I’m a little late on this post. oops. Anyways, this past saturday Jon, Kempo, and I (team name mentioned above) competed in the 2009 Sandmann Adventure Race. It’s a 6 hour race, consisting of mountain biking, canoeing, and trekking. Jon and I did this race 2 years ago, so this was our second race. Kempo had never done anything like this until now.
We started out the day with a killer breaky. Then we headed out for Camp Sandmann. When we arrived, we realized we were in the wrong spot, so we proceeded to Red Top Mountain State Park. We unloaded and checked in all of our gear, and we were ready to go. Meetings began at around 9ish, and at about 15 minutes til 10, we were able to recieve our first map, we chose canoeing (seeing how we were unable to train, and didn’t know how long it would take us to complete it). Once we all agreed on canoeing, we recieved our canoe plots, and out map. Using our UTM plotter, map, and coordinates, we were ablt to effectively plot out points. As soon as the clock stroke 10, we were off on an adventure of a lifetime!!! We ran our canoe down to shore, threw the padals in, pushed off, and were off to our first checkpoint! However; for the first 5 minutes, we couldnt figure out why that no matter what we did, we just kept going in a circle. Finally we heard a voice from shore calling out “You’re in the canoe backwards!” Hahaha talk about embaracing. So we managed to all get turned around. Canoeing is easier when you’re in the canoe the right way, fyi. The canoeing part was rough, imagine sitting in a canoe, padaling your heart out for 2 hours straight. It was crazy, but finally we made it back.
Next we decided to trek, so we went to the trek table and recieved our map and coordinates. We plotted them, and were on our way. Right off the bat we made a mistake, we mis-judged roads. We thought we were further ahead than we actually were, so we darted off into the wooods. It took us about 10 minutes of wandering around to realize we were in the wrong spot. Once we figured it out, we took route to the right spot and found our first checkpoint. We couldn’t find checkpoint #5 for anything! It seriously took us alteast 30 minutes to find it. It was hidden on a pinninsula, and we always seemed to be on the wrong one. Never-the-less; we found it and were on our way.
We made it back to base-camp, turned in our trekking map, and recieved our bike coordinates. Kempo plotted them as Jon and I ate a few starburst for energy (believe it or not, this race is totally exhausting). Soon we were on our way. Biking is always fun, but it’s a whole lot tougher when your energy tank is on empty. We were not aloud to ride on the roads, so we had to ride in the ditch beside it until we got to the Iron Hill trails, a couple miles away. We powered through the biking (the last rush… wanting to finish for good). We had one major problem, we missed a checkpoint and had to backtrack 3 miles to get it. It took a while. But we made it back!
Team Alpha Super Awesome Cool Dynamite Wolf Squadron finished in 5 hours 26 minutes. Earning the 3rd place trophy, and completely stoked!
We’re all in a race, the race of life. Jesus said in Hebrew chapter 12 “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning it’s shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” I think a common misconception about the journey for a christian, is that it’s going to be easy. Oh how far that is away from the truth. In a chrstian walk, we find that it gets harder, much harder. Satan starts throwing things at you left and right! Trying to bring you down so that you lose your heart and faith. In my opinion, it’s just like an adventure race. It’s hard as mess.
As a chrisian, we all have a common goal, Oak Leaf sums it up well. We want “God to take us from where we are, to where he wants us to be”. Simple concept, but we might not have a clue where and what exactly he wants. He may want us to go to Africa. Or work here. Get up super early, I don’t know. Possibilities are endless.
It’s hard. It’s an adventure. We have one goal, to try and be as much like Jesus as we can be. Let’s help eachother get there.
Dude. You’re awesome!