Adventure Races are about as fun as it gets for racing. Most times, racing can be SO serious that you let the fun aspect slip through the cracks -- especially when you are racing solo and the focus is competing and being your best. There's little time for laughter when wheezing up a hill on the bike or run, or focusing on your stroke to stay on the heels of the swimmer in front of you. You still wheeze in adventure races, but you're wheezing with a partner and in most cases, there's some jokes and fun going on inbetween the gasps for air.
Goals Adventure Racing Association based in Downingtown puts on the best of races. They are organized, have fair categories for competitors (MASTER WOMEN!!!), and reward the entrants with decent swag and goodies. On Sunday is the
SAVAGE. About 150 teams are entered (300 racers or so). My teamate, Donna Weiser, is the organizer of the her and me team..., and has been combing the gear list and making sure her/me have all the required gear covered - not to mention our attire is matched perfectly (watch for the Paradise
Pink skirts this year!) She's a tremendous navigator too. Adventure racing requires you to be able to follow a map. Some races have marked courses, others do not. Some adventure races actually require you to plot coordinates on a map and determine the course based on those coordinates. Those are some hard races and you need a really good navigator who can read maps/longitudes/latitudes,etc. (not one of my forte's!) Sunday's race is fairly easy and will likely be marked AND they'll give us a map with the course also. On race day, we'll get the map of the course and Donna will take it, study it, memorize it, and we'll be on our merry way finding the tokens and getting back to the start in about 4-5 hours. We make a really good team and that's part of the energy of adventure racing - team compatibility. There's nothing worse than two team mates fighting in a race - and it happens! There's 8 of us that will be racing -- Dick
Mansberger and Cathy are a Team (Dick is Donna's co-worker). Christina Bohensky and her Teammate Sam Bashore
are racing (Sam is a bigwig at EL Heim - another of Donna's co-workers), and Christina's sister, Sheena Perry is racing with one of Chrissy's teamates from the Cap City Challenge, Chris. Donna's hubby, Brett, is sitting this one out and will be the official cheering section and make sure Donna and I actually USE the kayak paddles this year (we left them lay last year because SOMEONE was too lazy to run to transition and get them!) Of course my dear hubby will be around the race with camera in hand.... although he talked about paddling too - so he may be out on the water with us. So Sunday is the day, and we're ready. We've both been training for months, so physically we are ready. And mentally? We're always ready for fun Adventure Racing!
Adventure Races are about as fun as it gets for racing. Most times, racing can be SO serious that you let the fun aspect slip through the cracks -- especially when you are racing solo and the focus is competing and being your best. There's little time for laughter when wheezing up a hill on the bike or run, or focusing on your stroke to stay on the heels of the swimmer in front of you. You still wheeze in adventure races, but you're wheezing with a partner and in most cases, there's some jokes and fun going on inbetween the gasps for air. Goals Adventure Racing Association based in Downingtown puts on the best of races. They are organized, have fair categories for competitors (MASTER WOMEN!!!), and reward the entrants with decent swag and goodies. On Sunday is the SAVAGE. About 150 teams are entered (300 racers or so). My teamate, Donna Weiser, is the organizer of the her and me team..., and has been combing the gear list and making sure her/me have all the required gear covered - not to mention our attire is matched perfectly (watch for the Paradise 
Pink skirts this year!) She's a tremendous navigator too. Adventure racing requires you to be able to follow a map. Some races have marked courses, others do not. Some adventure races actually require you to plot coordinates on a map and determine the course based on those coordinates. Those are some hard races and you need a really good navigator who can read maps/longitudes/latitudes,etc. (not one of my forte's!) Sunday's race is fairly easy and will likely be marked AND they'll give us a map with the course also. On race day, we'll get the map of the course and Donna will take it, study it, memorize it, and we'll be on our merry way finding the tokens and getting back to the start in about 4-5 hours. We make a really good team and that's part of the energy of adventure racing - team compatibility. There's nothing worse than two team mates fighting in a race - and it happens! There's 8 of us that will be racing -- Dick 
Mansberger and Cathy are a Team (Dick is Donna's co-worker). Christina Bohensky and her Teammate Sam Bashore
are racing (Sam is a bigwig at EL Heim - another of Donna's co-workers), and Christina's sister, Sheena Perry is racing with one of Chrissy's teamates from the Cap City Challenge, Chris. Donna's hubby, Brett, is sitting this one out and will be the official cheering section and make sure Donna and I actually USE the kayak paddles this year (we left them lay last year because SOMEONE was too lazy to run to transition and get them!) Of course my dear hubby will be around the race with camera in hand.... although he talked about paddling too - so he may be out on the water with us. So Sunday is the day, and we're ready. We've both been training for months, so physically we are ready. And mentally? We're always ready for fun Adventure Racing!
1 comment:
WOW! you are very adventurous!fantastic! Bye bye from Italy! Patty
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