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Adrian Crane
Team ATR1 -- Second Place in Eco-Challenge '96
Interviewed August 7, 1997
[Click to hear Crane]

MZ: This is Michael Harding with the Mountain Zone. We're speaking today with Adrian Crane who is with Team ATR1 that is competing in this year's EcoChallenge. Hi Adrian, welcome to the Mountain Zone. You looking forward to this year's competition?

Crane: Absolutely. It's a fabulous part of the world we're going to and it's going to an interesting, exciting race. And Australia's a big attraction. So yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

MZ: It's very different the climate this year. Of course, the course is still a secret but judging by the general latitude and geography, Whistler last year in BC was very wet glaciate forested clime. What do you expect to come across this year down in Australia?

Crane: You're absolutely right, last year's high mountain stuff suited our team then, Team Arctic Adventure because we had a lot of people with mountaineering background. In Australia, it's not going to be a lot of high mountains, but it's going to be pretty rugged I think. It's semi-tropical, of course it's August, which is winter in Australia, because it's almost tropical, I don't think it will be too cold. We're expecting sort of damp conditions, I believe the terrain varies as you move back from the ocean through sort of semi-tropical forest jungle into bushland. I expect we'll be coming across both those kinds of vegetation and then there's the Great Dividing Range...it's not that high a mountain range but it will give us some rock and canyons. Then the bush behind that is a little flatter, so I guess that our wide open spaces to get some speed up.

MZ: What have you and your team been doing to prepare for this compared with your training last year? Your team, Hi-Tech Adventure came in second last year.

Crane: Last year was pretty successful for us, we're hoping for the same again. What we're really trying to do with Team Hi-Tech Adventure is put a US based team on the first place podium at the end of a major international event. We've been really close a couple of times and we've had good performances by Americans before but not an American team, so that's what we're trying to do here. As far as training goes, it's really the situation with any adventure race that you're going to come across a variety of conditions and a variety of disciplines and you really have to do just the best that you can. Most of us aren't full time athletes, and even if we were, we'd be hard pressed to specialize for every single race. So wherever it is that we live, and our team's fairly well dispersed across the US, we do as much as we can, as much variety. Of course, we train in each of the disciplines, kayaking, mountain biking, canoeing, rafting, running, hiking, orienteering etc. It's a matter of going to a race with the mindset and the confidence that you can tackle whatever it is they throw at you and you usually don't know quite what that's going to be. I think in this team we've all done our training, we're all veterans of several races now, and we're hoping for a good performance.

MZ: Does your team get together to practice and go through the interpersonal dynamics that are so important?

Crane: Well, actually, there are two situations... one way to arrange a team is to get a team from your local area, so you're all geographically close. You get the advantage of working together, but you get the disadvantage that maybe you won't find the four or five best adventure racers in the world right around your local hometown. The other way is Team Hi-Tech Adventure's approach to it, which is to find the best four or five adventure racers that we can from the US regardless of their geographic situation. But this does mean that it's pretty tough for us to get together to race. We spend a lot of time communicating. We know each other from previous races either together or against each other, and I really feel that everyone knows everybody really well, we're all veterans, so we've got the right attitude within an event. So the interpersonal relationships become less and less problematic as people gain experience and gain the realization that part of an adventure race is putting up with the quirks of other people around you.

MZ: Last year, what part did physical conditioning play versus tactical expertise?

Crane: It's very difficult to tell. You know, as I get more and more adept at this type of sport and am able to do it at a fairly high level, you realize why it's often been said that great performances are 90% mental and 10% physical. It's not that the physical side isn't important or doesn't play a part. What it is, is that it's relatively straightforward for quite a large number of people to get the physical conditioning they need and the physical skills they need to compete in a race like this to hope to finish. But what is going to separate the winning team from the top ten teams from the rest of the pack is that mental attitude, the aggressiveness, the ability to concentrate and perform day after day. So at this level it is almost that the team with the marginally better physical capability certainly doesn't have much of an advantage compared to the variation in mental approach and mental strength of the teams. I'd say it's more mental than physical at this stage.

MZ: Are these generally really competitive people? Do they have other outlets into which they channel those competitive pursuits?

Crane: That's two questions, really. Yes, historically, people will have other athletic backgrounds, just because adventure racing's not old enough for people to have come up and gain the experience mentally and physically to compete at this level just from adventure racing. Really, it's only been around for three years in the US and just a handful more outside. So the vast majority of good competitors have come out of other sports, whether it's ultra-running, triathelete, marathon swimming, whatever the case. As far as competitiveness goes, for the top teams, yes you do need that competitiveness. It's strange that actually a lack of competitiveness and aggression can make for a nicer team, a pleasanter team. But if you really want to win, you have to have people on the team who are going to be competitive, and we hope that competition is going to emanate outwards from the team and not come out within the team, because that would be divisive. But given that you can take that competitive energy and aim it outwards, if you've got people who can't really work together but between them really have a lot of competitive juices then the result is really fun when things get tough.

