I don't say much on this sight but this is where I keep up on what is happening on the Divide. I made it to Wise River in 2015, Knee blew up and had to call it quits but will attempt again in 2019 (My 10 wedding anniversary is next year happy wife happy life as they say) don’t have Facebook or any of the others this sight is where I will continue to get all my info. Just my little chip in on the discussion
Keep up the good work!!!!!.

I might not be in the age range for the TDOFR, I'm still a young "53"  so I will bask in your glory, any reason to meet up for a beverage is good with me. 

Well I thought it was about time to say HI, I have my plane tickets, shuttle reservation to Banff, and best of all the wife is finally supporting this little bike ride of mine.  So its on!!

I’m new to all this and in fact I think this is the first time that I have ever made a comment on a blog or even on the Internet.  I first heard about the Great Divide Race from a friend.  I watched the movie and I was hooked, what really drew me in was the quote from Mathew Lee

“Life's too short not to take adventures like this; you have to make these types of experiences a priority.”

I read the rules and started diving full on into this event reading everything I could get my hand on when I came across this discussion thread and after reading for a while I was confused, I stated to question what I was getting into.  There were a lot of very passionate people writing in.  I calmed myself remembered why I wanted to do this race.  I went back and read the rules again and unless I missed something they seemed pretty straightforward.    The bottom line for me is that you race the race on the Honor System, the so-called Gentleman’s agreement.  I would like to think in the end true Honor and those who follow the rules will weed out the people that can’t follow the rules, Call me naïve

As to what is a racer I want to relate a story so please forgive me 

Every year in the city where I work they run a 5k race.  I have had the great honor to lead out the lead racers and just about every year most of the lead runners are some of the fastest runners in are area and in the country and are from high school, and college with some being Olympic qualifiers.   After the start gun is fired they run the race at a blistering pace, after getting them safely through the course and back across the finish line I go back out on the course to bring in the last person.    As the race does not limit itself to Olympic caliber runners only I also interact with the families out on a stroll, but this year I found a very different person in the red lantern position, we spent the next two hours finishing the race. I learned a lot from him. He had worked with a doctor for over a year to do this race and in the process lost an amount of body wait that I cannot to this day comprehend along with fighting other health issues.  But on the day of the race he ponied up to the start like any other racer and took off.  We kept moving along the race route following the rules and at times I did not think he was going to make it.  I kept giving updates on our position to the race officials as the race was well past the posted ending. 

When we rounded the last corner and could see the finish line I noticed that they had not removed the finish line and there was a large welcoming committee to include the runner who had won the race waiting for him.   To see the smile on his face is something I will never forget as I peeled away to let him have his moment of glory all I could think of that was a race. This was his Great Divide Race and my definition at to what a racer is was forever changed

 When you line up at the Grand depart either  from the north end or the south end we all want to be racers and weather we are the Olympic racer or that person who decided life was to short not to take the adventure, who is to say that person is not a racer.  We all want to be the best but what I learned on this day is the person who finishes first is not always the one who showed the most courage or fortitude sometimes its that person who against all odds lined up to the start and raced his race, followed the rules and took satisfaction on coming across the finish line.