The Ultra O-gaine is now open for registrations. If you register on or before April 15th, it’s only $60 per person for the Ultra (24hr) course and $50 per person for the Half-Ultra (12hr) course. $60 for 24hrs of fun in the woods; I don’t think you’ll find a better deal around!

Ultra distance Orienteering and roGAINE; the Ultra O-gaine will be fraught with difficult navigation throughout the rugged terrain of Pine Log WMA. This prime 14,000 acre venue is a short one hour drive north of Atlanta. This area has some of the highest points in the greater Metro Atlanta area. With streams and peaks throughout, you will be shocked you are so close to Atlanta! This event will be similar to a traditional rogaine with a few surprises thrown in. You will spend the majority of your time off trail during both courses!

The Ultra O-gaine will be open to solos and teams of two and three. The event will offer two courses: The Ultra (24 hour) course and the Half-Ultra (12 hour) course.

We read each of your post event surveys last year and have listened to what you had to say. The event will feature less needle in a haystack points, but will still require precise navigation. We are working on a more central Hash House as well.

When: June 8-9, 2007
Where: White, GA. 1hr North of Atlanta

We are limiting this event to 100 people. Last year, we had 85 and turned a few away at the last minute. With teams from all over the East Coast including, AR, MI, NC, CT, TN, FL, GA, SC, MO, and KY, we think the event will sell out this year. Get in while you can.

Patrick and I hope to see you in June!

Yak, from Checkpoint Zero, has a new project. That project is the Checkpoint Tracker National Points Series. We decided to join Yak for his adventure this year and the Adventure24 is going to be a part of the Checkpoint Tracker National Points Series. What does that mean for you the adventure racer? Basically it gives you a shot at some cold hard cash if you finish well enough in the overall series. But what about the average Joe and Jane who are out racing just to finish? Well, there is something for you too. Being part of the Checkpoint Tracker National Points Series, the Adventure24 will also have online race coverage via Checkpoint Tracker. We’re excited to have race coverage this year and hope those at home enjoy it as well. We look forward to seeing everyone in July at the Adventure24!

I’d like to take a moment and say thank you to each of our sponsors in 2006. Without their sponsorship, your swag bags would have been lighter and the prize bag smaller. Our sponsors were very gracious this year and we want to take a moment to highlight the companies that helped us in 2006. We choose sponsors that produce/deliver products that we use ourselves or that we think would be of interest to those who participate in our events. We hope you enjoyed the goodies provided by our sponsors. Please think of them when you are making your next racing related purchases.

Tecnu Extreme: Tec Labs (makers of Tecnu Extreme and other products) sent us a nice sampling of a number of their products which were given away at both A24 and UOG. I used their Rash Relief after one scouting trip and I have to say it did the trick. I’ll be buying some to go along with me on future course scouting trips.

Hammer Nutrition: Hammer Nutrition makes a ton of products for endurance athletes and provided samples and prizes for both the A24 and UOG. I’ve sworn by e-caps for a number of years.

Potable Aqua: Potable Aqua provided water purification tablets for each team as part of a mini gear sponsorship for the A24. We had a few tablet packs left over so we gave them as prizes for the UOG. When we ran out of store bought water during the VERY hot UOG, we used some left over Potable Aqua tablets to purify some more water for the racers. No one could taste the difference between the purified and store bought water. Stash a packet of these in the bottom of your pack, and if you get lost or run out of water you will be thankful you had them.

SnowPack: SnowPack provided a number of their reusable ice packs as prizes for the A24. Though it appears their website is down, I can tell you the product got a number of good reviews around the internet. The texture of the gel was made to mimic snow, and provide a way to get the “ice” in those hard to ice places.

Terrapin Beer: Terrapin Beer provided refreshments at the end of the A24. I’ve been a fan of their beers for a number of years and I even got Patrick hooked on several of the beers from their Monster Beer Tour (more on Terrapin in an upcoming post). Do yourself a favor and go out and buy any of their beers, you WILL enjoy them. Also know that your purchases will be supporting some great people too!

