On Saturday, April 5th NYARA is putting on the Fool’s Rogaine in Wawayanda State Park. It’s not the biggest or most serious race of the year, but instead a race where both beginners and experts will be challenged. Race director Alan Young is known to always add special elements (or tricks) that will surprise even the most experienced adventure racers while the course by itself is easy enough that you can still enjoy it even if it is your first adventure race. We sat down with Alan and asked him a couple of questions about this years race.
1) How many tricks are you planning into this years course ?
TRICKS! How dare you insinuate that I deploy tricks into my race, I prefer to call them the will of the FOOL. There will be at least one or maybe two or three…….
Besides good footwear, compass, whistle, map bag and a pack to carry food and water for 6 hours a large bribe for the officials will secure your first place finish!!
If the weather is to be wet, then bring some rain gear.
Nope. Bikes are an option and are not required.
Due to the elevation and amount of snow we have had, this years race MAYBE a foot race only. We will make a call the week of the race to see if the trail conditions have improved for the use of bikes.
I think it is more will power and determination that gets people to the finish line. But navigation is always a part of this race. There are always at least two routes to each control point: the easy, less technical route and the riskier, cross country route. I design the course so that there are a mixture of easy and hard controls for every level of experience. You must decide your own course.
Solo and teams are all welcome. Solo is great fun till you get completely lost and then you’d wish you had brought a friend so you can blame them on that stupid route choice….. Teams are great because you can always blame someone else and laugh about it afterwards, if your still talking to each other…..of course.
Enough for 6 hours and don’t feed the bears!!
Ohh your really digging for beta here….. let’s just say the main map is 1:25,000 and there could be 1:50, 1:250, 1:500…….
We strongly discourage this practice. Please sign up on the website so that we know how much prep we have to do before the event. We can always try to accommodate when we can though.
Most clothing items will be inedible after the race and if not then you really need to try harder. We’ll have the usual spread of health conscious items: brownies, Twizzlers, M&Ms and then for the weird people maybe some fruit and granola bars. But yes, there will be food and drinks at the finish.
Bring your swimming gear (and an pickax) and go for a dip in the lake after the race, very refreshing …….burr!!
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