Miscellaneous Adventure Races

Quick snippets of adventure racing experience.

GMRAS

May 22, 2010

GMRAS was being held in Maquoketa, IA, only about an hour from my house. I did not have a team, had another race the next day, and a team from CAARA needed a crew, so I was off to help them. Milan and Larry were the racers, who had a lot of combined experience adventure racing. It was a good setup for me because I got to learn a lot from these two, while helping them compete in the race. This adventure race involved the normal disciplines of orienteering, mountain biking, a rappel, and paddling on the Maquoketa river. Unfortunately the caves were closed to reduce the spread of white-nose syndrome, which was killing bats, so the racers could not crawl through those.

Race day went very well, as my job was pretty simple—basically drive around their truck to the different check points, hauling their gear and nutrition. I got a first hand view of how the race transpired, learned a lot, and got jealous that I myself was not racing. It was a fun day crewing, helping the racers and mingling with other crews. I reunited with some people from Lightening Strikes as well as networked with a couple other people from my area. Maybe I'll be able to race next year instead of just crewing.