Zanfel: Zanfel provided some prizes for both A24 and UOG. Cathi and I have used Zanfel after placing checkpoints in Poison Ivy infested areas the past two years. I think the most either of us got after using Zanfel was maybe one or two bumps with zero itching.

SportShield: 2toms, maker of SportShield, provided samples and prizes for both of their products to both A24 and UOG. SportShield is a roll on liquid that applies a coating to the skin which greatly minimizes friction. BlisterShield is a powder that helps to reduce heat build up and blister formation. What is great about these products is that they come in a one time use package (larger sizes are available) which you can easily carry with you.

Road ID: Road ID makes a number of personal identification tags for the athlete. Road ID has always been great about supporting events with Road ID gift certificates; including A24. If you ever need a Road ID, you will be very thankful that you had one.

Burt’s Bees: Burt’s Bees filled the A24 goodie bags with a number of products made from natural ingredients. I’m a big fan of their beeswax lip balm. As a matter of fact, I think I need to put some on right now.

Mytopo: Mytopo printed all the maps for our events this year. They make it affordable for us to give you great maps. You can print out your own custom map at their website too.

Maranatha: Maranatha provided samples and prizes for both A24 and UOG this year. Their natural peanut butter is quite good and I’m looking to buy some of their Cashew butter. Cashew butter and jelly sandwich never sounded so good.

Paceline Products Butt’r: Paceline Products provided samples and prizes for A24 this year. Anyone who has ridden a long ride without Butt’r can tell you what a great product it is. Any ride over 2-3 hours shouldn’t be done without Butt’r.

Maxxis: Maxxis provided some goodies for the A24 swag bag this year. Maxxis produces a tire for any bike or condition you can shake a bike pump at. They are good at supporting local events and athletes; they even sponsor a cycling team.

There you have it, a recap of our 2006 sponsors. Thank you all!

I’ve been playing around with Google Maps for some time now, at least since May of this year. I used to be a diehard Yahoo Maps user but now I use Google Maps almost exclusively. The ajax in Google Maps won me over and definitely has a cool factor. As such, I wanted to integrate it somehow with the website. I toyed with using Google Maps in some way related to directions to HQ for the Adventure24 this year, but didn’t have enough time to play with it to do anything in time for the race. That has changed courtesy of the Google Maps API.

Presenting our new registered teams “list”; modeled after the Competitor Map from the Checkpoint Zero Adventure Race. The new team “list” is the newest feature on our website. There are really two reasons why I made the change to a Google Map “list”. 1) It just looks cool. 2) Less xhtml coding! The previous Team List I edited by hand each time a team registered. Now, we have an admin section of the website and we just go to the form and enter in the City, State, Team Name, Captain Name and select the race name and team division from drop down menus and hit enter. They are now added to the appropriate map (the form feeds both the UOG and A24 map) and the counter of registered teams is updated. We have some ajax goodness baked right into our form too! We are using the Yahoo Maps API for geocoding which returns the latitude and longitude of the city/state and automatically puts the information straight into our form. This will save me heaps of time and is cool to boot!

Look for more changes in the coming months! Some of it you will notice and some of it will be behind the scenes stuff to make the website easier to manage on the backend. Thanks to my fellow RD and staff member Patrick for the help with the ajax goodness on the geocoding.

Each year, Checkpoint Adventures aims to donate a portion of our proceeds to charity. With the addition of the Ultra O-gaine this year, we were able to donate a little more than we did last year. Our donation this year went to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. In the rare chance that you don’t know what they are about, here is a little information straight from their website.

“For more than 20 years, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation has been a global leader in the fight against breast cancer through its support of innovative research and community-based outreach programs.”

If you know someone who has been affected by breast cancer, consider a donation in their name. With 75% of every dollar raised going to their cause, they are a worthy charity.