TodayBackyard adventure attracts area triathletes
Midstate Adventure Challenge tests physical, mental endurance.
|
Print
Share
Email to a friend
Add This
Feeds
Health
Article RatingVideo
Images
In one of the special tests at the Lewisberry YMCA, some teams were able to cut the log in a short amount of time, while others struggled to figure out how to use the saw and cut quickly without injuring themselves. (Naomi Creason/The Sentinel)
The first surprise of the morning for Adventure Challenge racers was an unexpected dip in the Susquehanna River, which had competitors holding onto their bags and swinging shoes over their heads to keep them dry. (Naomi Creason/The Sentinel)
After swimming, running and riding their bikes, Adventure Challenge teams were given the task of cutting three pieces of a log with a saw in preparation for two later tasks at the Lewisberry YMCA. (Naomi Creason/The Sentinel)
Months of training were almost a necessity for teams of athletes to make it through the day last Saturday.
Almost 70 teams, made up of three athletes each, were stretching at the starting line, talking strategy and staking out the course at 7 a.m. to be ready for an 8 a.m. start. They were there for the eighth annual Capital City Adventure Challenge sponsored by UPS. The urban adventure race spanning Lemoyne, New Cumberland and Harrisburg is known for its emphasis on running, biking and canoeing.
The plans and route of the course aren’t revealed to the participants, but the packs of three ran and jogged toward the north end of City Island, thinking they were prepared for anything.
Then they got to the water and realized that none of the canoes were there.
In the first stretch of the challenge, they weren’t canoeing to Front Street on the West Shore. They were swimming.
And barreling into 40-degree water was just the start of a series of surprises that could take a toll physically and mentally over the 20-mile stretch of a course that takes 45 minutes to drive and an estimated three and a half to four hours to complete.
Mental challenge
Steve Barber is one of the organizers of the event, which is the second largest fund-raiser for the YMCA children and youth program. Using his background as an engineer, Barber designs a new course every year. Changing from mountain to street biking to adding a secret swimming component are just some of the ways Barber and the other members like to keep the challenge fresh and give everyone the same opportunity at winning.
“We tell them at the beginning that this is not a triathlon,” Barber said. “You can’t keep your head down and go full force the entire way through. You need to keep on thinking.”
And thinking isn’t necessarily easy when the athletes are struggling through water that reaches their necks or after running six miles only to get in a canoe and bike right after. For many, it’s exhausting, and the last thing any participant wants to do is show up at the finish line, see it 10 feet away but be forced to complete a mental challenge after 4 hours of exercise.
“My mind was dead,” said volunteer John Moritz of Boiling Springs, who competed last year and found himself facing the finish line with one last challenge — how to cut a piece of paper in a way that a team member could pass through it. “When I do that much work, my mind just goes blank. I just couldn’t do it.”
“You always underestimate the endurance needed for this,” Kathleen Cavanaugh of Mechanicsburg said. “I started training months before it, and it was exhausting. You eat so many bananas even if you don’t like them just for the energy.”
And even for those with physical endurance, it’s the tests along the routes that can set a team back.
Teamwork is vital
Part of the reason why those challenges are important to the race is because of the emphasis on teamwork. The challenges, while acting as stations to make sure people are completing the course correctly, are also ways to make sure the entire group is still together. A team can’t start a challenge until all of the team’s members are present.
“(The only requirements are) a sense of adventure and two other people who you can get along with,” Barber said. “The way we have it set up, it’s impossible to do these tests by yourself. Teamwork is the only way they can complete them.”
“There’s no advantage in getting ahead of your team,” Moritz said. “They just can’t be done on your own.”
While the race is competitive for all of the participants, one team helping another one out isn’t all that uncommon. During one challenge, each team had to cross “the river,” or rather the space between two spray-painted lines on the grass, while standing on pieces of logs they had just finished sawing. Two teams decided it would be easier to join together, each member passing on the last piece of log in assembly line fashion to reach the finish line the fastest.
Moritz has found that the behavior is a common occurrence at the Adventure Challenge.
“There are places that you almost need some help from another team,” Moritz said. “There’s a wall climbing test where one member helps the other two over the wall, and the third person is just left down there, and you can’t really get over it by yourself. So you just give that person a lift and get back to your own team. It’s a race, but you’re there to have fun and help each other out.”
And being in that moment is what keeps a lot of them coming back. Barber said that most of the partipants were there previous years, and given that the race has increased from 19 teams its first year to 92 teams last year, its popularity is still high, despite the side adventures of swimming in cold water on a cold morning and figuring out how to ride your bike after its been tied to all the other bikes and had the air from its front tire let out.
While Cavanaugh joked that everything was down hill after the start of the race, she enjoyed her time as a participant, enough to come back as a volunteer and watch everyone go through the same ordeal.
“It’s just a wonderful thing to do, and it makes you feel alive,” she said.
