan Wickenhauser>>: “Well the line up is actually just starting to come together as Race Directors are putting their schedules here and if not already then shortly.  We’ve got a number of individual races coming up here throughout February, March and early April, and those are typically winter time endurance races individually.  But the start of the adventure race season really comes in mid-April when we’re going to go up to the Quad Cities.  It’s really odd, the Race Director for this Quad series adventure race lives in Crest Butte so he’s asked us to go there and help draw some attention to his race.  We’re going to go do it.  It’s a United States Adventure Racing Association qualifying race for the USARA championships in November.  So we hope to wrap up the season in USARA championships in Florida in mid-November, but in between there we’re going to do some of the Adventure Extreme Series, which is a regional adventure race series in the mountain states, and then our big focus is going to be certainly the Subaru Primal Quest again this year.  The other series we’re really going to try to make a strong effort at is the Raid Gauloises series.  Theres one qualifying in Bend, Oregon in mid-June, and then hopefully we’ll do well, and do one more outside the US, and qualify for the Raid championships, I believe they’re in France, Italy and Switzerland in a tight little location in there.  So that world championships for the Raid Gauloises series, so that’s really a big goal as well.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Now for team members who maybe are looking for sponsorship, I know from what I hear from people their least favorite part of trying to start a team is trying to get those sponsors because it’s not easy.  Is that something that you would like to off-set to somebody else at some point, or do you think you have a better shot of pulling in sponsors when they hear from the team members directly?”

<<Bryan Wickenhauser>>: “Absolutely as a team whole.  We’re total ambassadors for the Crest Butte Gunnison Tourism Association in the area we live in and we couldn’t do it without just one member.  We all participate in it and we all have maybe our own separate contacts but we all try to make an effort to go to shows and to races and to other events and opportunities where we can all be together as a team and represent who we are to that company or to that individual.  It wouldn’t work without just one person spearheading it.  It’s a huge team effort and we do it all in the off-season.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Any tricks or secrets because I guest it more than just saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to put your logo on our jersey.’  What have you done that’s been successful for you?”

<<Bryan Wickenhauser>>: “Oh gosh just getting back to them.  Just this afternoon, before we got on the phone here, the three of us that are in town here, we’re all just this morning for three hours taking a number of journalists who have come to the Gunnison Crest Butte area and basically took them around our beautiful playground up on the mountain and some of the Nordic trails and showed these press representatives some of the activities that locals love to do and the visitors can do when they come here, and so basically by getting back to, such as the local tourism association who facilitated the press media travel here, it was a big benefit to both of us I think, to the tourism association and to us because hopefully the media is going to write some wonderful things about this area we live in and talk about their ambassadors who held their hands, so to speak, and took them around and showed them a great time and that’s how we get some benefit out of it as well as the tourism association is a big financial supporter for us.  So giving back to the sponsors in any way that we can and try and facilitate being great ambassadors for that company.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Well we’re just about out of time.  I told you it would go fast.  We’re going to be speaking with your team mates over the next several weeks as well to get some input about adventure racing.  Hopefully we can follow up with you as well next year, or in the middle of season, and see how things are going for you.”

<<Bryan Wickenhauser>>: “Would love to Tim.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Listeners can go to Bryan’s adventure racing team, Team Newcastle Mount Crested Butte by clicking on the link which is right below the link to this audio.

Bryan thanks again.  I appreciate your time.”

<<Bryan Wickenhauser>>: “Absolutely.  Thanks for your help Tim.”

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