Race Name: Diamonds & Dirt Women’s Adventure Race
Location: Brighton, Michigan
Date: April 20, 2008.
Length: 6 hours
Website: www.glteams.com
Last year my teammate and I made several trips down to Michigan to race, partially due to distance and race availability. Adventure race directors in Michigan work together to advertise and schedule their races. The result is that Michigan’s 2008 adventure racing calendar boasts over 20 races of varying lengths, including the inaugural Diamonds & Dirt Women’s only adventure race. When we saw this race, we thought it would be a great opportunity for a spring tune-up, and to test our mettle against a larger group of female teams.
The race was held at the Island Lake State Recreation Area and attracted 20 teams of 2 and several solo racers. After working for an hour with two maps of the same area but with varying levels of detail (one 1:24000 topo and one local trail map), the race began with what the organizers called a “sand dune run” along a series of sandy hills in which 3 mandatory CPs had to be located. From there, teams had to locate a singletrack bike trail and run up it to the bike TA. Once astride their aluminum and carbon fibre steeds, teams had to ride a 6 mile loop of awesomely fun and flowing singletrack on which was located 2 CPs. This riding was definitely the highlight of the race for me, and I wished I’d had more time to go back after the race and ride the other loop! Following the singletrack, teams continued to ride on a paved bike path out to the canoe TA. Once on water, teams had the option of retrieving between 2-4 paddle CPs on a series of medium-sized lakes. Our team got all of the CPs, but not after a bit of whining about how our paddling skills had miraculously NOT improved over the winter!
Back to the bikes, teams then rode back along the bike path towards the bike TA. This time, however, there were four optional bike/trek CPs where teams could drop their bikes anywhere along the course and trek in for the CPs. My teammate (who I often refer to as Hawkeye) was particularly strong at spotting orange and white flags in small groups of trees. We managed to locate one of the bike/trek CPs that eluded most of the teams due to her telescopic vision! Once we had found all of these CPs, we returned to the bike TA and put our trekking shoes back on for a score-o finish. There were 6 trekking CPs located over several miles. We were told in the pre-race meeting that no one would get them all, but we were feeling a bit cocky at this point and thought that we could. After having trouble with our very first CP, we realized that this was not going to be as easy as we thought. We readjusted our game plan, swam through a bunch of swamps and yelled at some briars, located as many of the CPs as we could before the 6-hour cutoff and booted it back to the start/finish.
We had been leading the race until we got to the water, but after that since many teams opted not get all the CPs, we had no idea where we had finished. We knew we had made some mistakes but also hustled along pretty well. During the awards ceremony, we were pleased to find out we had finished second, winning some lovely girly prizes: a pretty pink purse and a $100 gift certificate to a fun girly store!
Overall, Diamonds & Dirt was a really fun and well-organized race. The race format enabled teams of varying levels of ability, experience, and motivation all to complete the race fully ranked. I think that more races in Ontario need to consider these type of formats in order to both attract and maintain more female racers. After the grown-up race ended, the organizers put on a mini-adventure race (free) for all the kids who had been waiting around all day for their moms to finish, which was a riot to watch. Diamonds & Dirt will very likely be put back on our race calendar for 2009; after all, I did promise my teammate that I’d get my ears pierced if we won the diamond stud earrings that were the first place prize!
