The Dark Zone: An Adventure Racing Podcast

This is a special Course Reveal episode of The Dark Zone: An Adventure Racing Podcast, recorded the week before the 2026 USARA Adventure Racing National Championships in Oregon.

Race directors Jason Magness and Darren Steinbach of Bend Racing walk us through the 32-hour course they built in beautiful mountains of Oregon. Teams start high near Diamond Lake and drop fast through the North Umpqua River country, riding past a clifftop hot spring and trekking to waterfalls where the checkpoints can’t be reached without getting wet. Then the course turns uphill, into volcanic ridgelines, an old fire lookout, an...

This is a special Course Reveal episode of The Dark Zone: An Adventure Racing Podcast, released just as the 2026 Adventure Racing World Championships get underway in Corsica.

Nancy Bahuaud of Raid in France joins us to walk through the course she and her husband Pascal built: 505 kilometers and twelve stages across an island often called the mountain in the sea. From the start in Corte to the finish on the northwest coast, teams will face nearly every discipline the sport has to offer, and terrain that will test the best in the world.

In this...

Racing as Black Diamond NZ, Luke Jansen and Silas Jones of New Zealand traveled to Canada and became the first Junior Adventure Racing World Champions. In this episode, they recount a childhood of hut trips, orienteering before their teens, and cycling the vertical height of Everest for the fun of it. All of it compounded, quietly, into a team that could go around the world and come home champions.

What comes through most is how much fun they're having. These are two friends who race hard and laugh the whole way through it, still finishing high school...

Rachel Nolan is back on the show FOUR YEARS (We can't believe it either!) after her first visit on Episode #35, and it's great to have her join us. In July 2026 she won PC12 in Colombia with Vidaraid, her first race with the team. Rachel and Brian also get into how she got there: solo bikepacking across the Atlas Mountains and the Pan Celtic, a training week built on hill repeats and packrafting off the west coast of Ireland, and a racing style she calls steady rather than fast.

They also talk meat-free fueling in a meat-heavy country...

Just days before the ARWS European Championship Montane Adventure Race, race director Lars Bukkehave sits down with TDZ to explain the 48-hour course that he built. Showcasing the beauty and challenge of Denmark, the race runs 19 stages including a sea cliff where you can still see the black clay layer left by the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, underwater checkpoints, a Cold War nuclear bunker turned checkpoint, a vertical orienteering stage that sends racers climbing into the trees, and a maze set in a public park so spectators can watch.

Lars also gets into what holds...

New Zealand's Louie Burger is 18. He's also four expedition races deep, including a run at the iconic Godzone. He got there by way of one of the country's strongest school adventure racing programs, a last-minute addition to a team at The Magnificient, dedicated training and teamwork, and a lot of very long days in the bush.

We talk about what it takes to trust people you've known for 24 hours versus teammates you've raced with since school, what actually goes wrong on a six-day expedition race, and the moments both fun and not-so-fun that always come along during...

In December 2021, Racer and Race Director Shawn Lemaster sat down with us for Dark Zone #16. He was building races through 361 Adventures and putting in his own long days planning race courses and personal adventures. This year, we hit five years of the show, so we're running it back with some of those early voices, and Shawn was first in the chair.

A lot has happened. 361 Adventures continues to grow, this spring he ran his first hundred-miler, and connects even more with his community through racing, directing, and adventures both near and far.

That's the thread...

Rootstock Racing is taking over the Dark Zone feed, offering a limited series podcast chronicling the 2026 Endless Mountains Adventure Race.

In this, the final episode, official standings, returning to real life, and holding on to the magic of the adventure

Shownotes:

The Endless Mountains Adventure Race - www.endlessmountainsar.com

Rootstock Racing - www.rootstockracing.com

For the next two weeks, Rootstock Racing is taking over the Dark Zone feed, offering a limited series podcast chronicling the 2026 Endless Mountains Adventure Race.

In this episode, strategic route decisions, the field stretches to the max, and stress levels rise as the finish line is in sight.

