| How to Find Teammates
Despite a few select races which have a solo division, adventure racing is traditionally and generally a team sport. Given the team requirement of the sport, one of your first challenges is to find teammates. The first place to look is your immediate friends and acquaintences. If you are a gym rat, you probably have workout partners. As a cyclist or triathlete, you probably have a training group. Go to these networks first and see if anyone is up for a change of pace. This is often the best place to look since you will find like-minded people who you know and can train with. If you do not workout with anyoneor your workout partners aren't up for adventure racing excitement, put a notice on the bulletin board at your gym or local outdoor retail shops. You could also put an advertisement in your local newspaper or monthly sports magazine. Next, maybe you have a good friend who is out of town, who you think would be great to race with. Give them a call and see how they like the idea of adventure racing. If you have similar race expectations and can figure out how to train a bit together, then go for it. Since adventure racing has experienced exponential growth in just the last two years, many race directors or racers have formed local adventure racing groups to train together. If a race is held in your area or you have targeted a particular event, call the race director and let him/her help you out. Often times race directors double as teammate match makers. Some adventure racing web sites also have team builder databases. Check these out as they are a valuable source. Another web avenue is to subscribe to the ARA newsgroup. One of the more popular uses of this newsgroup is to put notices for teammates wanted. Below is a linked list of such resources:
Many factors go into putting together a really competitive adventure racing team. Our How to Choose Teammates and Team Dynamics articles address these issues, but initially you may be challenged simply to find warm bodies with whom to race. Once you train a bit together and get a race or two under your belts, you can look to make adjustments. The one thing to remember though is to start and end a race as friends. This is sometimes easier said than done, but unless you plan on becoming a professional adventure racer, don't take the sport so seriously that you can't have fun.  |