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My company (FaceLevel.com) sponsored Nike for the riverboarding portion of Primal Quest, and while they did post the fastest time on that section, it was their obliteration of the field that really impresses me most.

They won the 5 day, 548 mile race by what will probably be about 15 hours once the 2nd place team finishes this morning. They’re just machines…

They liked my whitewater portion of the course, which is great. Mike Kloser told me that it’s good for the sport and more races need to have it. I concur.

I find it fascinating though that there could be such a gap between the top team and everybody else. What is it that they have, that the other teams don’t? I mean, the 2nd place team, Merrell, is made up of incredible athletes in their own right. And while there is a huge gap between them and the rest of the pack, for Nike to have made this such an anticlimactic race is really unbelievable.

I’m not sure what they have that other teams don’t, but I’m willing to bet the difference is more psychological than physiological. I think they’re probably physically in better shape than most teams, but they’re not in 15 hours better shape than Merrell.

But then again, Merrell is a very tough team mentally too. So what is it? It’s not all brain type, is it? I think not. From my interactions with both teams, they’ve both got feelers and thinkers. Nike captain Mike Kloser is definitely a very tough, intense, T (INTJ), but one person doesn’t win a race of this magnitude by that kind of margin.

So I guess I don’t have the answer. It’s incredible though.

I’ve always been fascinated by the limits that the human body can go to, and the limits of control the mind can have to drive the body there. That’s a big part of adventure racing and a huge part of why I’m involved. Ball-sport athletes don’t push themselves to these kind of limits. AR peeps are really finding new limits in the evolution of human capabilities.

And that’s part of the curiosity about Nike’s domination. How? Why? What is "it"?

Those are questions I will ask them when I get a chance. I’m glad they liked the riverboarding, but lots of teams liked it; I want to know what makes them able to dominate, to destroy the competition, to maintain the insatiable drive year after year to not only win, but win with an exclamation point.