The Blue Gate Awates

Lost In The Woods is an off trail race in the style of The Barkley Marathons**. Since we don’t have mountains in Southern Minnesota this is a much easier run than that one. We’ve tried our best to make it difficult but don’t complain if it’s too easy. This is a revival of sorts of the “lost in the woods 50K” that Scott Rassbach created in 2015 that used to take place at 7 Mile Creek Park. That iteration is unfortunately no longer happening so we created a similar race to take its place. If you like adventure and are looking for a different kind of trail race, this is for you.

** If you’re not familiar with what that means here’s a brief description. We’ll send you the map and course directions the day before the race and send you off into the woods on a prescribed route to find hidden books. You will tear a page out of each book that corresponds to the bib number you get at the start of the race. You finish a loop under the time cutoff with all your pages and then get a new bib number to go and collect more pages. 5 loops and you’re done.

Don't be fooled into thinking this is an easy 25 mile race with the long cutoff times. No one got done with the first loop under 4 hours the first year, but they did find all the books. Perhaps some of those veterans will come back in 2027 to help show you the way. Will you be the first person to ever finish a loop in time?

Brief Course Description

The course is completely within the bounds of the Swan Lake Wildlife Management Area - North Star Unit. The vast majority of the course is off trail or on deer trails, expect ticks. There is a creek you will cross twice each loop, expect to get wet. There are lots of downed trees, grass, rocks, underbrush, burning nettle and thorny things that will try to slow you down, expect to wear long pants and a shirt if you don’t like scratch marks or burning nettle. Seriously, you will want to have your flesh covered. Goggles aren’t a necessity but we won’t judge you for bringing them. There are some hills but none of them are as big or steep as we want them to be, you might have a different opinion.

We will send the map and corpse description the day before the race. Do with them what you will but we likely won’t have copies to give you at the start so we strongly suggest you print them off and study them. Do you know how to waterproof a map? The course will NOT be marked so bring a compass. You should also know how to use it at a basic level. The total distance of each loop is exactly 5.00 miles no matter what your fancy watch tells you. There is a net elevation gain of 0 feet on each loop.

If you run fast enough to stay under the time cutoffs with all your pages, you can continue on to another loop. 5 loops under the time cutoff are required for an official finish. Of course if you want to quit after 1 loop that's OK.

Full Details

The rules and full description of the race can be found at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n0YCEanwgrAh8FVFEIFPZjIN9R8yZ3EoWONxz-O-irg/edit?usp=sharing

Refunds

There are no refunds so make sure to read the full description and rules before registering.

Age Requirement!

If you're under 18 contact the race at lostinthewoodsrace@gmail.com for permission before registering. We just want to go over a couple things with the guardian first. This isn't a kids race but some experienced teenagers might like the challenge and 1 teenager did it last year. Remember you will be out in the woods alone with no course markings or trails. We reserve the right to refuse registration of a minor.

Event's current local time: 9:11 AM CT