Adventure Racing and Vegetable Brownies

The past couple weeks have been pretty exciting for me as I prep for 2015. I love the idea of a new year, but I always try and remember that this is STILL 2014 and we have a whole lot of awesome to live out in the next couple weeks to close it out in style.

I have been working away at my vision board and my newsletter that will be sent out the first week of January as well as putting the finishing touches on my race schedule for 2015. That’s right – I am signed up and registered for almost all of my races for the year and will do a post on some of the bigger ones that I am doing in January, but I wanted to talk to you about a special race that I am doing next October.

I am a bit of a new face to adventure racing, but it completely speaks my language: lots of hills, intense challenges, deep frustrations and playing in the forest. I did my first race this summer in Michigan which was an 8 hr with mountain biking, navigation and trail running.

In November, I joined up with Team Ripkin AR for RAID THE HAMMER.

Turns out, we had such a fabulous time that I am on the team this year for the biggest, baddest adventure race yet. They were telling me a story about racing through the night, pouring rain and dragging mountain bikes on their backs and I told them I wanted to do this race.

In October 2015, I will be doing my first 24 HR adventure race called Wilderness Traverse.

According to their website: Wilderness Traverse is a 24 Hour Adventure Race hosted annually in Ontario, Canada. Teams of 3 or 4 navigate using map and compass over 150 kilometers of rugged Canadian Shield back-country on foot, mountain bike and canoe. It is one of the toughest team-based endurance challenges around and simply reaching the finish line is a massive achievement.

I am getting out on the water to train because rowing is a big portion of the race, as well as doing a fair amount of mountain bike training this summer. My new condo has miles and miles of trail systems in the back yard so I will be doing a lot of playing after work to prepare.

You can check out the rest of the Ripkin AR team here as well as a video they have made to explain their team and adventure racing.

One of the best parts of adventure racing is that you are moving at a lower intensity than a normal trail race due to the amount of strategizing that is involved so you can eat more solid food. During RAID THE HAMMER, our team was crossing a bridge and one of the guys was complaining that all he had to eat at the moment was a “vegetable brownie”.

I was truly excited to be introduced to such a thing because it sounds like something I would actually go for. I almost died of laughter when he pulled out a Larabar. So I wanted to leave you with perhaps one of MY favourite things to eat either on the trail or after a workout.

Vegetable Brownies

7-8 pitted dates
½ cup of almonds
¼ cup dark chocolate chips

Pour all items in a Vitamix or food processor and go nuts. When blended smooth, form into small balls or squares and place in freezer for an hour.
ENJOY!