Beccas parents are in town visiting right now, currently watching the “edited so far” edition of the engagement video (currently at around longer than it needs to be) entailing everything before, during, and after the “race”, including her reaction to finding out that both Jaime and Jeremy are in town specifically for her. It’s fun stuff, and I really enjoy the video, but I’ve seen it a few times, so I am ok for the moment, but it did remind me of when we would do adventure races back at Bradford Woods.
During the Fall 2002 season, Jeremy, Nate and I found a couple of BMX bikes that we decided to try to ride on all the trails really fast. After trying to take the bikes on a particularly hilly and full of trees trail, we elected to not continue because we liked our bodies in tact (for the day), but we started thinking of how cool it’d be to race around the property on BMX bikes and doing other stuff too. then we remembered that we almost died, and thought that perhaps mountain bikes may be a better choice. And what if we incorporated climbing into the mix? and what about boating? Archery? why not? And over the course of the next two weeks, Jeremy and I started to piece it all together, and put together what we thought would be the ultimately awesomest home brewed adventure race ever.
If you are familiar with Bradford Woods, or have access to a property map, The race started at the gatehouse near the entrance to the Woods off 67 with a biking leg that went from the entrance along the road up Memorial trail, onto ACA trail, down Sasafrass trail, back along Tipple Trail, and then following the road into Observatory field ending at the climbing tower. the second leg was to race up and back down the climbing tower. Once off the tower, the third leg began, which was running. The runners would run from the climbing tower up the road/trail to Agape Lodge, across the bridge and back along village trail to the archery range, where the racer needed to then shoot and hit four different targets each at different distances. Once the archer actually hit each target, they could then begin the next leg, which was another running portion, following village trail past the amphitheater and down switchback trail to the beach. Once at the beach, they needed to follow an orienteering course to find their paddles, which they would need for the next leg which was canoing. With paddle in hand, the teams needed to race from the beach to towaki beach and back, making sure to pick up their teams bandanna.
When all was said and done, it was a blast of a time. we had 5 different teams competing, including “Team Petr” which was a one person team (all other teams were 4-5 people each). Teams were randomly drawn out of a hat, and somehow my team randomly consisted of myself, Jeremy, Kari, and Rose who became “Team Apple Pie”, and then proceeded to win the race. Needless to say, everyone thought it to be a fix. But we won, and thats more important than fair play, even though we did.
We tried to run another adventure race the following spring, using the same formula, just rearranging the course, so it started with a sprint across the dam followed by climbing then biking, but the race ended early, first because of hail, then eminent threat of tornadoes, though there wasn’t any. We called the race right around the fire building portion (a new element) and headed back to Griffith house to drink and wait out the storm.
Late this September Becca and I will be meeting up with Jeremy in Portland, Oregon to compete in an adventure race with him against the rest of his family. It will require all of my strength and might to overcome the challenges that lay ahead, as well as the need for an iron stomach. The only thing at this point keeping us back is that we still need a team name. It will be amazing.
Adventures of Becca 