Shownotes:

The Endless Mountains Adventure Race - www.endlessmountainsar.com

Rootstock Racing - www.rootstockracing.com

Therapist, ultra runner, and race director Allison Marinucci joins the show for a conversation that starts with endurance and goes somewhere deeper. Allison traces her path from Couch to 5K, through COVID-era backyard ultras, to a double hip replacement that forced the question every athlete eventually faces: who are you when the sport goes away?

From there, Brian and Allison dig into what therapy and adventure racing teach each other, and why the lessons of the racecourse matter most when life delivers its hardest disruptions.

Allison also shares the deeply personal story behind Serenity on...

For the next two weeks, Rootstock Racing is taking over the Dark Zone feed, offering a limited series podcast chronicling the 2026 Endless Mountains Adventure Race.

In this episode, the first sleep, the cliff jump, and the race starts to take its toll.

Shownotes:

The Endless Mountains Adventure Race - www.endlessmountainsar.com

Rootstock Racing - www.rootstockracing.com

MRS Packrafting - https://www.microrafting.com

Sound credits:

Film clip: Up. Directed by Pete Docter, Pixar Animation Studios / Walt Disney Pictures, 2009.

Nathan Fa'avae returns to the Dark Zone — over 100 episodes after his first appearance as guest #50. A seven-time adventure racing world champion with Seagate and Avaya, Nathan officially stepped back from traditional AR in 2023, not to slow down but to redirect: growing youth and women's adventure racing in New Zealand through his events company, and chasing ultra-endurance paddling with longtime racing teammate Sophie Hart.

In ten days, they head back to the Yukon River for their second attempt at the Yukon 1000, the longest kayak race in the world, after taking the win — and the second-fastest time ever — in 2024. Nathan...

For the next two weeks, Rootstock Racing is taking over the Dark Zone feed, offering a limited series podcast chronicling the 2026 Endless Mountains Adventure Race.

In this episode, the race kicks off at the summit of Mount Defiance in Ticonderoga, New York and teams push through their first night on the course.

Shownotes:

The Endless Mountains Adventure Race - www.endlessmountainsar.com

Rootstock Racing - www.rootstockracing.com

Old School Bagels Bakery and Cafe - https://oldschoolbagels.com/

For the next two weeks, Rootstock Racing is taking over the Dark Zone feed, offering a limited series podcast chronicling the 2026 Endless Mountains Adventure Race.

In this episode, final gear preparations, race fuel, and packing your fears.

Shownotes:

The Endless Mountains Adventure Race - www.endlessmountainsar.com

Rootstock Racing - www.rootstockracing.com

Music credits:

Mountain Sun, Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive, CC BY.

For the next two weeks, Rootstock Racing is taking over the Dark Zone feed, offering a limited series podcast chronicling the 2026 Endless Mountains Adventure Race.

In this episode, teams talk preparation, goals, and the blurry lines between adventure racing and adventure parenting.

Shownotes:

The Endless Mountains Adventure Race - www.endlessmountainsar.com

Rootstock Racing - www.rootstockracing.com

Music credits:

Crazy Folk-Rock Happy Timber, Vlad Annenkov, Free Music Archive, CC BY.

Inspiring Acoustic and Strings, Vlad Annenkov, Free Music Archive, CC...

For the next two weeks, Rootstock Racing is taking over the Dark Zone feed, offering a limited series podcast chronicling the 2026 Endless Mountains Adventure Race.

In case you missed it, this is a rebroadcast of the teaser. Listen here for Episode 0.5 of the Endless Mountains Podcast, produced by Rootstock Racing.

Shownotes:

The Endless Mountains Adventure Race - www.endlessmountainsar.com

Rootstock Racing - www.rootstockracing.com

Bones Adventure - https://bonesadventure.com/

We love it when race directors send teams our way, and that's what RD Mark Lattanzi did in 2025 following his three-day The Cerberus Expedition Stage Race. Three-person team, One Degree Racing, tackled the course and stood out for their enthusiasm, high spirits, and teamwork.

