Adventure Racing Activities for Fun and Fitness

by Cathrine Himberg and Dan Dejager

Begin with a physical challenge. Add a heavy dose of fun. Divide into teams. What do you have? Adventure racing events and units that are easily planned for a field day or a regular class period using equipment you already have.

Adventure Racing Activities for Fun and Fitness: A CORE Experience is the brainchild of Dan DeJager, a physical education teacher and adventure racing enthusiast, and Cathrine Himberg, an instructor of future physical educators and advocate for effective physical education who want to pass the fun along to kids. Adventure racing is a sport that combines two or more disciplines and emphasizes teamwork--in fact, the CORE in the book's title stands for cooperative obstacle racing experience. In adventure races, teammates work together to finish an obstacle course as quickly as possible.

DeJager and Himberg provide everything you need to know to prepare for and teach an adventure racing unit at your school or lead an adventure racing event in any environment with any group of people. With Adventure Racing Activities for Fun and Fitness, you get

-complete instructions for setting up an adventure racing unit or event,

-forms and checklists to help you organize and conduct an adventure race, and

-suggestions and options for customizing the activities to suit your needs.

Unlike conventional adventure races that call for mountain bikes, kayaks, and other specialized equipment, Adventure Racing Activities for Fun and Fitness guides you in setting up races for teams of two, three, or four students that require no equipment or readily available equipment.

The authors show you how to set up a race, lay out the course (locations include tracks, fields, courts, schools, and gymnasiums), use obstacles to present challenges, and assess race results. You discover how to vary the course and the obstacles to bring fresh excitement and challenges to each race. And you find out about various scoring systems (some in which the winners are not necessarily the ones who finish first ), adding spice and motivation to the competitions.

Adventure Racing Activities for Fun and Fitness provides teachers and youth leaders with a new way to get kids excited about physical activity, instill healthy habits, and meet NASPE National Physical Education Standards. More than that, it meets kids' standards of having fun while being physically active.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0736069240
• ISBN13: 9780736069243
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: Human Kinetics Publishers
• Length: 136 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 8.5" x 11.0"
• Age Range: 5 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 12