Kinetic Adventure: AR girls in front

A quick one - I'm under the whip at the moment with AltXSports Expo this weekend (Fri to Sun) FEAT in two weeks... At the Expo I'm doing some talks and running an orienteering activity - to introduce people to this fabulous sport. And yes, I drew the map. My first O map. I'm using about 1/8th of the map (probably less!) for the little O activity. Area is too easy for a colour-coded and too big to be 'wasted' on a sprint. Maybe a Night O next year?

A super Kinetic Adventure (25km AR) on Sunday with Vicky and Sarah making up our Team AR all-girls team. Nice to race with Vix again and first time time Sarah.

With 'my' girls. Sarah on the left, Vix on the right. Me = piggy-in-the-middle

A longer mtb section this time than usual, which was actually really nice; also nice run/O sections.  Really lovely area - Cradle of Humankind, near the Sterkfontein Caves. We cycled through a lovely little nature/game reserve. Only saw some bokkies (buck) as we were cycling out - at high speed. We hadn't been in the reserve for long when Sarah, a fellow orienteer, says, "Mmmm... looks me like this place would make a nice MTB O map". Orienteers! Can't take them anywhere.

On this, I've hooked up with Sarah for the annual rogaine in later October. I had wanted to run in a girls team but with my usual buddy out with a foot injury I'd hooked up with Tony. And then, at Kinetic on Sunday, Alec's son Greg was looking for a rogaine partner and I learned that Sarah was not yet connected. So, a swop happened. Would have been super to race with Tony but, realistically for the MTB O the day after the foot rogaine - as he's riding so well - Tony will have a far more competitive ride with Greg.

Back to Kinetic... must say, we all seem to prefer the old format where teams would alternate disciplines but could choose the order of the legs themselves i.e. cycle 2, then run 1, then cycle 1 and then run 2. I like not being on the same course as the other team and not knowing where anyone is.

The 5th and final Kinetic Adventure of the year is in late November. We've won three of the four so far (second at the 3rd one) and I hope we'll bag the last one too. Team AR has won the series in 2009 and 2010.

Ahhh... we got the most fabulous trophy. A little wire and bead dude. He has his hands up so that you can put a photo between them. I don't hang on to most trophies for very long. But this guy, he stays. What an excellent idea.

My thanks to Heidi and Stephan for a super race and for encouraging all-girls teams. We have a blast out there.