We held a small invite-only race this past weekend and it was a lot of fun. We put the event together on short notice and invited our race volunteers from the SPROUTE and the teams on the Short Course. We felt we asked a lot of the Short Course teams from the Sproute and thought this might be a nice way to give them another taste of racing without such technical map work and orienteering. 11 teams took the challenge and, I'm happy to report, 11 teams finished the full course in times ranging between 3 and 5 hours. One team had a knee injury sideline a teammate, but they were able to finish the race while she got comfortable with an ice pack. It was perfect weather for racing, sunny but cool, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.
We've found "short course" racers to be a much more laid back bunch -- generally more easy going and less competitive than teams at our longer events (although even our "longer" events of 12 and 18 hours are still pretty short in terms of adventure racing). I'm torn on the subject since I can appreciate why teams approach a race seriously, but as a race organization the personalities and spirit of the "short course" teams really show through in a way we don't frequently see at the longer events.
I know teams racing our longer courses are an interesting and fun bunch, but at the gear check-in, starting line, and through the course of an event we often just see the intensity and focus instead of the smiles and laughs. It's a bit different for me, personally, since I've grown to know many of the racers at our events and we interact on a different level . . . but for many of our volunteers, they comment on how serious and focussed everyone is. It's flattering that teams take a race seriously and compete with passion, but there is a healthy balance to be met.
This past weekend rekindled our interest in truly "short" course adventure racing as they are much easier to plan, organize, and operate. I now completely understand why I see racing groups running 2 or 3 hour races several times through the year -- for a business, it's a much easier dollar to earn. HRAdventure isn't a business, however, and I personally would prefer to race in longer races so that's why we organize longer races; for us it's not a question of profitablitity but of preference. Maybe that will change at some point, I don't know. Anyway, based on this past Saturday we can score one for the sprint course adventure race of about 3 hours in duration.