The four-person coed team of South Dakotians participating in the 600-mile, 6-10 day Primal Quest race through southwest South Dakota is still ranked at about the middle of the 32 teams that started the race.
As this is written Friday at 7:45 p.m. MT they are in 16th place and are hiking east toward Scenic, South Dakota. Late Thursday night they finished the aquatic portion of the event, which involved swimming and kayaking at Angostura Reservoir and on the Cheyenne River. Unless they get eliminated by not arriving at checkpoints by a certain time, they still need to hike to Interior where they will transition to bicycles again and then take a long, circuitous route on dirt roads, trails, and finally the city streets of Rapid City at the finish line.
I met them again on Wednesday out on the course and shot some photos as they biked to Angostura and later began the swim there.
Lisa Gustin, Andy Busse, Eric Hansen, and Gary Haven
They still were in good spirits and had a great outlook on the race, which is dominated by professional teams with major corporate sponsors.
The team is made up of:
- Eric Hansen, firefighter with the Rapid City Fire Department
- Gary Haven, Nurse Anesthetist
- Lisa Gustin, Occupational Therapist
- Andrew Busse, helicopter pilot for the South Dakota National Guard (flies a Blackhawk, and occasionally drops water on wildland fires)
When the team was at Angostura, one of the course officials shot this video of them with a pocket camera while they were being interviewed by the NBC affiliate out of Rapid City. It begins with the two “firefighters”, Eric Hansen on the left, and Andrew Busse on the right.
(THE VIDEO IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE)
