Adventure what?
I suggested to Ironman legend Darin A and my Missional Community sister L. Asher (an accomplished kayaker that we form a team for an 8 hour Adventure Race that started and finished in Platte River State Park near Springfield Nebraska on October 18th 2009. They actually were excited about the challenge and demands of finding up to 30 check points that spanned 3 Nebraska State Parks, three cities and a river.
The event included lots of mountain biking both on single track trails (think technical) and roads, trail running, canoeing and lots and lots of navigation. The navigation is where the challenge for this type of even lies. No GPS equipment allowed, just a map, UTM coordinates and the technical know how to position a point on a map given both an eastern and norther set of coordinate. You locate the point in the wrong location, you are hunting for a check point that doesn't exist.
I did some of this kind of racing about 10 years ago, so I was exposed to the technical aspects that are required for this kind of event, but this was my first race where I was directing this effort. My hat off to Darin for picking up the skill and also reading the map way better than I could (contours and such).
I think the team agreed that the most challenging aspect next to the navigation was the canoe section on the Platte River. Lets just say we are all still great friends, but there was some flames coming out of Darin's ears as he has steering the boat!
We finished in 7:54 (yes 7 hours 54 mins) but were assessed a penalty for skipping a check point. We were not the fastest, and not the slowest, but the overall goal going into the event was a finish!
Success!!
Live for the Adventure - Kev
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