The FAIL content of my weekend post overshadowed the fact that on Saturday morning, I went to a pretty kickass adventure racing clinic.

I’ve been interested in the sport of adventure racing for as long as I can remember, but I’ve either been too poor to afford the necessary equipment or just generally overwhelmed by the gear, navigation, etc. required to participate in a race. Since my recent change of competitive direction, though, I decided I’d start figuring it out.

So, I asked the internet for advice and found this site: Ozark Extreme Adventure Sprints. It’s a series of challenging, yet beginner-friendly races. The nice thing is, they offer a Solo category in both Sprint and Advanced distances. The race organizers (Brandon and Robin) are also the ones that held the clinic last weekend at Burns Park.

I’m planning on competing in my first race in June at Village Creek State Park. Fitness-wise, I am totally confident in my ability to complete the Advenced-division race. However, I feel that even though I did well with navigation at the clinic, I need more practice so that I can put my fitness to good use.
I’ve heard that there are some control point markers out at Shelby Farms, so now that I’m finished teaching for the summer, I need to get myself a decent compass, UTM reader, topo map and some coordinates & get my butt out to the park!

Who am I kidding… you know I’m gonna enter the Advanced division.