Musing and Errata on the world of Adventure Racing from the Yak
presented by MPGear.com

For those of you that have been racing in the Southeast these last few years the phrase 'North Georgia Adventure Race' most likely sends a chill down your spine...a freezing bolt of pain that numbs your toes and makes your ass pucker.

To the dismay of many (myself included), after three spectacular seasons, Tony at Raceday recently decided to re-shuffle his lineup. He and Beth are looking to spend more time with each other and their son...something I can relate to given that my two week old is still in the hospital.

As of my last conversation with him (this morning), his plans for next year are centered on the Smoky Mountains Adventure Race...although it's too early for details on that. He has not yet made a decision on the fate of the NGAR and will only say that if he brings it back it will be later in the season.

Well things happen fast in this little world of ours. In light of this change to the 2006 Raceday event schedule, Odyssey Adventure Racing has moved in...and fast. This morning they announced a new race...the One Day Xtreme, to be held in Georgia in January of 2006:



So to those gluttons for frozen punishment out there I say relax. While the NGAR of old may be no more..the One Day Xtreme promises you an alternative so that you may satiate your cravings for frostbite. To those saddened by the passing of NGAR I say..do not despair. Whether the it returns or not Tony is still in the game and you haven't seen the last of his nut busting course designs.

I've brought back the newsletter (applause) that withered and died over a year ago. Back then the idea was to keep you informed about what's going on with the site. That's pretty boring stuff it turns out.

This time around the idea is to make it easier for you to keep up with what's going on in the world of adventure racing without having to interrupt your training to actually swing by the site and check it out. Instead, each week we'll roll up our latest content and send it your way. You may click or not click...the choice is yours.

I realize there are already a TON of AR inspired mailing lists, newsletters and message boards that relay new posts via email, but they all suffer from the same problem...they don't give you anything. You get plenty of inquiries about the best shoes for sprint racing and/or a seizure inducing cacophony of twitching button ads (I won't mention the party responsible for that one), but that's about it. I get enough junk in my Inbox already...I don't need even more email to ignore. I think we can do better.

For the first edition (sent out this morning) we started off slowly and only included links to our most recent race reports and press releases. Over the next several weeks we'll be including posts from the Yak Blog and coming events along with special promotions and featured content that you will find ONLY in the newsletter.

As always my goal is to constantly improve the quality of the site and the content we publish. I look forward to your feedback to help me make adjustments until we end up with the best newsletter possible.

PS - Remember if you've got a race report or press release that you'd like to see published at Checkpointzero.com, syndicated on over 50 AR related sites and included in the Checkpoint News send it along with a pic to arnewswire@checkpointzero.com.

The 2005 Raid World Cup series came to a close last weekend in the tiny European principality of Andorra. We now know which teams have qualified for the Raid World Championship to be held this September in the alps.

36 teams (34 US and 2 Canadian) competed for only 6 slots in the North American zone. Of those 36 teams, 29 entered the US leg only. 7 others made the trip to one or more of the other qualifiers and it paid off. 5 of those 7 teams made it into the top 6 and will have a shot at the title this fall.

Raid World Cup Final Rankings by Zone (PDF)

Primal Quest, LLC launched a new website this morning and issued a press release detailing dates and locations (yes plural) for the 2006 event.

The race will begin June 25th from an as yet undisclosed location and according to the press release the course will take racers through Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montanna, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. Hang on a sec I'm thinking...

How the f@#$ are they gonna do that before the race ends on July 4th?

The course is to be on the order of 600km from start to finish and I haven't looked at a map yet. It may be that this can be done via the disciplines they've mention (trekking, mountaineering, horseback riding, canyoneering, mountain biking, whitewater swimming, paddling, and day/night navigation), but my gut reaction was that they must be planning on trains, planes, automobiles or boats at some point to ferry the whole operation from one point to another in order to cover so much ground.

I've emailed race management, but I'm not expecting that they'll provide more details as of yet. When/if they're willing let slip any more information you know where to look to find it.

UPDATE: As proof of my editorial standards I'm not going to edit or delete the mindless wind I blogged above. The states listed in the press release are meant only to indicate the region in which the race will be held...not a list of states the race will traverse. I could try to rationalize my blatant stupidity, but lets just call a spade a spade and move on shall we :-)

Like Robert De Niro used to say to the guy impersonating Joe Pesci on Saturday Night Live..."I hear things".

Look for news out of the Primal Quest organization any day now...within a week for sure. You can expect details on changes to the site and on dates for the 2006 event.

I've also been able to confirm that the race will take place in either Alaska or a "mountainous western state" and that it will end on July 4th. That would seem to indicate a start in late June and that there will likely be fireworks at the finish :-)

You may have noticed a bit of a drop in activity around here lately...it's been sorta hectic. Mrs. Yak went into labor this past Thursday night. 24 hours and a c-Section later Jack Anthony Angell was born at 10:28pm on July 15th. He weighed in at 5lbs 1oz and was 18.25 inches long.

He was 7 weeks early and will have to spend the next few weeks to a month in the hospital, but is doing great so far. The doctors describe the effort he is having to put into breathing as sprinting. He breathes at a high rate for a bit then slows down then picks it up again. I say it's interval training :-)

Be sure to checkout the latest EnduranceRadio.com interview with Primal Quest's new CEO, Rich Brazeau. Highlights include plans for Primal Quest to move outside the US in 2007, elimination of support crews, fewer checkpoints and more.

Links to the most recent AR interviews can be found on the homepage.