THAT's What an Urban Race Should Be!
By Aly Courain
On November 15, I teamed up with Kate Mathews and Shari Hymes for Rootstock Racing’s Two Rivers Adventure Race - a 26 hour adventure in and around Philadelphia. Us gals had a blast, and we enjoyed the journey with NYARA - DarkZone Podcast guys Jim, Pete, and Bruce.
Admittedly, I was a little unsure of the urban nature of this course leading up to the race. But one thing is for sure - I fully trust whatever Brent, Abby, and all the good folks of Rootstock have in store for us at any of their events.
Now I know, THAT's what an urban race should be! This race provided the perfect balance of city features while still finding and being in the wooded areas too. Adventure Racing is Type 2 fun, but this course was a surprising amount of Type 1 fun peppered along a Type 2 journey and timeline - we ate cheesesteaks, we explored city parks and neighborhood streets, we (quickly) appreciated so many historic sites, we meandered around a docked battleship, we heard and saw the lion roar at the Philly Zoo (and were loyal to our kiwi friend's roots when giving a thumbs down to the Australian joey ), we devoured late night Dunkin Donuts, we had our own resident tour guide full of local history (thanks for sharing, Bruce!), and we moved for 25 hours and some odd minutes along a course that was weaving around so much normal, everyday life happening in Philly. And of course, in the city of brotherly love, all of the locals were so very nice to us racers as we traveled through!
One of my most favorite parts from last weekend's race course was coming off the paddle to the surprise of searching for several checkpoints throughout the USS New Jersey - an Iowa class battleship and one of the most decorated ships.
"Big J" was built in 1940 by the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. She was commissioned in the 40s for WWII, the 50s for the Korean War, the 60s for the Vietnam War, and again in the 80s for the Lebanese Civil War.
Man, if those walls could've talked....
Thanks to Rootstock for creating what ended up being such a unique experience at this year's Two Rivers race!
