The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure will take place Saturday morning in downtown Little Rock.
Online registration is available through Friday. Packet pickup and in-person registration will be available from 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. today through Thursday at the Race Space, 10301 N. Rodney Parham Road in the Breckenridge Village Shopping Center in Little Rock. The Race Space also will be open from 7:30 a.m. until 2 p.m. Friday.
The pre-race pasta party will be 6-9 p.m. Friday at the River Market pavilions in downtown Little Rock. Tickets are $25 and can be bought at the door.
The competitive 5K begins at 7:30 a.m. Saturday, costs $37 and has a 30-minute time limit. The 5K run/walk begins at 8 a.m. and the family 2K begins at 8:20 a.m. with each event costing $27. The starting line is at Capitol Avenue and Arch Street.
Race-day registration will cost an extra $10 and be available from 6-8 a.m. Saturday at the corner of Fourth and Arch streets.
For more information and online registration, visit komenarkansas.org.
Seventh Annual Outdoor Rendezvous and Yoga Retreat
Hiking the Ozarks is putting on a weekend-long outdoor event beginning at 9 a.m. Friday through 4 p.m. Sunday at Horseshoe Canyon Ranch, located near the Buffalo National River 7.5 miles west of Jasper off Arkansas 74.
Hiking the Ozarks bills itself as a lifestyle company that uses this event to "bring together outdoor enthusiasts from all over the Midwest for networking, camping, education and enjoying the outdoors."
Online registration is not a requirement, but organizers do ask that interested participants reserve a spot through the website so they can have as accurate a headcount as possible. In 2015 they had close to 350 people from nine states attend the event, organizers say.
Registration can be done in person at the Horseshoe Canyon Ranch beginning at 8:45 a.m. Friday. The cost for the event is $40 all inclusive (except camping) per person for the entire weekend. There is an additional camping charge by the venue of $5 plus tax per person per night. There also are a limited number of first-come, first-served cabins available to rent for an additional fee.
The $40 event fee includes access to guided hikes, educational classes geared toward hikers and backpackers, beginning and intermediate rock climbing classes, mountain biking and more. In addition, each person will receive one entry for all the various raffles and door prizes that will be given away. Organizers say that last year they gave away almost $7,000 in gear and prizes.
In previous years, the event was known only as the Outdoor Rendezvous. Yoga has been added this year courtesy of Ozark Mountain Yoga, based in Springfield, Mo. In addition to a group yoga session first thing Saturday and Sunday morning, there will be various "yoga hikes" through the weekend in which participants will hike out to scenic areas to get their stretch on.
For more information about camping and cabins at the Horseshoe Canyon Ranch, visit horseshoecanyonduderanch.com.
For a complete schedule of activities and to reserve a spot, visit hikingtheozarks.com and click on "Event".
Outback in the Ozarks
The great curse of writing this column is previewing events just five or six days before they begin. The registration fees are at their highest, deadlines to guarantee event T-shirts have almost always passed, and sometimes the actual registration deadline has passed altogether and I don't get to write about it at all.
Well, not this time, arbitrary column rules! The Outback in the Ozarks run has already closed its registration, but the 200-mile relay race will take place beginning at 6 a.m. Friday in Eureka Springs and ending at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park near Fayetteville.
There are also two shorter options, with 65- and 75-mile relay races. The 75-mile begins with the 200-milers but ends at Withrow Springs State Park on Friday evening. The 65-mile begins at 7 a.m. Saturday at Lake Fort Smith State Park and finishes with the 200-milers at Prairie Grove.
The longer of the three actually clocks in at 205 miles and is split into 36 legs run relay-style by a minimum of four teammates or a maximum of 12. The course meanders through the Ozarks and five state parks via secondary asphalt roads, dirt and gravel roads, and single-track trail. Each team has two support vans that ferry extra gear and teammates to predesignated exchange points; one of the support vans always follows (or stays near) the "active runner."
The actual number of miles run by each teammate varies, but individual runners can expect to run between 18 and 50 miles. Another factor that affects mileage is that teams may be classified as either competitive or noncompetitive. The difference is that the list of rules for the competitive division is much longer and more rigorous.
This is no small undertaking either for runners or organizers. Between the three distances, there are more than 80 teams competing this year. This writer's favorite team names, in no particular order: Between a Walk and a Hard Pace, Cirque de Sore Legs, NOlympians, Scrambled Legs and Achin', Worst Pace Scenario and #neednewfriends.
The cost to run is about $100 per person and registration for the 2016 race began in December. Start picking teammates and training for 2017, and this writer would love to hear from anyone running or thinking about running this race.
For more information, visit outbackintheozarks.com.
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ActiveStyle on 10/17/2016