What is a MISCA Adventure Practice Takeover?

New in 2025, a MiSCA Adventure Practice Takeover is a FREE service that the Adventure Program is offering, where we offer adventure activities AT YOUR PRACTICE!!! Available in May and June only, we will work with you to determine an appropriate date to hold a practice and location that is either your typical venue, or one that is close to you.

We will work with head coaches or takeover event coordinators to customize it to meet your needs, but they will include two portions:

• “Adventure Racing 101” – We will explain what adventure racing is all about, and all of the basics, including disciplines used, gear, preparation, basic navigation, intermediate navigation, navigation strategies, team strategies, and following instructions.
• “Adventure Sprint” – A short Adventure event, created just for your team! You will get a chance to practice some of the skills that you just learned. The event will be tailored to the age and skills range of your team. Do you want it to be nearly entirely on-bike? We’ll design it that way. Have some members of your team already completed a few events and want to get to the next level? We can accommodate that as well.

Why should your MiSCA team do this?

• To introduce a new way to enjoy the trails you ride on regularly at practice
• To expose them to what an adventure event looks like
• For those experienced with adventure events to work on their skills
• This is A GREAT TEAM-BUILDING EVENT for early in the season! This is a great way to get teammates working with new friends, their coaches, and breaking the ice for the season!

Head Coach/Coordinating Coach Obligations

1. Complete the request form.
2. Work with Mark to add details, if desired. You DO NOT need to plan the event! If you have requests, though, we will do our best to accommodate. In general, Mark will do the heavy lifting.
3. Communicate with your team in advance to let them know about the day of the event.
4. Day of: Help put together teams before the mini-event starts. You may put teams together prior to the event if you wish.

Example Takeover Schedule

• 6:00 pm: Check-in, hand out instructional materials for “Adventure Racing 101”.
• 6:05 pm: “Adventure Racing 101” begins
• 6:35 pm: End of “Adventure Racing 101”.  Five minute break while getting final team determination.
• 6:40 pm: Now sitting in teams, handout materials and begin pre-event instruction for “Adventure Sprint”.
• 6:55 pm: End of pre-sprint instruction, team strategy starts.
• 7:05 pm: Start of a 45-minute adventure sprint.
• 7:50 pm: End of event 45-minute sprint.
• 8:00 pm: End of “cushion”.  Results announced, brief recap, group dismissed together.

Example provided for a typical 2-hour evening practice, 90-minutes minimum, 120-minutes preferred

The required gear list for Adventure Sprints is a subset of the list for Adventure Challenges.  Take this link to that list.