The Amazing Racers
Photography: Courtesy of the Athletes
Eric Jacobsen is afraid of heights and can’t swim. Boris Lyubner started out as a chain-smoking, overweight workaholic. Julie Dolan says she’s been passed in her events by a 67-year-old woman and a man with one leg. According to these and other endurance warriors, they don’t do anything special. No, nothing special at all, just adding up miles and miles in the Wasatch Front 100 Mile Endurance Run, pounding bikes through mountainous terrain in the Trans Rockies Challenge, or going without sleep for several nights while mountain climbing, kayaking and running adventure races in remote parts of the world. Although they won’t admit it, Eric, Boris and Julie are included among the numerous elite endurance athletes that hang their hats in Park City.Dolan, 38, is a local physician in family practice, but began her career as an extreme athlete while tagging along as spectator at her then-boyfriend’s Ironman competition in Hawaii about 10 years ago. “I called a girlfriend and said ‘I can’t believe I’m not doing this!’” she says.
Dolan started entering Ironman competitions (2.1-mile swim, 112-mile bike, 26-mile run), but then got it into her head to do ultra-marathons. “First of all a marathon seems crazy, but then you do them, and you start to think about doing a 50-mile race, and so on,” says Dolan. She ran the Leadville 100 in 2002 and completed the grueling 2003 and 2004 Wasatch 100 marathons, which stretch from Layton to Midway and include a cumulative elevation gain of over 26,000 feet.
Dolan says, “I can mountain bike with the Jans guys on Tuesday night and I’m at the back of the pack. I’m at the back end of a marathon. But I have endurance. I’m able to navigate and find the course, and I’m pretty good at teamwork. This allows me to be in the top quarter.”
Dolan is now contemplating doing Leadville’s 100-mile bike ride followed a week later by a 100-mile run. She’s also considering an adventure race, goaded by her friend Eric Jacobsen. “The Ironman you do by yourself, the 100 is by yourself, but adventure racing is team-oriented and that makes me nervous,” Dolan admits.
Jacobsen, 40, thinks that anybody who can run three miles and ride a bike can participate in an adventure race. “Six years ago I was a weekend runner, doing a couple of 5Ks and just one 10K,” he says. “Then somebody introduced me to kayaking. A guy came up to me at a wedding reception, described adventure racing and said he was looking for a teammate. The next thing I knew he had signed me up.”
Adventure races can be as short as an eight- to 12-hour sprint, or as long as five to 12 days, but are typically completed in 24 to 48 hours. Teams are made up of four people representing both sexes. An event can include mountain biking, running/trekking, paddling, rope work, or even roller-blading, riding horses or swimming.
According to his Team Santa Fe bio, Eric has taken second place in the Michigan Bush Bash, and did the Beast of the East, with his four-person co-ed team taking second place. He has participated in the Eco Challenge in Fiji and the USARA National Championship in North Carolina. He’s been averaging about three races a year for the past five years.
Your comments may be edited for brevity and foul language.