Dontgetlost Adventure Running - Adventure Running Kids News

Adventure Running Kids has now been running for over 2 years. One of the most rewarding things about having the program run for this amount of time is seeing the athletic development of the kids who've been in the program during this time.

In order to continue to challenge our kids who begin to outgrow the program, this season we are starting a program for kids aged 13-18, called Adventure Running X^TM. Why X? X marks the spot when it comes to adventure, X-tra training and racing, X-treme, X as in cross in cross training. All of the above?

Adventure Running X^TM (ARX) training will build on our Adventure Running Kids and ARK Attack! programs with an emphasis on trail running, navigation and outdoor adventure! ARX will receive coaching from some of Ontario's top trail runners and adventure runners. Run faster. Run stronger. Train smarter. Explore. Run longer.

Adventure Running X^TM is similar to a 'rep' team and in addition to our normal Wednesday evening training session includes optional Tuesday and Thursday evening training sessions. Our ARX athletes will also race in several adventure running, trail running and adventure racing events each season. Adventure Running X^TM is a great way to meet other teenagers that enjoy the outdoors and enjoy adventure.

The main focus of the program will still be the Wednesday night training in Hamilton. ARX will run with the ARK Attack group, but the exercises will be more challenging, longer and more intense

Tuesday and Thursday nights are additional nights, that will occur in conjuction with Dontgetlost Adventure Running nightly training sessions. Some of the nights training will be modified to be suitable for their age group.

The most exiting part of the new program is the addition of the Adventure Running League. Kids will form small teams and every second week will run a more competitive style exercise. Wednesday night runs will be Adventure Runs, where teams of 2 or 3 tackle a navigation based exercise. Thursday exercises will take the form of a Time Trail, with challenging trail & woods running to really test the athletes.

In order to really get the most competitive league going, we are allowing kids who are not in the program to form teams and take part for a fee. Got any friends interested who might want to run in a team? Get them on board!

The Autumn training and racing schedule for Adventure Running X^TM is available now on the Adventure Running Kids website.

If you have any questions about the program, contact the ARX head coach, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

The new season of ARK is coming!

Adventure Running Kids is gearing up to start its Autumn season.

For the first time, we are running full 12 week seasons in Niagara and Kitchener-Waterloo on Monday and Tuesday night respectively as well as 2 full hours on both Wednesday and Thursday nights in Hamilton.

Those experienced ARKers in Hamilton may want to have a look at our new program on Wednesday nights, Dontgetlost Juniors, for this kids who have ‘graduated’ from or are too old for ARK and ARK Attack.

For people who are interested in learning more about the program before the season starts, we will be having a number of information nights in local businesses that are supporting the program;

Aug 21 at Runners' Choice, Waterloo
Aug 27 at Outdoors Oriented, St. Catharines
Sep 2 at Adventure Attic, Dundas
Sep 3 at Runners Den, Hamilton
Sep 5 at Adventure Guide, Kitchener
Sep 6 at Runners Edge, St. Catharines

If you’ve signed up yet or not, feel free to drop by and chat with our ARK coaches, sign the waiver and maybe purchase some Adventure Running gear. This season takes place through daylight saving, so picking up a headlamp should be on the to do list!

Registrations are starting to really pick up in some locations and spots available are down to single digits for some. The time is now to sign up if you know when and where you want to take part.

Very soon we will be sending out information to our confirmed participants about program locations and times, but for the time being, you can check out the current details for your area by looking under the ‘Locations’ tab at the adventurerunningkids.ca website.

ARK Coach Patrick wins Warrior Dash!

Ever wonder what Program Manager and Head ARK Coach Patrick Saile gets up to in the summer? Well, he gets to play!

This weekend, he took part in the Warrior Dash Obstacle Race near Barrie and finished first out of 7000 other competitors! This win comes hot on the heels of third place in the Ontario Spartan Race held last month and also crossing the line in fifth place in Tough Mudder near Cleveland last April (despite starting in the second wave, some 20 minutes behind the leaders!)

Obstacle Races take the form of hilly and muddy trail runs, interspersed with military themed obstacles that challenge competitors agility, balance and strength. Can anyone out there guess where Patrick gets to practice these skills?

In addition to being a strong competitor in these races, Patrick also uses these events as inspiration for new ideas and challenges that can be incorporated into the Adventure Running Kids weekly training and the Mud Run race series. Planning is already underway for the Autumn season in all three ARK locations; Hamilton, Niagara and Kitchener-Waterloo. Registration is open for all these programs, in all time slots, so if your kids want to experience the challenge of these races on a weekly basis, sign them up today - you know they'll be in the hands of experts!

