A little background on Tessa Roorda - our new Primal Quest 09 teammate

Written by Cyril Jay-Rayon
Created Date: Tuesday, 30 June 2009 15:27

Tessa Roorda, our Brazilian secret weapon, will be joining us at Primal Quest this year in the Badlands of South Dakota in August.

Since she's not on the regular team and will be joining us for the first time in an expedition race, I've asked her to give us a bit of background on who she is and what makes her tick. As you'll see from her brief comments, she can't stand still. She'll fit right in:

" I have always practiced physical activities and enjoyed the outdoors. Unfortunately, in Brazil this is not as common as one may think, so I used to be the crazy girl among the boys. For many years I did rock climbing with friends from my university till one day, in 2001, they invited me to try this new sport called “Adventure Racing”. They never raced again and I never stopped!

In 2006, one of the top Brazilian teams, Quasar Lontra, invited me to race Portugal XPD and after that we have raced in two world championships, among many other short, medium and long races.

Lately I have been trying different sports too, like street running, ultra marathons, road biking and mountain biking. Focusing on these individual sports has improved the multiple skills needed in Adventure Racing and vice versa. Thanks to the training for Adventure Racing, I was surprised to be on the podium among the Brazilian feminine elite of these sports.

I first met team DART (now racing as team nuun-FeedTheMachine) when I was living in Los Angeles last year. I was studying for grad school but missed training with strong people. They invited me for a night mountain biking session in the Santa Monica Mountains and after that it didn’t take us long to do a short race together. I loved their competitive spirit, ethic, discipline and professionalism in the sport and can’t wait to race by their side at Primal Quest."