June 2011

Sponsor Love: Stuffitts

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 06/27/2011 - 14:10

Stuffitts:  The newest company to get onboard, these guys are super excited to be involved, and although you may not know it now, you're going to be super excited to have them thus.  After this race you're going to have two options - throw your shoes away, or use stuffitts.  Now that i'm out in the field planning the course, my two pair (well, one's actually Tammy's) are in constant rotation.

notes from the field

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 06/27/2011 - 10:03
Can you say "liquefaction"?

Last saturday I was out with the family floating the Pembina river with my wife and kids.  It was just below flood stage - nice and fast with many sections of small little fun wave trains.  Lots of buffalo bones on the sandbars and mosquitos at the put in and take out.  I snuck away with fellow course planner, Dexter Perkins to run through the first section of the race scheduled for late august (END-AR24). We're super excited about the route thus far - here are a few pics from the course.

As Dexter will testify, the ruts along the old trail are quite deep!

Practice makes perfect

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 06/27/2011 - 09:32

Two weeks from now is a great opportunity to 'get your game on' and start working through those team dynamics, after all there's only about 9 weeks until END-AR24. Wedali, reigning national champions (USARA, and CP tracker series points champion) are teaming up with the Minnesota Orienteering Club (MNOC) to put on the 5-8 hour Adventure-O at an undisclosed location within 90 minutes of the twin cities.  Lets get out there and represent ENDracing racers! We'll even sweeten the deal a bit - we'll lower the fees for our race by $15/racer for teams doing the Adventure-O to help get it back to early registration pricing.  It's our way of saying sorry for the late notice.

Details of of the race are below:

Team WEDALI (www.wedali.com) is proud to join forces with the Minnesota Orienteering Club in organizing the 10th Annual Adventure-O. This year’s event will feature a mix of urban and backwoods adventure including flat-water paddling, on- and off-road biking, team challenges and plenty of navigation for the O junkies! All abilities welcome. Beginner, intermediate and advanced races will find the 8 hour course fun and challenging and everyone will enjoy swapping stories at the post-race social. The race is open to coed teams of 2 and 4 persons and open (same sex) teams of 2. For the first time ever, the MNOC Adventure-O is part of the Checkpoint Tracker National Series. Teams that would like to earn points in the CPT Series need to register their team with CPT and add the MNOC Adventure-O to the team schedule. The exact location of the race will be announced at the pre-race meeting at REI in Bloomington on Wednesday, July 6 at 7:00pm. Teams from outside the Twin Cities will be informed of the location via email.

Cheers and happy racing everyone.

Andy


Growing pains

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 06/23/2011 - 13:58

Lots of news, both good and bad.  First the bad.

We have a DATE CHANGE for the fall 24 hour race.  As we moved the race to Pembina this year, we're dealing with some different agencies and have met some resistance to holding the race over labour day weekend, as 1/2 mile of the proposed course passes through a fish and game department managed Wildlife Management Area (WMA).  Labour day happens to be bow hunting opening weekend, and fish and game is unwilling to grant us the necessary permits.

If we're going to get anywhere in bringing these races to places where the prevailing attitude towards them is bewilderment, we're going to have to build bridges, not destroy them.  And so after careful consideration, we feel that changing the date is our best and only real option.  The new date is one weekend prior, August 27th and 28th.  The race start will be moved up a bit to 2 pm on saturday.  Hopefully this gives regional teams enough time to travel up race morning and possibly still get back home on sunday night (although if you want to do this, bring a volunteer and have them drive you back!).  The post race meal will be an early dinner - we'll have you fed and prizes awarded by 5 pm at the latest.  All teams already registered have been contacted and offered refunds if they can't race on the new dates.

Now for the good news.

The course is epic: awesome rivers, steep hillsides with dense bush, deep gorges, swamps, mud galore.  This is going to test you.  Most 24 hour races are close to 100 miles.  Ours is only 65 or so, but you'll pay for those miles, and we guarantee that you won't finish (if you finish at all) feeling short changed. Additionally, we'd received some feedback that some of you would-be-racers couldn't do a labour day race anyway (sacred last lake weekend for families) and so now maybe you'll be able to make it out.  This group includes Wedali, reigning North American champions (yeah, i know this might not seem like good news if you're not Wedali), so if these guys can make it, you might get to race against some of the very best.

Please feel free to contact me (701-330-0709) or email (endracing@gmail.com) with any questions or concerns.  Sorry for any problems this change causes - or for your broken hearts if you'd been planning to race over labour day but now can't make it - but for those who can, it'll be well worth it.

Cheers everyone

10 weeks out, and packraft woes

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 06/17/2011 - 16:08

Just a couple of pics to show you how much fun we're having out there setting the course.  A few more important updates should be coming next week, so stay tuned.  All pics courtesy of Caylan Van Larson, resident photographic genius. Also just thought i'd mention that all the scouts (packrafts) that we had for sale have gone - we've still got some of the bigger (but still ultralight) boats available however.  checkout www.groundupadventures.com/alpacka for full details as to what's left.  For those that were psyched to get the cheaper alpacka's but don't think the 5 pound, class IV whitewater capable other models are for you - check out the flyweight designs boats - even lighter than the scouts (35 oz!!!!) and although not quite as unbreakable as the alpackas, certainly more than up for the challenge of any rivers here in our rather elevation devoid state.  Although i haven't personally used one of these, they've gotten very good reviews online, and the price tag ($299) suggests that they'll be quality.  I'll keep my eye out for other options as well.

Crossing a tributary to the Pembina river

yeah, we think this is super cool too.