Troy Farrar

I’m Troy Farrar and I am the course designer and race director for the Great Borneo Outdoor Challenge.

When Chas first approached me to join the GBOC project I was intrigued. As I researched the Sarawak region of Borneo my intrigue quickly turned to excitement. Sarawak is a tropical paradise on earth and a place where we can design a truly epic adventure race for many reasons. The diversity of terrain will allow for a multitude of disciplines which are both physically challenging and visually breath-taking. We plan to highlight several of the crown jewels of the Sarawak region during the GBOC giving the racer a true taste of Borneo. I feel the pallet we have been provided is amazing and this event will leave the competitors awestruck by the beauty they encounter on their journey. The hardest part of my job is trying to figure out how to get the competitors back on the airplane to go home when the event is over.

My work history is fairly diverse so I like to think of myself as a modern day renaissance man, however most of my close friends would probably just claim that I have attention deficit disorder. I was a collegiate soccer coach, a petroleum land man and have owned several businesses. I owned and operated one of the first and largest adventure race production companies in the United States for over 10 years. We designed and produced over 150 events during that span including several of the USARA Adventure Race National Championships. Then my first daughter, Izzy came along and I decided that I would rather spend time with her and my wife Debbie in the outdoors than being gone designing race courses. So I sold the production company to some friends and settled into my role as Poppa. I am currently the President of the United States Adventure Racing Association and have been in that position since 1998. I still manage the production of the USARA Collegiate & Sprint Nationals as well as the USARA Adventure Race National Championship. It has been exciting to watch the growth of adventure racing in the US and it has been a true pleasure to serve the sport during the formative years. My tribe grew by another member last year when my son Luke arrived and I now have the makings of a full adventure racing team. We are just waiting for Luke to get the walking thing down a little better and then the AR scene had better get ready for Team Farrar.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with adventure racing I would like to give you a brief education. Adventure racing is a multi-discipline, team sport in which the entire team travels together throughout the entire event. The beauty of adventure racing is that every event is different. The core disciplines are trail running, mountain biking, paddling and navigation, but the possible disciplines are endless. Many events have other disciplines such as rappelling, caving and white water swimming. Adventure races are often unsupported and the team must carry all of their equipment for the entire event. For an old dirt bag like myself I cannot think of a better sport. I get to bike, paddle and run around in the woods with a few of my friends; what could be better than that?

The GBOC promises to provide competitors with an authentic taste of Borneo. The event will be exciting, scenic and challenging. I hope to see you for the inaugural event in 2011!