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Thinking about taking on a race? Here are some GREAT ideas we think are perfect for the gone alpine user. They are listed in order of event dates.

Benefiting the Lance Armstrong foundation

Read about our adventure in 2006 with

"Well folks I think we have entered a whole new category of racing and adrenaline rushes. I thought going into this race that we were going to be hooked and I was right... we are. We have linked up to a completely new style of racing that is "Wicked Tough" yet "Wicked fun".

For those that have no idea as to what I am talking about a good definition of Adventure racing is multi-discipline, team comprised, multi-tasked event requiring full mental & physical strength for multiple demanding, and many times painful miles, for hours per event.

Our first race (this one) comprised of a non-stop moving for close to 12 hours and 40 miles. This race started off with a 2+ mile morning run through the city of Portland, 7+ mile kayak down the Willamette river, to 6+ mile rollerblade course through NE Portland, jump on the Max train heading back to downtown Portland, run over a few blocks to climb 9 flights of stairs up to the top of a parking garage where you launched off ropes and rappelled to the bottom, then proceeding to run 2 miles with the addition of a timed 15 flights of stairs up and down, to finish off with the last section of the race with another 8+ miles of trekking the NE Portland city streets and last but not least the icing on the cake was the 16 miles of killer hill riding. The entire race you are using maps & compass to find your check points, routes and sanity. I told Shane, the director of the event, that his name takes on a whole new meaning to our family. He just smiled as he was shaking our hands congratulating us for finishing and said there's a reason why its called "Wicked! Wicked tough... Wicked fun". That my friends it was.

For those of you that want to link up with Shane and his amazing events log on to Wickedar.com . And for those that just want to hear the rest of our story... stay right here. "

Our 2006 Gone Alpine co-ed team

Ken (left) - Point man on nutrition/hydration, assist in getting all packs/nutrition/hydration prior race day and in proper place and staged during the race. Help us to keep oriented to Portland and make sure we are all keeping hydrated and nutrients up (he's good on that).

Karin (middle)- Point man in navigation, mapping, plotting routes. During race - keep lead in course plotting/route finding, all keeping alert will be of utmost assistance. Also be on first aid alert.

Tonya (right) - Pre-start - point man for equipment/gear, name/number tagging, staging this also means when we transition from one event to another you are keeping your eye out for our stuff, we'll follow you during those points. During race - you will be the one in charge of the "passport", being responsible for getting all the CP's noted.

A little pre-thought.

The thought of doing an adventure race in the first place started over a year ago. Tonya discloses to me that one of her goals in life is to do an adventure race. And as spent more time together doing events and the like the thought kept growing on me. I knew though that Adventure racing was a whole new class of sport, whole new bread of athletes and abilities. So needless to say it was SLIGHTLY INTIMIDATING, however the people that we are... it is something that needed to be done.

We followed our Wicked friends with their Wicked little race from the get go. We wanted to jump in last year, didn't work out. Good thing we didn't... we wouldn't have been ready. Several months ago we were toss around what race to do, we kept coming back to this one. Tonya says "This is our race!" So... it was. This is the one we were going to do. From that moment on we spent our time trying to train as much as we could for whatever it was we were about to do, we really had no idea.

Our race

Like I pointed out earlier this race was a bit of a challenge. Since none of us had ever done an "adventure race" before we were in it for the learning of it all, how it all works the feel of it and some incite on the nitty gritty. Having some confidence in our abilities we took on the Pro course. With Ken's Hood 2 Coasting running, multi day difficult backpacking trips, mountain/rock climbing and mountain biking. Tonya's Triathlon, Backpacking, mountain biking, Reach the Beach and 1/2 marathoning and my Backpacking, climbing, marathoning, Reach the Beachin and mountain biking, we figured we'd give it a go. And we did, it's good thing we had some sort of endurance training, because endure we did. This race was tough... good and tough. I'd never been in anything like it... will we do it again? Without a doubt, next time we'll hopefully be better ready.

The night before the race Tonya had come down from Seattle and joined us in our living room of equipment, gear, food and clothes. As with I'm sure everyone of the participants you spend more of your time preparing and cleaning up than you do actually in the event itself. Our house was a beautiful mess. The eager anticipation of the next day was overwhelmingly awesome, we had no idea what to expect and were jumping into it head first. We planned, arranged and organized for the race the best we knew how. Then tried to somehow get some sleep.

