A true test of toughness

By Shane Frederick
Free Press Staff Writer

MANKATO August 08, 2008 12:37 am

— To say that Chris Prescher is still recovering from last week’s Minnesota Border to Border Triathlon would be an understatement.
On Wednesday, he had reconstructive surgery on his broken nose and shoulder.
“I crashed out on the first day,” Prescher said.
Even with Prescher out of the four-day, 500-mile race (but along for the ride), his team, which included fellow Mankato-area residents Todd Coyour, Dennis Ellingson and Mike Cullen finished second in the four-team division.
“We wanted to be on the podium,” Prescher, 37 said. “I thought we put together a team that would finally secure it.”
Prescher’s team was one of two with Mankato ties in this year’s race. Maple Grove native and Minnesota State University senior Chris Yard and brothers Joe and Mike on a three-man team with parents Joe and Cindy working as support.
The Border to Border isn’t for the weak — physically or, especially, Yard said, mentally.
The race began July 22 in Luverne and ended July 25 on Crane Lake, near the Canadian border.
Day 1 involves a 217-mile bike from downtown Luverne to St. Cloud. Starting off at 6 a.m., the average finish time was 10 hours.
Day 2 is another 10-hour bike ride — 213 miles from St. Cloud to Virginia.
Day 3 is a 50-mile run from Eveleth to Cook, with most runners finishing in about four hours.
Finally, Day 4 is a 50-mile canoe from Cook to Crane Lake, via Lake Vermilion and the Vermilion River. The 121⁄2-hour trip includes 11 portages, some up to 1 mile long.
“Your whole body is just destroyed,” Yard said. “But the whole race is pretty much all mental. ... You learn to push you rbody to its limit and keep it there.”
Of course, that only begs one question to the competitors:
Why?
“I’ve been looking for that answer for so long,” Yard said. “I guess it’s the overall satisfaction of thinking you can do that race and actually saying you did something barely anyone else would even try.”
Coyour, 38, started running marathons several years ago and kept upping the ante, first to ultramarathons (sometimes 100-mile races) and then the Border to Border. This year was his sixth time in the race.
“People who do that stuff are a little crazy,” Coyour said. “They’re always looking for the next level, and this was it.”
Coyour said he first considered dowing the race in 1999, but it took three years before he finally made the commitment. Prescher said it takes a full year to train properly.
“It’s something just to finish it,” Prescher said. “That’s why they hand out awards to everyone who finishes. Just to complete it is a hell of an accomplishment.
“Every year someone goes to the hospital. I was the lucky one chose this year.”
Prescher crashed about 50 miles outside Luverne. One of 11 other team’s van was pulled over on the side of the road, he said, and its door opened just as Prescher was pedaling by with his head down. He ended up with a broken nose and cracked fingers, and his collarbone was “snapped in two.”
“I wasn’t racing smart,” Prescher said. “I went from 30 (mph) to zero in point-5 seconds.”
Prescher went to the hospital but eventually joined his teammates in St. Cloud. With his arm in a sling, he rode in the support car.
Going into the final day, Prescher’s teammates were two hours out of first place. They made up nearly all of that time in the canoe and lost by just 13 minutes.
Prescher, who was on a second-place team in 2007, is convinced that his crash kept them from winning this year.
But, Coyour said, doing your best, finishing and, especially, having fun along the way is the main goal.
“We did that,” he said. “There’s no better feeling than when you flip your canoe and lie on your back and look at the sun on Crane Lake.”
Prescher and Yard said there’s another good feeling at the end of the line.
“The beer in Canada is very good,’ Prescher said. “It’s very cold. Beer never tastes so good as it does at that finish line at the Voyageur Inn.”
Two days after his surgery, Prescher said he was already thinking about next summer’s race.
Yard said he’ll definitely do another Border to Border. He’s not so sure about next year, but his brother, Joe, is already itching to do it again.
“My brother said, ‘There’s only 360 more days; we gotta start training,’” Yard said. “I said, ‘You’re crazy.’”

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