Team Profile: Nerdquist

Race Team Bio

Nerdquist

Nerdquist (Team #51)

  •  ShelterBox ShelterBox Fundraising: ?

  • From: Rochester, NY

  • Category: Open Division

  • Recent honors:
    • Celebrated our 40th birthdays with cake
    • Winners of the Team Most-Likely-Mistaken-As-Homeless 2005-present
    • Vintage Gear Trophy - Voted Best Homemade gear from the early 2000’s.
    • Carried the race director Grant’s anaphylactic self out of the woods on a gurney

  • Scouting Report:
    We love these guys. They're going to win. The rest of the teams are competing for 2nd.


Nerdquist Team Members

Russell Nordquist (Captain)

Valerie Nordquist

Race team details

Goals for the race


  • Visit with our sleep monster-spirit animals. (Val misses the squirrels spirits that frequent her when sleep-deprived)
  • Be the last full course team to finish (course version premiere, pro, sport, A,B,C,D,or E all fine by us)
  • Finish healthy

Previous Untamed New England Highlights


  • 2008 - First multiday nonstop race. Wildness of New England. Something about a bog and a pipeline and a lot of wandering at night.
  • 2009 - Sleeping under a row-boat during a night storm. Sleeping in a hotel mid-race (luxury!). Ending the race on the wrong side of a mountain. So sad.
  • 2010 - Sleeping in a trash bag. Finally completing the course! Watching a wolf chase a deer. Paddling the rapids at night.

Team Inspiration


We pride ourselves on our prioritization of basing major decisions on what will lead to a better story afterwards. We’re not climbing a podium, so we may as well have as much fun as possible and make a few poor decisions along the way to spice up the adventure. And, the shortest distance between two points may be a straight line, but it’s usually not the most interesting!

Sponsors


Our supportive children and spouses and families who tolerate the angst of us disappearing for a week. But if anyone out there wanted to sponsor us with gear from this millenia or cash money, we’d happily accept.

Team Bio Notes

Cousins Russ and Val have been playing in the woods and making trouble outdoors together since their early childhood. They first channeled this into adventure racing in 2005 as Team Nerdquist and were thrilled to realize they could now justify their craziness in the name of a certified sport.


They’ve since competed in numerous adventure races, orienteering events, and expedition hikes, including hundreds of miles of the Appalachian Trail across 10 states, and more recently peak-bagging in the Catskills.


Team Nerdquist has been hardcore Grant Killian groupies since his early days as Hampton Roads Racing, through his Untamed Virginia days, following him overseas to Untamed Switzerland, and competed in the first three Untamed New England races in 08, 09, and 10.


Since their last expedition race in 2010, they had more children, worked a few days, gained 40 collective pounds, watched their hair turned 80% gray, contemplated retirement, and then foolishly decided to relive their glory days and give UntamedNE 2018 another run.

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