Morning came early, we wanted to get there as soon as we could so we had enough time to absorb as much as possible. We were some of the first ones there. Checked in, started staging and planning according, the feeling was good. Good energy, good feeling from all attenders and good food in our tummy's. We received all our necessary information for the race, except maps. Our "Passport" for this race was a booklet that contained all the checkpoints with questions or spaces for signatures. As your team reached every Check Point you needed to acquire information. If you missed a Check Point or got the answer wrong your team would be penalized, which is all part of the game.

Soon all the Pro racers we present. Looking over all the present athletes that knew they were animals, we knew we were probably out of our league. We were not going to back down and wimp-out from the challenge of trying to play with the big boys, and at a game we weren't sure how to play. You see it seems to be our theory here with us... if you are going to do it... go big, and that we did. Momentarily we felt the sun start to come out, energy was high and positive, and yet we had no idea what we were getting into... and that was ok.

After a bit all gear was staged, and endorphins started kickin in. Shane started speaking, while everyone was sizing each other up. Everyone knew exactly what their competition was ... but us... we were looking at each other like what the heck are we about to do. Heck we were just there competing against ourselves trying to get to the finish. After the most appreciated words of wisdom from Shane, we snagged our maps, got in line with the other crazy insane animals all prepped and ready to go.

Count down was on... then we were off. The first leg of the race Shane called a nice morning jog... which was more like a 2+ mile sprint. We took off into downtown Portland winding our way through the streets looking for our first of many Check Points to come. Once acquired, you raced back to the transition area where you checked in and out with the main hub, grabbed the map for the next leg, picked up your kayaks and headed for the river. I tell ya 3 people carrying 2 big fat kayaks full of gear wasn't easy, but we did it.

From the hub we kayaked down the Willamette river just over 7 miles. This section of the race was a real treat. Nice smooth water... majority of all the racers were ahead of us, which helped us see where we were going. Didn't take long before we caught up with a few other racers, kinda nice having others to contend with. Some where around the 6 mile mark of the kayak our treat kicked in... it started to downpour like we'd never seen, twice! Nothing like sitting in the middle of a humongous river next to a giant oil tanker in a tiny little boat while it poured down rain. It rained so hard that we could barely keep our eyes open to see where we were going. Ah we just laughed and keep on paddling, not like we were going to hit anything out there.

After sitting in our pool of rain water for about 2 hours, we carry our kayaks out of the water at the next transition area just under the St Johns Bridge. There we tried to dry off a little, since we looked something like drowned rats. Proceeded to shove our rollerblades on our soaked feet and head out to the street. The streets were slick as snot, rollerblades and water don't really mix, but we didn't have much choice. Off we headed, up hill to the rollerblade section. I'd never been able to ride through so many water puddles before on skates... kinda fun in some sick kind of way.

The rollerblade section took us out onto NE Portland, up out of the banks of the river to part of the 40 mile loop. That was some good fun, made us realize we needed to get more comfortable on blades, that we will have to work on. This leg of the race near ended with a ride back into the city via the Max train. Oh it was so nice to sit for a few minutes, eat and catch up on our fluids.

Once back into the city we rolled off the train back onto the streets and back to the central transition area. We had already decided we were going to do the ropes section next. Kicking and tossing off our blades, we crammed back on our shoes, grabbed our harnesses and headed back to the city. We quickly found the parking garage where we were going to rappel off of. We saw the several peeps on the ground attending ropes. After checking in we were sent off to the top, via stairs. The guy said "the elevator is out, because you guys "paid" to do the stairs", we weren't too sure how much we liked what he said, but... it's part of the game so off we went, up 9 flights to the top.

Upon reaching the top of the parking garage, we had a moment to catch our breath, get on our harnesses and check in once again. Quickly we were assigned to our rope, each team had to use the same rope which was fine. Ken went first, it was kinda nice because then Tonya and I got to see how it was all going down. Then again I didn't really like it, because I'm usually the one that has to go first so I don't have time to think about launching off the top of a building via a rope, either way all was well.

Next Tonya went, then I. Tonya with a fear of heights went over like a champ. I headed off with not much issue, almost tipped because of the weight of my pack but... didn't. I had almost reached the bottom when I unexpectedly stopped on the rope, then went again. As I got myself off at the bottom I came to find out that Ken and the attending rope guy were discussing how yanking on the bottom of the rope will stop someone as a safety. This I already knew... Ken just had to test it out and play with it. Thanks guys!

