Just wanted to give the group a quick update on the Challenge the Island adventure race that took place up on Whidbey Island on Sept 28th.

This was the first year of the race and they did a fantastic job!! The scenery was spectacular, and the course was challenging and interesting and the weather was perfect.

The race started with each team receiving a Map and instruction sheet. The instruction sheet had a clue/riddle that you had to solve to find the next clue. In total there were three different clues that had to be solved before continuing to the next phase of the race. The most interesting one had teams navigating through an old gun battery with nothing but a glow stick looking for letters taped to the walls. Once you found all 6 letters you had to unscramble them and that was your next clue. Took us about 15 minutes to get all the letters, as it was slow going with just the glow stick and quite a maze to navigate through.

After you got all three clues, it was a 1 mile run along the bluff overlooking the Puget Sound to the kayak put in. The kayak was about 40 minutes of beautiful paddling on the Sound. After that, there was a coasteering section of about 1.5 miles followed by a 4 mile trail run.

Then time for another special test, this time a memory game. They showed you a page with 10 objects on it for 10 seconds. You had to memorize them, roll your teammates down a 50-ft slope and then recite all ten items back before continuing.

After that it was a 10 mile mountain bike ride through some fairly technical, twisty and rooted terrain, with a few great downhill sections. Most of it wound through some beautiful forest and at the end we once again had some spectacular views of the sound. The bike section was all marked except for three checkpoints that you had to navigate to yourself.

After the bike, there was two more special tests that most teams accomplished with relative ease.

There was even something special for the spectators. Just as the last teams headed out on bike, a pod of Orca whales made their entrance and spectators on the bluff at the Start/Finish got a fantastic view of them breaching.

Portland was very well represented at the race. The first and second place teams were both from Portland as well as a couple of middle-of the pack teams. It was fun to meet other Portland racers including a team of mostly rookies that had a great attitude about the race despite the challenging terrain and an injury to one of their racers.

If you are considering doing this race next year, I would highly recommend it. The organizers did a much better job than some of the races that have been running for a couple of years and were very eager in soliciting comments to make it even a better race next year.

(Note this race is part of the Challenge Series. www.thechallengeseries.com )