This conversation is a clinic for newer teams. One Degree digs into strategic point-dropping, rotating the maps so everyone learns to navigate, and a mind/body/spirit check-in used by the team to squash trouble before it festers. These may be the most varied topics ever covered on TDZ: Paul Farmer and Mountains...

Twin sisters Jennifer Robertson and Jamie Miller of Team Overconfident and Undertrained join TDZ to talk about the greatest team name in adventure racing. Based in Oklahoma, Jennifer and Jamie discovered adventure racing two and a half years ago and never looked back. In this episode, they talk with TDZ about the accountability of training with your twin living across the street, learning navigation by stumbling into checkpoints, two 24-hour races that humbled them, and the third they're determined to finish.

It's a conversation about saying yes, and about getting past the what-ifs and the fear of...

Adam Rose joins The Dark Zone for a full debrief on the 2025 Bimbache adventure race in Morocco. Racing with Team Beacon, Adam has a lot to say about five days in the Atlas Mountains — the terrain, the race design, the decisions that cost them, and the moments that made it worth every dirham.

Race director Antonio de la Rosa leaves his signature on everything he touches. Bimbache was no different. Adam unpacks what that means for teams on the ground, what the AR community should know before they sign up, and why this race is already being di...

Returning guest Marina LeGree, Executive Director of Ascend Athletics, is always a delight to have on The Dark Zone. In this episode, we discuss her introduction to adventure racing, the parallels between Ascend and AR, and how her family is again returning to The Maine Summer Adventure Race.

LeGree founded Ascend Athletics in Afghanistan in 2015 — taking girls into the mountains to teach navigation skills, rope work, and what it feels like to be part of a team. The Taliban shut that down in 2021. Ascend pivoted to Pakistan, and helped to resettle 134 Afghan alumni across three continents. The wo...

Before we get into the race and event updates, we take a moment to remember TDZ Guest #2 Shelley Johannesson. Her loss has been a tremendous blow for our community, and TDZ wanted to join the community in honoring her and who she was.

We then turn to Jason's Adventure Bash, June 13th in Columbia, South Carolina, a race that Jason Schmidt designed himself before he passed away this past winter. His wife Liz made sure it's happening. Two formats, beginner to advanced, and 50% of proceeds go directly to a college fund for Jason's three kids. If you...

Kevin Tucker didn't find adventure racing through a slick marketing campaign or a friend with a team slot. He found it because famed RD Grant Killian left the door open to Untamed New England. Now, fourteen years later, Tucker is doing the same thing for Pittsburgh — and his team is taking the philosophy further than most race organizations would dare.

"His Pay What You Want" six and twelve-hour race on May 16th isn't just a pricing model. It's a statement about who this sport is for and who gets left out when we make entry too hard, to...

What do adventure racing and ultra cycling have in common? More than you think.

This week on The Dark Zone, Brian sits down with David Ayre of Lost Dot — the organization behind some of the world's most demanding ultra cycling events. What starts as a conversation about bikes across continents quickly reveals something familiar: dot watching, control points, self-sufficiency, volunteers as the backbone of the race, and a community built on the same ethos we live by in adventure racing.

David walks us through the Lost Dot race portfolio, the legacy of TCR founder Mike Ha...

Adventure racing has always depended on people who love the sport enough to build it. Greg Callas is one of those people.

Greg is the new president of Gold Rush Adventure Racing, a nonprofit based in the foothills of the Sierras with a two-decade history on the West Coast. He inherited a legacy, and a responsibility, from the founders who built it, and he's determined to carry both forward.

But this episode isn't just about race directing. It's about a guy who found adventure racing the way a lot of us did, by doing something...

Kate and Cliff White of Strong Machine Adventure Racing have been a fixture in the adventure racing community for over a decade — first as racers stumbling toward the back of the pack at a winter race in Wisconsin, and eventually as two respected race directors on the East Coast. The path between those two points is anything but straight.

