USARA Nationals Sickness

Racing in the swamp at USARA Nationals was an interesting experience. Most of the race I was able to block out any type of thoughts about what could happen to me from drinking the swamp water or having open wounds and being in the swamp water for 19 hours straight. It's quite scary actually. Since the race on Nov 4th in Tampa my teammates RVG and Jen Segger have suffered severely. Both have had crazy fevers with debilitating headaches that got so bad they ended up at the ER... and on an IV! Scary. There are posts on the Florida adventure racing forums about many athletes coming down with these types of sicknesses. Ryan ended up with a severely swollen and infected leg as well. I hope they get better soon. Here is a picture of my legs a few days after the race, it really doesn't do it justice, but you get the idea -

***UPDATED***
Turns out about 1/2 the teams that races have become sick. The race directors just sent this message out to all the teams. Apparently everyone has come down with an infection called leptospirosis that you get when you are exposed to water contaminated with the urine of infected animals.

Snow Lake

This weekend I was able to get out with Steven Wort and some other adventure racers and play around in the Hyak area. Afterwards I sneaked over to Summit West and got 4,490 vertical feet of climbing in on the skis. Sunday was spent skinning up to snow lake with tina. Amazing views.

tina at Snow Lake

South Fork of the Snoqualmie River