June 2016.
6 Hour Adventure Race.
Kidfree weekend getaway.
That is how we roll.
My husband and I signed up for my longest adventure race late last spring. This race is part of the 361 Unbridled Series. It is the first one in the 3 part series and the shortest of the three. The other two are an 8 hour and a 12 hour, both held at a Kentucky State park as well. The race consists of orienteering (navigation), paddling, running, and mountain biking. You are given a map with several points that your team needs to go find in the woods. You have 6 hours to find as many points as possible using any of those three modes of transportation with the map and a compass, but arrive to the finish line late and you get penalized.
Depending on the race, you get the map with the points or you have to put the points on your own map. This race we had a map with them on it, plus we were allowed to use the park map with the trails on it. This was helpful for us. We placed to checkpoints on this map as well.
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| We used the map the gave us plus the park map. |
These races have a little bit of everything: running, paddling, biking, off-the trail exploring while hoping to not lose contact with the map plus strategy. If you are racing in teams, you want to play to everyone strengths. We are a strong running team as compared to mountain biking. We are better off leaving bikes at different points and then running. However on this race, the biking trails were also horse trails, so they were beat up. We actually did not use our bikes at all on this race. We canoed to different ends of the lake, parked our canoe and ran to several checkpoints.
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| Ryan portaging our canoe down a huge hill that we also had to carry up. Thanks to our friends, Salmons, for letting us borrow their lightweight canoe. |
Being out in the middle of nowhere, means there is specific gear you need to have with you to be safe. Each adventure race may have slightly different gear requirements. In this race, each person needed headlamp with extra batteries, hydration, fuel, space blanket, whistle, and a sharpie. Each team needed a first aid kid, compass, fire starter, fully charged cell phone. For the bike portion, we needed a helmet, light, inner tube, patch kit, pump or CO2 cartridge, and bike tool. For the paddling section, we needed life vests and paddles. The longer the adventure races the more gear you need.
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| Ryan getting our checkpoint. (See that fluorescent green person?) |
Carter Caves was a great location for the race. It was our first time there and there were some spectacular views and arches to see. Near the end of the race, I was getting fatigued and things were all running together. As you tire, it gets harder to focus on the map to locate points. Fortunately, Ryan did the navigation. He would tell us our back stop and what we were looking for so as we ran we were looking for these things. Since I was getting tired, we headed back fairly early - 29 minutes to spare. We came in third place in our division. Not a bad showing for our first time in a 6 hour adventure race.
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| All packed up to head home. |
361 and DINO both host 4 hour adventure races to try it out if you like in the Indiana and Kentucky area. There are several other groups that hosts these races if you just google for them. There are also orienteering clubs that can help teach you or improve your navigation skill as well. These races are usually just fun races that break up the monotony of having to follow a specific course in a running race. I definitely recommended giving it a try.
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| A natural bridge at Carter Caves |
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