WEDALI in the Star Tribune

On July 19, WEDALI got a bit of press in the Star Tribune, the main newpaper in the Twin Cities area. The article, The anatomy of an adventure race, was written by local adventure racer (and nationally syndicated columnist) Stephen Regenold . Also known as The Gear Junkie, Regenold was named as one of Outside Magazine's Top Ten Adventure Twitters in April 2009.

MNOC Adventure-O-Rama

On July 11, Scooter, Erl, Mo, and Biz raced in the 8th annual Adventure-O, hosted by the Minnesota Orienteering Club (MNOC). The race started in Minneopa State Park, southwest of Mankato, MN. In store for the racers over the next 7 hours was a challenging course with standard AR disciplines, and a few surprises....
After receiving maps and the UTM coordinates for three checkpoints 5 minutes before the start of the race, we were in hot pursuit of CP1 along with 30 other teams. Minneopa State Park has a mix of deciduous, grassland, and riverbluff/bottom vegetation - several erratic glacial features, including 2 meter boulders, also dot the landscape - which made precise navigation somewhat challenging over the 11-point O-section.
We arrived at the confluence of Minneopa Creek and the Minnesota River with a slim lead over the other teams, and were then directed to trek 1.5 miles upstream (instream) to CP 15, finding CPs 12-14 along the way.
We passed under a few bridges over head, then through a small tunnel for a road. Then we came to a huge tunnel that we couldn't see the other side of - it was completely pitch black. Maybe this is why the race directors had "recommended" that we bring a headlamp!
Holding tight to our make-shift "trekking" poles that we found on the way to the river, we precariously traversed the rocky, unknown ground, step by step, in total darkness. Sure Biz could have gotten that headlamp out of his pack before we got to the darkest part, but what fun would that have been? After a bend in the tunnel, we could finally see a small bit of light at the other end. We picked up our pace into the sunshine, and finished the creek trek at CP15 - the bottom of Minneopa Falls.
A short jaunt to the top and we transitioned to biking. We pushed the pace on the bikes a bit, as Andrew Kroese and Tom Puzak of Free Candy (24Seven) closed the gap from the O-section on the upstream trek. On the bike leg, we took a few different route choices, they had a flat tire (or two), and we made it to the paddle TA with a 5 minute lead.
We jumped into our inflatable kayaks and started paddling down the Le Sueur River. The water level was fairly low, around 200cfs, so we got caught on rocks and sandbars, and had to boat whack once or twice, emptying our "bathtubs" in the process. After about an hour and 40 minutes on the paddle, we exited river right to clean and rollup our inflatables and gear up for the next biking section.
We left the TA with a slim margin of 10 minutes over Free Candy, and we knew the next section, mountain biking at Mount Kato (a local ski hill), would suit their strengths. This score-o mountain bike leg had 9 controls that could be attained in any order, but had to be completed by staying on the trail and only going in the proper direction (no bike-whacking). A few of the black diamond trails were a bit sketchy and we were forced to hike-a-bike certain parts. After obtaining 8 of the CPs, we found ourselves at the bottom of the mountain with 1 CP to go. With only a 15 minute penalty for each missed CP, we decided that biking up and down Mount Kato for the last CP would take longer than 15 minutes. We cut our losses and biked back to Minneopa State Park in a hurry, not knowing if other teams had finished before us, or if others would be able to garner all the CPs and reach the finish less than 15 minutes after us.
We crossed the finish line in 6:16:02 and waited nervously as time ticked ever-so-slowly. Nobody had finished before us, so the wait was on. Ten minutes later, team GearJunkie.com came across the line, but they had skipped 4 CPs to our 1. Another minute later Tom and Andrew (24Seven) came across the line, finishing with all the CPs from Mount Kato.... With our 15 minute penalty for skipping a CP, we came short of the overall win by 4 minutes. It was an awesome race though - very competitive from the get-go with several Minnesota teams pushing us the whole time. We definitely enjoyed hanging out at the post-race picnic with the local AR community as well.
Top 4 Overall - After Penalties
1) Free Candy (24Seven) - 6:26:53 (2PO)
2) WEDALI - 6:31:02 (4PC)
3) Gnome Hunters - 7:22:34 (4PC)
4) Team GearJunkie.com - 7:26:05 (4PC)

City of Lakes Tri-Loppet

Molly and Justin, sporting their Minnesota Orienteering Club jerseys, competed in the City of Lakes Tri-Loppet on June 27, 2009. This sprint triathlon, which consisted of an 8k paddle, 5.3k trail run, and 11k mountain bike, took place in the heart of Minneapolis on the chain of lakes and in Theodore Wirth park.

