What Does an Adventure Race Entail?
For the past three years, Wyoming’s Cowboy Tough Adventure Race has been part of the Adventure Racing World Series. The races in the series are unique expedition courses testing mixed teams during 4-10 days of non-stop racing in trekking, mountain biking, kayaking, navigation, and more.
According to the Cowboy Tough’s website, Adventure Racing is the ultimate race of human endurance.
Teams must navigate using a map and a compass through remote wilderness checkpoints. They battle not only other teams, but also extreme fatigue, sleep deprivation and unpredictable weather. If one team member quits, the entire team is unclassified. Often just reaching the finish line is a victory.
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In an extreme race, there are several check points that a team must complete and others that are optional. However, the team that completes the most check points the fastest is the winner.
What Does it Take to Be Cowboy Tough?
This year’s Cowboy Tough race finished this past Sunday. It had between 54 and 78 checkpoints covering 360-550 miles over four days. The layout of the course was kept secret just like in past years. Each year the location of the race has been changed to showcase different parts of Wyoming.
According to Wyoming native Joe McGinley, adventure racer and captain of team McGinley Innovations, in an article by Kristy Bleizeffer on The Pulse,
We would need motorcycles and cars to get first place, and we might not even do it then. The Cowboy Tough is a World Series qualifying race. The teams that are coming are like the LeBron Jameses of adventure racing. They are among the best in the world, and they will all be in Casper, Wyoming.
This year’s the race started in Buffalo and ended in Casper. It required 16-24 hours a day to complete the check points. The schedule for each day was a grueling one. Competitors completed each day on usually only 1-2 hours of sleep a night.
Day 1
10-20 miles trekking
20-40 miles single-track biking
10-15 miles road biking
20-40 miles fire road biking
6-14 miles flat-water paddle
Total distance: 70-120 miles
Day 2
50-60 miles fire road biking
20-30 miles of road biking
25-40 miles trekking
Total distance: 95-130 miles
Day 3
80-140 miles fire road biking
15-30 miles trekking
Total distance: 95-180 miles
Day 4
30 miles fire road biking
30 miles road biking
2 miles trekking
2 miles Class III water (Racers choice of transport)
Total distance: 64 miles
Who Was the Toughest Cowboy?
American team Tecnu came in first completing all 78 check points. Only six of the 30 teams completed enough of the 54-78 check points to be considered as completing the whole race and now be able to say they are Cowboy Tough.