Patrick tackling the final obstacle in the Spartan Race

Hamilton ARK Autumn 2012 registration is open

Registration for the Autumn 2012 season of ARK in Hamilton is now open. You can follow the registation links from the Hamilton page.

We are also in need of parent volunteers for all the hours, mostly in the form of group coaches. If you are interested, please check the volunteer box on the registration form. Even if you cannot make every week during the season, we would still very much like to hear from you.

The cost for this season of ARK remains the same at $90 for 12 weeks. (Late registration is $105 after September 2nd).

We're making a few changes to the program next season. Nothing major - the program itself remains the same. But if you are interested, have a further read.

Age limit changes to ARK

We are dropping the age range of ARK to 6-14 years old (previously 6-16). The few kids who now fall outside that range, but who still want to be involved with the program may like to think about volunteering with the program to get those volunteer hours up. You still get to take part in the fun of ARK, whilst passing on your wisdom to a new breed of Adventure Running Kids!

Thursdays 5:30pm-6:30pm slot

To cope with continuing demand, we are opening this hour as well. Currently we only have 15 spots available, but will extend that to 30 if we get enough volunteers to help with that hour.

Location Changes

To keep things interesting, we will be running out of three different locations this season. This enables our station coaches to set more varied exercises to continually challenge the kids in fun, muddy and different ways. All locations will be well known to current participants. We start at Canterbury Hills, then move to Sanctuary Park and finally Chedoke Golf Course to round out the season.

Discontinuation of the winter season

This is going to disappoint our keenest ARK kids, but we have decided to discontinue the ARK winter season. The 2011 season actually had a reduction in registrations and we feel the season doesn't make the best use of our volunteer resources. Having a longer break in the winter allows us to focus our energy better on the Spring and Autumn programs, which are far more popular and also on the expansion of the ARK programs in Kitchener-Waterloo and Niagara.

In it's place, we are making the ARK Snow Day a bigger and better experience in a location where we can be confident in getting 'winter conditions'. Stay tuned.

Hourly cap

Every other hour (Wed 5:30 & 6:30 and Thurs 6:30) will be capped at 60 kids for the hour (provided we have enough volunteer support) and we will be quite strict with this cap from here on in. From an environmental, safety, enjoyment and logistics/parking perspective, we find that 60 kids in an hour is what works best - any larger and groups become harder to manage and parking becomes an issue (as I'm sure you all seen this season). Some of these hours to sell out and some of them quickly based on queries about the program I continue to receive.

ARK Attack

We are dropping the age limit of ARK Attack to 10-14 years old and registration for the program is for the full season - September 2011 through June 2012 and the cost is $240. Registration for this program is now separate and will be available soon. ARK Attack only runs on Wednesday nights, but in either hourly slot.

If your kids are feeling like they have 'outgrown' ARK and are looking for more of a challenge, ARK Attack may be for them. More information on the program, including who it would be approprite for is here.

Dontgetlost Juniors

This Autumn we are introducing the 'next step' in our kids adventure running training programs. Dontgetlost Juniors is for kids 13+ who are ready to bring their Adventure Running to the next level. Some basic information is available on our website here.

Adventure Running Kids takes second place!

After almost three weeks of intense voting, Adventure Running Kids® ended up placing second (out of eighteen nominees) in the People Choice Award section of the Ontario Trillium Foundation's Great Grants awards!

Whilst we have to admit to being a little disappointed to be so close to winning, if you'd told us three weeks ago we'd place where we did - we would have told you to go for a run in the mud.

As one of the smaller and newer programs in the competition, we felt a little bit like underdogs. We didn't have large groups like local government, schools boards or media, but it didn't matter, because the one large group we did have was all of you. The feedback we got from parents and kids in the program, Adventure Runners and fans of the program in Ontario, North America and around the world who were voting five times on the hour, every hour was far beyond what we ever expected. You all delivered in spades and then some.

It's been so awesome to see this passionate community come together from every corner of the globe and support this program, so thanks again.

We'd like to take the opportunity to thank the Ontario Trillium Foundation for our nomination and to congratulate the eventual 'People's Choice Award' winners, TALK of Niagara, as well all the other competitors. As we said at the start of the competition, it really was an honour to be nominated amongst such other impressive programs. Looking at the work some of these other groups are doing, you get the feeling that the youth of Ontario are in good hands for the future.

MudPrints

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