March 2016 - Parks & Recreation - 22

Community Center

Adventure Races: Fun, Healthy
Community Programming
By Nick Menchaca and Dr. Jo An Zimmermann, Ph.D., CPRP

ecreation agencies often find themselves brainstorming for new
ideas or events that will include a variety of participants, regardless of age, body type, fitness level, and so on. Recreation can
be used as a tool to bring communities together, and our goal as
recreation professionals is to become a resource for safe and healthy fun! To
that end, programming an adventure race is an excellent option for creating
a safe, fun and healthy event for your community.
Adventure races can be designed
to encompass many skill sets in addition to the challenge to compete
for the fastest completion time. Most
racers are satisfied with just completing the race, but there are some who
train prior to the race, and compete
at a high level. The race director can
manipulate the overall structure of
the race in any way and customize
it to best fit the environment. For example, the adventure race known as
Tough Mudder is a worldwide event
where teams work through an intricate military style obstacle course.
The Tough Mudder adventure
race values comradery, with the
goal of all teammates finishing,
over posting the fastest time. It began in 2010 with three races across
the United States and 20,000 participants and raised more than
$500,000 for the Wounded Warrior
Project. Tough Mudder has grown
every year: In 2014, 57 races took
place across eight countries, raising
$2 million for charities.
A Customizable,
Self-Sustaining Program
Adventure races have also become
popular on college campuses. The
University of Maine hosts an obstacle course-style adventure race that

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is limited to 300 participants in costume and is 3.5 miles long. Participants are required to complete tasks
such as run through woods and
swamps, climb walls, move tires
and crawl through mud, to name a
few. After the race, awards are given
for first place and the best costume.
The University of Florida's adventure race involves running trails,
mountain biking, canoeing and
climbing a rock wall. Rice University's adventure race also involves
running and canoeing but mixes in
mystery challenges.
Other adventure races involve
partners and orient participants to
checkpoints where they must complete a challenge. Challenges can
exercise mental, physical and/or
teambuilding abilities, or can be
as simple as getting a punch card
stamped at the checkpoints. It is up
to the race director and his or her
crew to come up with fun challenges and surprises that will make the
event special.
Adventure races are a good option
for recreation agencies because the
races can become a self-sustainable
program without the need to be subsidized. At the University of Maine,
individual participants can preregister for $15 or pay a day-of-race fee

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of $25 dollars for students and $40
for nonstudents. The University of
Florida's race has an entrance fee of
$20 dollars per person and is completed in teams of two. Rice University's race also has an entrance fee
of $20 per person but requires teams
of three.
A Learning Experience
The Recreational Administration
Program at Texas State University wanted to start a campus-wide
tradition that would be highly anticipated every year. The growing popularity of adventure races
worldwide gave rise to the idea of
a local adventure race in the university's hometown of San Marcos.
Since 2012, a group of undergraduate students in the recreation program development class has been
putting on the Texas State (TXST)
Turkey Adventure Race the Saturday before Thanksgiving.
Students in the programming
class gain experience and learn
about campus life by seeking out
and creating partnerships with
12-15 student organizations. These
student organizations each host a
checkpoint challenge for the race.
After evaluating the first race, the
crew began charging the student
organizations a small fee to host a
checkpoint. The fee encourages the
student organizations to be punctual on race day and avoids having
any no-shows. Many student organizations will either choose an
activity that represents what they
do or promote within their organi-

March 2016 - Parks & Recreation

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