In this episode, we trace that journey: how a family machinery business became a team name, how a land trust in Maine became their first race venue, and how the simple act of showing up in a state wi...

Episode 150 of The Dark Zone: An Adventure Racing Podcast honors a milestone with someone who embodies the long arc of endurance sport — Dan Brannen.

Dan was my first adventure racing teammate back in 2011, when I was just breaking into the sport. But long before that, he had already built a remarkable career across decades of endurance.

A winner of the legendary JFK 50 Mile, former American record holder in the 48-hour run, multi-day competitor, and inductee into the American Ultra Running Hall of Fame, Dan’s legacy extends far beyond his race results. He played a pivo...

For almost 150 episodes, The Dark Zone has been free — stories of grit, uncertainty, partnership, and the long road through the unknown.

Now we’re turning those miles into something bigger.

From March 19–22, 2026, Bob Mina and Brian Gatens of TDZ will attempt to ride 400 miles from West Chester, Pennsylvania to The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. No guarantees. No shortcuts. Just four days and a whole lot of pedaling.

We’re calling it Katie’s Cookie Ride.

For years, Bob has baked cookies for his daughter Katie. This time, he’s baking a b...

In this episode of The Dark Zone: An Adventure Racing Podcast, we sit down with the team behind a new and exciting expedition-length race — Ajita Madan and Sayeesha Kirani, founders of NthAdventure, alongside Heidi Muller and Stephan Muller, veteran adventure race directors. Together they unpack the story, strategy, and heart behind Adventure @ Mechukha, India’s first Adventure Racing World Series Qualifier.

Recorded against a backdrop of jaw-dropping landscapes and months of race build-up, our conversation explores what it takes to bring a world-class 450 km expedition to life in one of the most remote corners of Arunachal Pradesh. The...

You’re listening to The Dark Zone: An Adventure Racing Podcast, where we try to understand how adventure races really play out—over long distances, under fatigue, and within the relationships that make or break a team.

Today’s episode is a conversation with Emily Panietz and Becca Lunnon, racing as The Wonky Donkeys, about their strong showing at The Legend Adventure Race in Tasmania.

That result didn’t come out of nowhere. In earlier races, Emily and Becca struggled at times with communication and teamwork—misaligned expectations, moments of frustration, and the normal growing pains that...

In this episode of The Dark Zone, we sit down with Slade Combs, a performance coach who helps people understand, confront, and work through fear — not by eliminating it, but by learning how to carry it well. Whether you’re standing on a start line, staring down a scary race section, preparing for a big presentation, or simply trying to perform when the stakes feel high, fear shows up. The question isn’t if — it’s how.

Slade brings a calm, practical, and deeply human approach to performance. We talk about why fear feels so powerful, how it is root...

In Episode 147, we step onto one of the most storied and demanding landscapes in European adventure racing.

Flavie Bahuaud of Raid In France, joins TDZ to pull back the curtain on the 2026 Adventure Racing World Championship, coming to Corsica in September 2026. This isn’t just another host venue—it’s an island defined by extremes: jagged mountains rising straight from the sea, historic trails, technical navigation, and terrain that demands respect from even the most experienced teams on the planet.

Flavie shares the vision behind bringing the World Championship to Corsica, how Raid In France approa...

On this extended episode of The Dark Zone, we head into the rugged heart of Monterrey, Mexico, home of La Ruta Madre—a race that blends blistering heat, steep technical terrain, cultural immersion, and the kind of navigational complexity that defines true expedition racing.

Our guests—Una, Joel, and Zach—join TDZ to unpack the story of their team’s experience on this iconic course. But rather than spotlighting individual accomplishments, this episode explores how the team operated as a single unit: how decisions were made under fatigue, how pacing and strategy evolved across the Sierra Madre, and how...

