Wood You Rather – Yes You Would!

In the world of trail racing, there are a few choices when it comes to routes. There’s point to point, lollipop, loop, and sometimes multiple loops. There’s one route. One way to get from point A to point B. We call this normal (or at least I do). Go Beyond Racing has lots of races that follow this pattern, and they’re all awesome events!

Last year, Go Beyond introduced a new thing called Wood You Rather. It’s a checkpoint race, where runners must hurry from checkpoint to checkpoint, then return to the finish, much like a scavenger hunt. What makes Wood You Rather different? You decide which way to go! That’s right. There’s no set route. If you want to take the steep hill to get to the checkpoint instead of the long way around, go for it!

Making this even more fun is the fact you can do this as a team of 3, 4, 5, or 6. Last year, 14 teams, totaling 65 runners ran all over Forest Park in search of 9 checkpoints. Additionally, 59 more runners competed solo. More from Go Beyond’s site:

“You can participate in this event on your own, or get some friends together a form a team. The Solo category is for those who want to run the race on their own. The Team category is made up of teams with at least three people, but you can have up to six on a team. Those in a team category can choose to run the course together or each person goes their own way/speed. The Team time is calculated by averaging the times for everyone on the team. The team is ranked by the number of checkpoints collected by team member who visited the fewest. The team with the fastest averaged time and highest number of checkpoints wins that category.”

As far as the course, there are so many different ways that one can go in Forest Park, which means you could run 7.5 miles, or 11. You could have 1,000 feet of vert, or nearly 2,000. Your route will make all the difference. And this is why it’s called Wood You Rather!!