Before we could head back to the transition area we had another little errand to do, this was the mystery event. Almost a mile into the city we ran to a building where we met some very nice Wicked volunteers who handed us a sheet of paper and said "this is for the shoes, timed run up and down. Your time starts when the last person goes through the door and ends with the last person out, start when you are ready". "CRAP!!!" was pretty much the only thing I could say. Reading over the sheet we find out that while we are climbing 15 flights of stairs we are looking and trying to remember a phrase that we have to tell someone, somewhere along the way. Off we went... that sucked! After a few flights we saw the words "Do you...", a few more flights "... feel the" few more flights and almost to the top "... Wicked burn yet?" Yelling out "oh yah feelin it!" The guy at the top is cheering us on, telling us to keep on coming we're almost there. After telling him very quickly our team name, the phrase and that, that really sucked we headed back down to complete the stairs in 8 minutes 12 seconds. Seems pretty good except the winners, MerGeo.com, did it in almost half the time, 4 minutes 52 seconds, you guys are animals!

Running, limping and hobbling back to base we come to our final sections of the race. Trekking and Biking. Filling our fuel so to speak and heading back out we realize our little walk will take us way out to who knows where in NE Portland. We had 7 check points that took us around 8 miles of city blocks and back to the transition area. By this time running wasn't much of an option, knees were killing us and feet were becoming a factor. Oh well we pressed on, determined NOT TO QUIT! All I could think was... "man I HAVE to learn to run on cement, this sucks! " and "I don't like that Shane guy and more, he's not very nice... this sucks!"

Once back to headquarters for the final time out... we only could think "this is it, the final leg of the race... we rock, we can so do this..." We grab our bikes and last map of the race and head once again back into the city to claim our checkpoints. The first ones were good as bagged, easy to find. Then... we had to head up the hills to the next checkpoints. Oh... my... holy... ... ... if you didn't feel your legs yet... NOW YOU DID. All I knew is that I didn't want to stop. Trying to read a map and ride your bike wasn't the easiest of tasks either. Tonya and Ken stayed ahead of me for the most part so I could keep peaking at the map and not worry about getting run over. Yep this part was painful... with every push of the petal ones mind would just say "Shane... sucks... Shane ... sucks..." and I knowing I never had to come back here, gave some relief.

After 16 miles of grueling hills and locating we quickly headed back to base. We knew we didn't have much time and needed to haul. We landed back to base with 14 seconds to spare, talk about close! That though is a perfect way to end the madness of this race. We were met by the remaining of the volunteers who were more happy to see us than we would have expected. Hooting and hollering we had a great finish considering. Shane, the good man that he is, shook and congratulated us each personally for finishing. All I could say was "your name has a whole new meaning to our little family now". Smiling and pointing to his shirt he says "there's a reason why it's "Wicked tough and Wicked fun". "Yes... yes there is, and good fun it was... just glad it's over!"

I think that our dear Tonya summed it up best, she said "Yaaaaahhhhhoooooooeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think we did pretty stinkin good for our very first race!!!!! ... Thank you guys soooooo much for such a great time. Just yesterday afternoon I finally feel halfway human again... We drove straight home Monday without stopping and when I finally got out of the car after sitting for 3+ hrs I could hardly move. I'm much better now though. I signed up for the marathon Tuesday! I have to be able to say I've done a marathon, but after that I'd love to switch to just adventure racing! I LOVED it!!!! I've never been so miserable in my life! We are WACKED!!!!!!!!!! I am soooo proud of us! ... Love you crazy guys!!!!! "

Yes Yes... good times. Thank you Shane and all the volunteers, we had the best time. though we had no idea what we were doing... we don't plan on making that mistake again. Game is on! Until next year...

We all have our stories to tell of race day... each a little different perspective. To read each of our individual stories click on the corresponding person below.

Karin - "I never had a time where I was ready to throw in the towel, just times when I REALLY DIDN'T LIKE SHANE, times I was wishing..."

Ken - "“If you’re going through Hell, just keep going.” This thought had been rehearsed and then put to good use during all eleven hours and forty six minutes of my first “Wicked Adventure Race", but let me elaborate on that just a bit..."

Tonya - "My day started at 3:30 AM, when in my dream, someone mentioned the word REPEL which woke me instantly. (I had just flipped almost upside down the day before when practicing ropes for the race and could just see it happening again 100 feet up.) We got to the race start at about 6:15 and started staging all our stuff. I've done triathlons for the last couple years but this kind of race has so much more gear..."

If you are interested in more Wicked Racing log on to http://www.WickedAR.com/ .

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