‘Mental, physical’: Adventure racing is growing in Warren
By JON SITLER jsitler@timesobserver.comArticle Photos
Fact Box
For information on adventure racing or, specifically, the July 18 race in Warren or the August 1 Kinzua Country Tango, visit www.rootsrace.com, www.warrenadventures.com or www.kinzuacountrytango.com
Life's an adventure.
Especially for 10 members of Team WarrenAdventures.com, sponsored by the Warren County Council on Tourism.
Not only are the five two-person teams helping the sport of adventure racing grow in Pennsylvania, but they're helping it grow right here in Warren.
"Since we have such a strong group from (up here), they are actually going to have a series race in Warren this year on July 18th," said Brandon Kellogg, who teams with Ryan Hoffman to make up one of the five teams - the "Snot Rockets" - featured at www.warrenadventures.com.
The series Kellogg is referring to is the Grass Roots Racing series (www.rootsrace.com), based in the Pittsburgh area.
There are four series races this year, considered "sprint" adventure races - three in the Pittsburgh area, and one in little 'ol Warren.
"Initially, when we started Grass Roots, we were focusing in and around Pittsburgh," said Grass Roots race director Frank Eyth. "Warren was definitely not on our radar at all. But with all the support we were getting from Warren, we felt we owed it to them."
Eyth said, even with Warren a good three-hour drive to Pittsburgh, and adventure races also held even south of Pittsburgh, "there are more people from Warren (in those) than there are from Pittsburgh."
In Eyth's second-ever visit to Warren (his wife Bethann is from Bradford), he was mapping out a course for the July 18 series race.
His only hint about the race, while he was here he met with representatives of the Allegheny National Forest. No one has any idea what resulted from that.
Pretty much except Frank.
What we know:
The race will start at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, July 18;
No one but Eyth knows where it will start, end, or anything in the middle.
That's the thing about adventure racing, "it's mental and physical," said Chris Darling, who teams with Eric Fadale for team "M.M.M. Adventure Racing."
The team names resemble tag teams from World Wrestling Entertainment.
But the teams from warrenadventures.com are serious about their sport - which compares to a triathlon only in that you swim, you bike, you run, you do multiple things.
The difference, with a triathlon, a marathon, a 10K, a bike race, "you always know exactly what's going to happen (in those)," said Scott Angove, who teams with David Brook in their first season as teammates. "We don't know in what sequence. It's the unknown (that is appealing)."
Kellogg and Hoffman, Darling and Fadale, Angove and Brook, Christine Welsh and Jeff Flickner of team "Bonnie and Clydesdale," and Dave Salvatore and Scott Newton of team "Moxie," "there's really only so many people this appeals to," said Angove. "The type of person it appeals to is an exciting person to be around."
People in Warren - not just the Type A personalities - were introduced to the Kinzua Country Tango adventure race in 2007 by current YMCA executive director Thad Turner.
But the teams from warrenadventures.com have been competing in adventure races for years, some close to 10 years.
"Adventure racing started many years ago with Mark Burnett (making it more mainstream in the United States); true adventure racing was where you were out in the wilderness for days with no support," said Eyth. "Over the years, companies tried to pick up the concept and make it doable for the average person. They introduced what was called sprints.
"I really think these races are more doable," said Eyth.
The Hi-Tec Sprint Series was the premier series in the nation with hundreds of competitors until it "went away," said Eyth, who thought, "This would be fun to do as a career."
So, with his wife, Bethann, also an avid adventure racer, he's in his fourth year producing races through Grass Roots, sometimes with the help of Russell-native and Eisenhower High School graduate Toby Angove.
"Toby is the stuff of legends in and around the Warren area," said Eyth. "I've known Toby for eight-to-10 years. He competed in the Hi-Tec series and was on one of several excellent teams from Pennsylvania. The first year that our teams went to California for the national championships, four of the top six teams were from Pennsylvania. By virtue of their finish, his team landed a sponsorship deal and competed in the series for the next couple of years as team FogDog - an online sports supplier. Toby is an awesome teammate and always races with more spirit than anyone else on the race course.
"(Hi-Tec) made (races) kind of extreme, intense, they raced fast and hard, and 300 teams of three people, well, the elite teams were done in 2 1/2 hours. The other people were just out to do it," said Eyth. "They weren't in great shape, weren't running the whole leg, but they completed it.
"What we're trying to do at Grass Roots is go more toward a thinking-man's version, and more toward the traditional and navigate through the course using a map," he said.
The W.A.R. - Warren Adventure Race - on July 18 includes trail running (six to seven miles), mountain biking (15 to 25 miles), and navigation. Racers must be prepared to carry all their necessary gear for the race.
The race will also include a six-mile downriver canoe paddle on the Allegheny.
"Warren is full of natural obstacles and we feel that there is enough built into this course that we will not add any of our own hazards," said Eyth. "It will be you and your teammate pitted against the rest of the field and all of the nature that you care to experience in eight hours."
Adventure racing sometimes includes swimming, climbing, mountain biking, cross country running, canoeing and whatever outdoor orienteering the course producer can think of. There are typically teams of two or more, co-ed was the norm, but now men's or women's are often allowed. There are no rest periods unless the athletes choose to rest. Teams finish when they finish.
But the WarrenAdventures.com team thinks if you can run a 5K, bike for an hour and afford to pay $40 (or $60 race day), you can complete a sprint adventure race.
Kellogg, who trains six-to-eight hours per week, prefers the mental and physical challenges of an adventure race to running "for three hours straight," he said.
"You really do need to be a well-rounded athlete," said Scott Angove, but you don't have to be great at any one or two things.
Darling likes how it pushes his body and mind "to the limits," he said.
And they all like the thought of having the race in Warren.
"We look for every opportunity to add new people," said Newton.
"It's awfully exciting to bring it to the home court," said Scott Angove.