MoBiz, paddling together in a Wenonah Minnesota II and rocking their Aqua-Bound kayak paddles, began with a swift start near the front of the pack. Several hard-core paddlers enter this event, so it's always interesting to see what types of racing canoes and kayaks will show up (and smoke you) in the first leg of the race. After ~45 minutes as racing as a doubles team, we beached our boat on shore and each of us set out on the run, trying to catch up with the lead crowd.

The run in Theodore Wirth was a scenic tour up and down most of the larger hills on the southern end of the park. Molly and Biz both pushed hard, passed a few racers, and completed the run course in 28:53 and 25:00, respectively.

Onto the bikes to pick up more spots, the course had a wide range of terrain, from smooth paved to muddy single track. A few ups and downs were thrown in to keep the course interesting, including the high point of Minneapolis, located in Theodore Wirth Par 3 golf course. Molly finished the bike leg in a time of 34:13 and Justin in a time of 29:14.

After we had caught our breathe and consumed a bit of watermelon, Molly had posted the 4th fastest time for the women in a blistering 1:48:07. Justin had a solid effort and claimed the 8th fastest overall time in 1:39:15. It was a great day for us and the rest of the MNOC crowd, as several other members posted top spots and personal bests.

Iowa Games Adventure Race Victory

Jason & Andrea, racing as SDK (the initials of their 3 children), traveled to Iowa State University in Ames, IA for the Iowa Games Adventure Race on June 14. With a few FEET of less rain for the 3rd annual AR (and one less broken toe), this year looked much better from the start.

In typical fashion, we showed up an hour before the race start and found out that the "surprise" pre-race task was plotting half of the 30 checkpoints, which made for good transition training. No fear though... Andrea and Jason made it to the start line with almost a whole minute to spare. No sense in standing around, right? So off to the races!

The first 13 checkpoints could be had in any order and it appeared that almost everyone figured that CP 2 was the way to go. With a 5-8 hour race forecast, it seemed like a lot of folks were ready for a sprint. We stuck with the man-teams for the first couple of CPs before heading north looking for CPs 3-7. Andrea loves the semi-urban aspect of this race (not so much), but whatever kept us out of the Ames area stinging nettles and poison ivy couldn’t be all bad (we still bear poison ivy scars from the 2007 race....).

Many teams ran into problems around the Ames Laboratory, which contained tricky terrain and a maze of chain link fences. Being a bit over-anxious ourselves, we ended up overshooting three CPs in a row before finally getting to the inner tube pickup and floating down the river.

At that point we were approximately ten minutes behind the leading 3-person man-team, floating down the river with Phil Nicolas and Adam Wheelock from Mantis. The water was quite chilly after the latest rains, but we were only on the water for 1.5 miles before getting out and doing the sprint to the climbing wall at the ISU recreation center.
This is where Andrea had made a great call.... We had decided to pack our own harnesses because the race directors stated that any team that did would have a dedicated rope once they got to this section. Arriving simultaneously with the 3-person team and Mantis, we slipped our harnesses on, climbed, and got out of there a good 2 minutes up.
After the ropes, we were on and off bikes for the remainder of the race - in and around the city of Ames and a stop at a shooting range for a little air gun target practice (which later proved to make the difference). Somewhere in there we met up with Bike Iowa and raced together pretty much for the last hour. However, one checkpoint before the finish we decided to split up, and it proved lucky for us, because we got to the last CP and Bike Iowa was nowhere to be seen.

We sprinted into the finish (well, Andrea sprinted and Jason did his best to keep up) and arrived approximately four minutes in front of Bike Iowa to finish first.

BUT, and it was a big "but," during this race, there was also a scavenger hunt to collect different items along the way. Collecting certain things gave you time bonuses and others merely kept you safe from time penalties. We collected about half of the items, so we knew our placing could go either way. The target from the shooting range was a time bonus for how close you got to the bulls eye and luckily Jason was inside the first ring from the center on the target. After everything was added and subtracted, we finished with a slim 5-minute advantage. Since Andrea had to sit out last year with the bum toe, this one made up for it!