Sacramento State’s The WELL hosts its annual Adventure Race

NIRSA members know that campus recreation provides individuals with the opportunity to build and belong to a community and engage with others. Campus recreation participation also leads to the development of lifelong, physically active habits and improved health outcomes for participants.

Earlier this year, The WELL at NIRSA institutional member school California State University- Sacramento offered a unique program that combines climbing, swimming, running, and biking: The Adventure Race debuted on campus in 2019 and returned in 2022 after a COVID enforced hiatus.

To participate, teams of two individuals compete for the best score with each athlete selecting two of the four areas of competition. Participants have 20 minutes at each selected area to climb to the top of the climbing wall as many times as they can, swim as many laps in the pool as they can, run or cycle as many miles they can. Their teammate cheers them along while other teams compete in the event simultaneously. Teams acquire points at each area with a unique scoring system and the team with the most points at the end of the race is the winner.

“I had a really great experience with the Adventure Race. In terms of the environment and the participants, everyone was very welcoming and helped establish a very friendly and fun experience,” says 2022 participant Dyllan Her.

Accommodations including the recumbent bike, track wheelchair, adaptive climbing harness, and accessible pool entry are available for registrants. This year’s event happened on October 28, so we encouraged participants and supporters to dress in Halloween costumes. You can tell from the smiles of the athletes in the images that they had a blast.

Cross-campus collaboration

This special event highlights The WELL’s climbing wall, swimming pool, outdoor/indoor running options, and exercise equipment; this special event offers us a great opportunity to expose students to our facilities and facility features by giving them an opportunity to try out new spaces that they may not have known even existed and to gain confidence in features that may be new to them. It’s been a great spark for helping them to spread the word about our spaces. But one of the most important outcomes for the Sacramento State University community is how it brings numerous departments and campus partners together to collaborate on one coordinated event, one of which being our PEAK Adventures outdoor recreation program. By assembling a talented planning committee, the departmental collaboration builds comradery and relationships. It also allows us to share staffing and event t-shirt and prize expenses, which eases the burden on any one department.

Beyond the efficiency benefits, working together we can extend our outreach to larger and sometimes less traditional audiences. It helped us this year and in 2019 to attract a mission-driven sponsor. Klean Kanteen sponsored our event in October 2022 and donated custom water bottles for all participating racers. National Sales Manager Rodrigo Virrueta travelled down from Klean Kanteen Headquarters in Chico to be present for the event and interact with students in the race and in the Rec Center.

“We signed up for the adventure race as we both enjoyed components of the race and figured it would be a fun way to get to know each other better and be brave. It was an awesome experience and helped me challenge myself in terms of training. It provided me with a physical goal and personal goal to work toward,” says participant Madeline Mabry. “The experience was truly memorable,” Madeline adds.

The Adventure Race is a great alternative program that we’ve found for our campus community and a great example of synergy, comradery, and a collaborative effort among several university departments. We believe that we are creating welcoming, caring, and inclusive engagement opportunities for the Sacramento State community and helping transform lives by preparing students to lead, serve, and succeed.