Spring Break
Adventure Race challenges and thrills for 5th year
Zach Bzdyra
Issue date: 4/20/09 Section: News
This past Sunday, under a nearly cloudless sky, the bang of a starter's pistol announced the beginning of the fifth-annual UConn Outdoor Adventure Race at Bicentennial Pond in Mansfield.
UConn Recreation and UConn Outdoors have worked together to organize the race every year.
The UConn Outdoors Web site states that the program aims to educate students and provide them with physically, mentally and socially exciting and beneficial activities.
According to an e-mail from Assistant Director of Recreation and Director of Outdoor Adventure Jay Frain, "The Adventure Race has been a fun and exciting atmosphere that is great for racers as well as spectators. It's the Department of Recreational Services' highlight event of the semester."
The Adventure Race is held in cooperation with Mansfield Parks and Recreation at Bicentennial Pond Park. Thirty co-rec three-member teams - which consist of full-time students or other Student Recreation Facilities (SRF) members and their friends - competed in the race.
The first challenge of this year's race pitted the teams against a football-size block of ice with a coin frozen in the middle. Using only body heat, the teams had to melt the block enough to get the coin out. This took the first team only about 10 minutes, while the last team finished in almost 25 minutes.
Frain D'Alfonso, co-creator of the Adventure Race and coordinator of fitness and wellness, said that the first event changes each year so returning competitors cannot anticipate the obstacles.
The race consisted of three legs of trail running and two of canoeing that were separated by tasks which challenged the competitors both mentally and physically. In one challenge, one team member had to forfeit his or her shoes to a race official as the other two members carried the shoeless member over a rocky path through the woods. Upon arriving at the end of the path, the teams had to get their shoes down from a rope that was suspended nearly 12 feet in the air.
UConn Recreation and UConn Outdoors have worked together to organize the race every year.
The UConn Outdoors Web site states that the program aims to educate students and provide them with physically, mentally and socially exciting and beneficial activities.
According to an e-mail from Assistant Director of Recreation and Director of Outdoor Adventure Jay Frain, "The Adventure Race has been a fun and exciting atmosphere that is great for racers as well as spectators. It's the Department of Recreational Services' highlight event of the semester."
The Adventure Race is held in cooperation with Mansfield Parks and Recreation at Bicentennial Pond Park. Thirty co-rec three-member teams - which consist of full-time students or other Student Recreation Facilities (SRF) members and their friends - competed in the race.
The first challenge of this year's race pitted the teams against a football-size block of ice with a coin frozen in the middle. Using only body heat, the teams had to melt the block enough to get the coin out. This took the first team only about 10 minutes, while the last team finished in almost 25 minutes.
Frain D'Alfonso, co-creator of the Adventure Race and coordinator of fitness and wellness, said that the first event changes each year so returning competitors cannot anticipate the obstacles.
The race consisted of three legs of trail running and two of canoeing that were separated by tasks which challenged the competitors both mentally and physically. In one challenge, one team member had to forfeit his or her shoes to a race official as the other two members carried the shoeless member over a rocky path through the woods. Upon arriving at the end of the path, the teams had to get their shoes down from a rope that was suspended nearly 12 feet in the air.
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