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You are here: Home / Archives for athletics

Adventure Racing 101

September 6, 2011 By Jillian

Imagine biking through the woods to find a checkpoint marked on your topographic map.  Your partner is using the compass to find West while you’re busy scouting the terrain for the creek marked on the map.  100 yards ahead you spot it, a small white and orange kite propped against a tree.

rope net

Adventure racing can best be described as a competitive scavenger hunt for adults. Split into multiple disciplines, the race involves locating checkpoints marked out on the course.  You may be required to obtain some of the check points on bike, others on foot, still other by boat or better yet rappelling.  There may be certain challenges you have to complete along the way, possibly logic games, an obstacle course or even a rock wall or fireman’s carry.   Your equipment generally includes a compass, food and water.  Beyond that it’s your own wit and skill to guide you to the checkpoints.   And it’s fun.  Ridiculous, I haven’t had so much fun since I was 12 riding my bike to the lake fun.

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Adventure racing as a sport is growing at an incredible rate.  More cyclists, triathletes and runners enter the sport each year, looking for a new challenge. Adventure racing takes skill and endurance.  The short sprint distance races may range anywhere from 4-6 hours while longer races may last many days and cover expansive territory.  Adventure racing camps will teach you the basic skills if you’re looking to do a longer race, but for those of us who are more of the “weekend warrior” type, here’s what you need to know.  We’ll cover choosing gear in an upcoming post.

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The Teams

Teams are usually 2-4 people depending on the company that is putting on the adventure race.  They’ll likely have several divisions, mens, coed and possibly womens.  Choose your partner(s) wisely, you’ll want people that not only have skills to supplement your weaknesses, but also people you can work with and trust.  Nothing takes the fun out of something faster than having the wrong teammates.

The Events

You can almost guarantee that every adventure race is going to at least have an orienteering and mountain bike component.  Orienteering is the on-foot section of the course (here’s where you get to run around the woods with a map and compass).  Generally you should be prepared to cross terrain without a path, with only your compass and topographic map to guide you.  The mountain bike section will likely be limited to trails, but we’ve been at some races where we’ve had to hike our bikes up and over the hill, so read your map carefully.  Frequently there is also a paddling section, usually canoeing or kayaking.  This section usually isn’t that technical, but it will save you a lot of aggravation on the water if you paddle a few times with your teammates before the actual event.

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The Skills

  1. Orienteering. You should be comfortable using a compass before the event and comfortable reading a topographic map.  Neither is difficult to use, but you’d be surprised how many people have difficulty with a compass once they’re lost.    Make sure everyone on your team understands how to use a topographic map and understands the legend.
  2. Mountain Biking. You should be comfortable riding a mountain bike and have the endurance to complete the biking portion.  Sprint races will often give you an estimate on the distance for the mountain bike section- make sure you can complete it.
  3. Endurance. This is probably the most important skill you need to have. And yes, endurance is a skill – you have to understand how to pace yourself and how to maintain your energy levels.  Even a four hour race requires pacing and endurance, so if you’ve never completed endurance event before, think about what you’ve used in the past to get you through a long run or ride.

We’ll get more into the endurance and gear aspects of Adventure Racing in the next few weeks. Check out the US Adventure Racing Association for more information on the sport and check out events in your area!

Filed Under: Headline, Hike, Running, Trek Tagged With: athletics, endurance, sports

Ultimate Frisbee Basics

August 23, 2011 By Danny

One of the things I miss most from our pre-trip life is that I used to play Ultimate Frisbee just about every day.

I was part of a group who met on the National Mall each day at lunch to play a quick game for an hour. No doubt thousands of tourists (and quite a few local journalists) took our picture (the game has continued for about 20 years) but it’s also a fun and fast paced game that kept us all extremely happy and fit at the same time. We played Ultimate a lot in our past life, in fact our USPS (ultimate society of professional slackers) team won the championship a few times. (Look closely, there are some other travel bloggers in that photo!)

Slackers!

Many people laugh and say “that’s not a real sport” (before returning to watch golf or NASCAR on the television) despite acknowledging the fact that this sport take just as much effort and energy as the more popular soccer or basketball. Today marks the first day of the Ultimate Frisbee Beach World Championships in Italy and although I highly doubt I’ll be able to catch any of that event, I do want to share this game with all of you.

The most wonderful thing about this game is that it involves very little actual skill to get started. If you can dodge a… no wrong sport.