MZ: Did you really enjoy last year's event?

Crane: You do. I mean it's stressful when you're out there, but that's like any event where you're putting everything into it. But that's like anything, the more you put into it, the more you get out. And I tell you, when you put in as much as we put in in BC, you get out a terrific amount. We has just a fabulous race there. I think true to say that almost every adventure race I've done, I've come out with such fantastic experiences behind me, such a blast to be competitive in that forum and in that terrain, it's just a dream come true, and I'm looking forward to some new areas in Australia that the same will hopefully happen.

MZ: What did you think of last year's course? There was a fair amount of controversy, since only three teams finished in the allotted time.

Crane: Part of that was due to the weather rather than the course itself. And the thing with adventure racing is if you set up a course that's going to be a challenge in the expected weather, if you get good weather it can be too fast, and if you get bad weather it can certainly be too slow or impossible for teams to get through. Of course, I was on the second place team which did get through to the finish on the intended course, and it was a tough course, but it was a fabulous course, just beautiful. I've been to plenty of places in the outdoor world that were good but that place was stunning. In order for adventure racing to get the chance to go through that kind of country, there are some unknowns. It's not as if this course can be run several years in a row. So they haven't a clue when they send us out that they're guessing. They might have sent a couple of people through, but those people weren't doing it under race conditions and race pressures. So it's a tough job for an organizer to figure out what the timing is going to be, it's a tough job to decide how you're going to deal with variations in the weather. I think we're going to see situations where courses have loops that are either included or excluded depending on how the timing's going. In future races, that's certainly how I would organize it if I put one on.

MZ: Describe your training regimen, your personal training.

Crane: I live in Modesto, central California, which is like the flatlands. We're not too far from the mountains, the Sierras, but generally speaking, I follow a prescribed training course of do as much as I can whenever I can. I end up alternate days running and mountain biking for the most part with an attempt to do some canoeing or kayaking on weekends. I've got a job and a family; I fit in as much training as I can. I try to get out and do a decent lump of either running or mountain biking, but I have to leave the technical skills... to fairly infrequent trips up to the mountains.

MZ: Do you have a specialty yourself?

Crane: I think my specialty's probably the orienteering. My background's in mountaineering and ultra-running; competitively I've done very well at orienteering. That's really the area that I can contribute to the team, and the land travel is really where I have the least qualms about what they're going to throw at us.

MZ: Have you had any unexpected attention because of your success last year?

Crane: We've had a lot of attention just because we're the top placing US team in quite a few adventure races now. We got two second places to our credit, and I think that people do see we're close to knocking on the door for a win here. Fortunately, adventure racing always has a little bit of luck in it, so we'll have to keep going to events to put in a good performance and hope luck is with us one of these days, and we'll get a win as well.

MZ: Has the success in adventure racing had any adverse effects on your life?

Crane: No... I get quite a lot of questions for help, how can I get started in this sport or what's involved or how can we put a team together, those kind of questions. But I enjoy trying to help people out. I feel that those of us who've been involved in the sport from the early days and the beginning of it in North America need to take some responsibility and try and help the sport along. So I think all of those of use who've been involved since the early days have been doing that to some extent. The main problem with this is if you've got a family or outside interests or even a job, it sometimes doesn't make it as easy as it can be to do all the training involved. But those are choices you make, and I'm not going to complain about having too much to do.

MZ: Has finding sponsorship become any easier as a result of your success?

Crane: I think it has. In any situation, if you can show a track record people are going to be more interested in helping you. We've been able to show that with our team. And of course I've been doing things with the Hi-Tech for a long time now. Initially, we had a pretty minor relationship in that they'd help me out with footwear, and I'd let them know how I was going and what I was up to. But as things have blossomed, I've been doing more for Hi-Tech, and they've been able to do more for me and I think for those people out there who are wondering how you do get sponsors these days, I think you've got to realize it's a chicken and egg situation. You won't get the sponsorship until you get the results, and it might be it's tough to do the opposite as well, so you've got to start out small, try not to do too much and try to repay your sponsors with information and pictures and what have you. Always ask what you can do for them as well as what they can do for you and eventually it will build up and sponsors will become available. But it's akin to running a business as much as an athletic pursuit by that stage.