Surviving the Toughest Race on Earth--finished #28

Two books finished this weekend.  I guess with kids being sick last week and being stuck inside most of the weekend while kids got better gave me lots of time to read.  I really took advantage of it this weekend in polishing off the two books I had been reading.  

Surviving the Toughest Race on Earth is basically about adventure racing, something I hadn't heard of before this book.  Since in the US it was first introduced on MTV and then later variations on the X-Games, it is not surprising.  The book is basically about the author himself, Martin Dugard, and how he kind of was inter-wrapped in this sport.  Covering the Raid Gauloises is what gave him the push to quit his day job and become a free lance reporter and writer.  He talks about different people and teams in the early years of adventure racing and then when he catches the bug to do it himself, the 2nd half the book talks about his experiences.

An interesting read, but looking back on it, the whole adventure racing did seem to flame out.  Most of the book was written with the expectation that it would continue on, but there was one point were he kind of hedged it saying it could be a kind of fad like the Dance-a-thons, etc in the past.  I did a quick wikipedia check and don't see where adventure racing is continuing.  I would guess it is still somewhere but the luster is certainly off.

As far as how I see adventure racing, I don't really see any appeal to it for me.  Combining mountain climbing, rafting, kayaking, rappelling, hiking, mountain biking and putting altogether as a team effort, is certainly demanding but I guess I just don't see the point.  Of course most of those are things that don't interest me so that is probably my built in bias as well.  I guess though it is kind of an additional step beyond the triathalon or Iron Man competitions.

Glad I read the book, it certainly opened my eyes to something I wasn't even aware of but overall just an okay book.  It seemed as if it was written almost as much for trying to continue to build up adventure racing, a kind of advertisement as such as for being written for any other reason.  This is a book a friend from work had given to me to read, so it is one that won't be staying in my library.

I did start reading another book a couple of days ago, The Rail by Howard Owens.  About a former professional baseball player after his playing days and just after getting out of jail for some reason.  So far seems to be about how he has screwed up his life.  Need to get that second book figured out yet.