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| Photo contributed by Gary Marquis While there was a lot of mud in the Caribou Adventure Race, Olivia Engstrom, left, and Adrianna Bither were wearing more mud that most during their adventure; the two were rumored to have not missed a single mud puddle through the entire 3.1 mile course. |
By Natalie De La Garza
Staff Writer
CARIBOU — The name of the Caribou Wellness and Recreation Department was dragged through the mud on Sept. 20 by children, families and teams — and Superintendent of the Caribou Parks and Recreation Department Gary Marquis couldn’t have been happier about it.
Marquis had hoped the Caribou Adventure Challenge would bring out 50 participants, and nearly double that turned out for the Saturday event.
Runners, walkers and joggers adventured up and over obstacles, crawled through culverts, dodged downed trees and trudged through plenty of mud during the painstakingly crafted 5K course, designed by Marquis, Matt Bouchard, Kenneth Lloyd, Nate Germain, Neal Sleeper and Peter Marquis, with technical support from Aaron Tomlinson.
“It was probably one of the most fun races I’ve done in Aroostook County; they did a really good job,” said longtime runner Thomas Beckum. “It seemed there were 30 obstacles, which made it really fun, and the different variety of obstacles made it interesting.”
While there were physically challenging obstacles — like walls, balance beams and up-hill culverts climbed through using a rope — there were also quirky little challenges, such as balancing a tennis ball on a tennis racket while running up and down a small hill.
“What was neat about the adventure race was that it wasn’t just for fast runners, because you’re not constantly running,” Beckum explained. With so many challenges, so many participants and even one stage of the course that required participants to take a seat, there were many opportunities for participants to catch their breath.
Beckum teaches physical education and health for School Union 122, and he explained that the Caribou Adventure Challenge did a great job appealing to different levels of physical fitness and activity.
“We had first- and second- grade kids out there doing it, and the most important thing was that their parents were doing it with them,” Beckum said. “That was awesome.”
“I had a few students do it, and they had a ball. They enjoyed it so much it was all they could talk about the next day at school,” he added, mentioning that next year, he’ll put up a flier for the event to encourage students (and even teachers) to participate.
Beckum ran the race with his wife and fellow running enthusiast, Marie Beckum, and said that they definitely want to do it again next year; the Beckums were the overall winners of the Caribou Adventure Challenge.
While the race was well attended by participants, it also was well attended by volunteers — many of whom were from the Loring Job Corps Center.
“It takes a lot of volunteers to put something like that together,” Beckum described.
For Parks and Rec Superintendent Marquis, the Caribou Adventure Challenge was an absolute success.
“Everyone that I’ve spoken to said it was an absolutely wonderful course,” he said. “We’ve had nothing but compliments.”
Marquis did confirm that Parks and Rec plants to host the challenge again next year.