In this episode of The Dark Zone: An Adventure Racing Podcast, we shift gears—literally and figuratively—to explore a different kind of endurance adventure. Our guest is Tyler Stancill, a passionate bikepacker who pedaled more than 6,000 miles from Key West, Florida to Newfoundland, Canada along the newly established Eastern Divide Trail.

His journey captures the same spirit that fuels every adventure racer and explorer: resilience, curiosity, and a deep love of the road ahead. From the logistics of a months-long solo ride to the mental highs and lows that come with such an undertaking, Tyler’s story...

In this episode of The Dark Zone: An Adventure Racing Podcast, host Brian Gatens welcomes John Karlsson, captain of Team SAFAT, the reigning Adventure Racing World Champions. Known for their precision, discipline, and calm under pressure, SAFAT has come to define the standard of excellence in expedition racing.

John shares his introduction to the sport, his growth as a racer, and the lessons learned on the journey from first-time competitor to world champion. He offers an inside look at the team’s mindset, their approach to success, and the chemistry that fueled their dominance. But with whispers th...

Happy October, TDZ Nation

Here is a quick 5-minute update following the Adventure Racing World Series AR World Championship in Penticton, British Columbia. TDZ was onsite to help with media, and the race was quite the ride.

Per the episode, everyone involved in the race - racers, supporters, volunteers, family, media, EVERYONE - is encouraged to record and send a 90-second (or so) voice message/memo to [email protected] or send via WhatsApp if you have that info. Include your name, your role, and your team (if applicable) and share your thoughts on the...

Welcome to The Dark Zone: An Adventure Racing Podcast. From time to time, we like to support our companion podcast, The Course Reveal, by crossposting special episodes.

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Welcome to a special episode of The Course Reveal Podcast, a companion show to The Dark Zone: An Adventure Racing Podcast. Today, we turn our attention to the 2025 Subaru Canada Adventure Racing World Championship, where the best teams on the planet will converge in Penticton, British Columbia, to chase the ultimate prize in the sport.

This year’s race features an epic 799-kilometer course, with teams racing for up to 9 days across glaciers, m...

Welcome to The Dark Zone: An Adventure Racing Podcast. From time to time, we like to support our companion podcast, The Course Reveal, by crossposting special episodes.

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Welcome to a special episode of The Course Reveal Podcast. Today, we turn our attention to the 2025 United States Adventure Racing National Championship, where the best teams in the country will gather in Northwest Arkansas to battle for the top of the podium.

This year’s Nationals features a demanding 230-kilometer course, with 78 teams racing against the clock for up to 30 hours across trekking, mountain bi...

Welcome to a special edition of The Dark Zone: An Adventure Racing Podcast. Our sister show, The Course Reveal Podcast, is your spot for adventure racing course breakdowns and interviews with race directors, but for championship races we like to crosspost those episodes to what we call The Big Feed. See below for this show's highlighted race.

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Welcome to the Course Reveal Podcast.

Join Course Director Lauri Hollo as he breaks down each stage of Endurance Quest Saimaa.

As the Adventure Racing European Championship, this race will bring 60 teams from 12...

In this episode of The Dark Zone: An Adventure Racing Podcast, we welcome Olga Huber of Team Fragile Flowers. A well-known racer, Olga has taken on a growing number of events, both with teammates and solo. She loves AR, and she enjoys learning from all of her experiences. Wise, direct, and thoughtful, Olga shares so much with TDZ. When she speaks, school is in session. Enjoy!

Thank you for listening. If you like what you hear, please like, click, and subscribe on your streaming platform of choice. This helps spread the word about Adventure Racing and TDZ's...

The mountains, midges, and lochs of Scotland are putting racers to the test at ITERA and ITERA-Lite. In this Flash Episode, Race Director Paul McGreal joins The Dark Zone to share not just the leaderboard highlights, but the many stories from the trail — teams helping each other through brutal weather, challenging stages, in-race competitions, and gritty comebacks after early setbacks. From the sharp end of the race to the determined mid and back of the pack teams, this update captures the iconic ITERA.

Thank you for listening. If you like what you hear, please like, click, and su...