We carried a frisbee around the globe with us.  We were always ready for a game if and whenever we could find enough people (4 people to a team is a good minimum). As you progress and get better you’ll begin to pickup some of the finer parts of strategy and technique but for now we’ll just assume you can throw and catch a frisbee.

Ultimate Frisbee Basics

Pick a plot of land and mark it off as you would a football field or a rugby pitch. Once you have two teams each choose a side and ‘throw off’ just as you would kick off in either of those other sports. When a team has the disc/frisbee that team will attempt to throw it to eachother as they move down the field toward their goal. The one catch is that while holding the disk, you cannot run/walk…you must stay stationary with a pivot foot just like a basketball player who has stopped dribbling would do.

 Now to make things a touch more complex…
When you have the disc and you want to throw it to your teammates it is up to the other team to stop you from doing so. If they interrupt your pass the disc is theirs and it’s time for them to try and score on you. When you’re defending you’ll need to not only cover the receivers but also cut off the throwing lanes.  Skilled players will begin to watch angles on the field and will demand that their teammates keep moving in order to keep the angles, and opportunities, changing. Then it comes time for different types of throws, most people know how to throw a frisbee but how many know how to throw it forehand or over the head? Throwing the disc different ways affects how it cuts through, its spin and ultimately its trajectory.  Basic physics here, but I think you’re getting a sense that it’s not just a game.

What I love most about this game is its utter simplicity. No pads or nets or hoops or uprights. The only game I know that is as simple to learn and play is soccer….and as any good soccer player will tell you, once you know the game it’s anything but simple. The same thing is true of Ultimate.

I do miss playing my daily game on the National Mall but I have luckily come across a new local game starting up not too far from our new home. I intend to make it just as often as I can….even if that means an extra 10 miles on my bicycle!

Filed Under: Headline, Weekend Warrior Tagged With: athletics, sports

Watching Le Tour De France

July 26, 2010 By Danny

As I sit here now, watching the final stages of the 2010 Tour de France, it is incredible to think of all that has happened on this year’s tour. The first few stages were a train wreck of crashes and disasters, those were some of the ones we were able to see while we were in Belgium. The team I cheer for, Garmin, lost its lead rider almost immediately. Another race favorite lost the yellow jersey (that’s first place) when the wrist he broke the day prior, and kept secret from the rest of the racers, got the best of him. Since that point, it has been a two man race and after all 2,200 miles 90+ hours of racing the second place man will finish a mere 39 seconds behind the overall winner. Lance Armstrong, fell back after a series of crashes early on, finished in 23rd place, 39 minutes behind the winner. If you think bicycle racing is for wimps, I dare you to pedal your bike up a mountain, get to the top, start to roll down at 40mph, and jump off your bike…..not going to do it, are you?

So how does it work. It is simple really. The rider who has the shortest overall time wears the yellow jersey each day, making him a target for all other riders. At the start of the race, that first place jersey often changes hands each day of the race as different riders are able to showcase their strengths at different points. Once the race reaches the mountains though, usually the strong climbers take over and the competition narrows to a handful of riders. In addition to wining the overall race, you can also win points for certain climbs and sprints and these points also factor into the competition for other jerseys. Sprinters will compete for the green jersey (mostly during flat stages) for being the best sprinter or the dotted jersey for the best climber. Lance may not have won, but his team took first place in the team category this year and that certainly counts for something.

This year we managed to arrange our travel so that we could see a couple of stages. There are no tickets sold to watch the tour and by some estimates it is the most watched athletic event (probably not counting television viewers) in the world. Images on television of spectators on the Tour usually involve people dressed as comic book characters chasing after riders as they pedal uphill. We saw the tour arrive in Brussels on its first day and depart on its second, enjoying the array of crazy advertisements, festival like atmosphere, and barriers separating us from the main raceway…so unfortunately I did not get to dress up like Superman and run alongside the riders.

The reason I love the tour is that it is probably the most dramatic, and most athletic event on television. As a former (and future….) endurance athlete I have extreme respect for any man who can sit on a bike seat 4-5 hours a day for over 3 weeks as while crisscrossing two mountain ranges, several international borders, and around flamboyant and annoying spectators clogging the roadways. The equivalent in other sports simply does not exist. Lebron’s athleticism simply doesn’t come close to Lance’s, sorry. It is a true test of physical limits as riders who can’t keep up, begin to fall back and out of the winner’s circle. This is the world’s greatest endurance event and watching as human limits are tested, each day, on live international television, is what brings me back each year.

Filed Under: Belgium, Europe, Headline, USA Tagged With: athletics, biking, races

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