Backlash

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Quinn Lewis’s lean, muscular body exploded from the water like a trident missile launched from a barely-submerged submarine. His lungs went into overdrive as every muscle in his body screamed for more oxygen. The thundering just behind his heels told him that his pursuers were right with him, and wouldn’t be giving up. Lewis’s legs pumped harder and harder as he sprinted the last ten yards to the river bank and through the finish line in a new record time of 3 hours, 28 minutes. Second and third place were less than ten seconds back — the closest Lewis had come to relinquishing his title in the last seven years of the Cascade Downriver Challenge.

The Challenge is an adventure race from high on Washington’s Mt. Adams to the south bank of the Columbia River. The race begins with a treacherous downhill mountain bike course, which has enough blind, hairpin turns to destroy dozens of bikes as they fly off course into century-old pines. The competitors who survive the bike course must jump into their whitewater kayaks to navigate Cyanide Creek. Dropping quickly through seven distinct class IV+ rapids before disappearing into a lava tube, racers must then paddle a half mile to locate a roped section, where they harness up and climb to the surface. A six-mile run down an old logging road leads to the final test: swimming across the frigid waters of the Columbia River.

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