As some of you know, I kinda dig running. The more off beat and difficult the event the better. I was fortunate enough to participate in an “Adventure Run” at Anne Close Sporing Greenway on June 15th. The event was put on by Craig Marshall and the Rock Hill Striders, which is a group we regularly support in their events. The “race” was a scavenger hunt type event. There were several participants that have qualified for the Boston Marathon, won overall distance races at the Greenway and done many Ultra Marathons (you can look up what that means). That being said, several of the other teams had much faster runners, so I didn’t give us much of a chance at winning, but that wasn’t really the point. I teamed up with my good friend, Rob Cook, who is much faster and more accomplished a runner than me. There were 8 teams of two and one individual that participated in the event. To me the key to the event was knowing the Greenway, which I do know pretty well.

We were given our number and clues to the locations in a zip lock bag and told not to open them until the event was explained. Craig came up with seven places in the Greenway we had to get to and punch our race numbers with special shaped hole punches at each location. There was a three hour time limit on the event and it was up to each team to determine their route to and from these locations. We had to stay on the trails and or gravel roads in the Greenway – no bush whacking allowed. At 7:55 AM the clock stared and we reviewed the clues and had to figure out where the locations were on a map and how we were going to tackle the task ahead of us. Rob and I mapped out what we thought would be the shortest route to hit all of the locations and set out. After getting to five of the seven places, we passed several teams heading on the opposite direction. I got a little nervous not knowing where they had been, but felt pretty good about where we were and kept on moving. After we had hit the seventh spot and were heading back we saw one of the other teams that I know were going to be strong competitors, so I told Rob we had to move it. We lost sight of them and kept a good pace to get back to the finish. We rounded to corner and I expected to see at least one if not two other teams already done. Well I sure was surprised that we were first to finish. It was a very close race with the next team coming in two minutes later.

I can honestly say I have never won a race I have entered – I am not fast. I don’t do these crazy things to try and win. I do them to do them. This was one of the most interesting and enjoyable events I have ever done, and cannot wait to do another one. Needless to say, “Justice never tasted so good” during our post race celebration.

Hope to see you on the trails…

-Mark