Shuler Takes Solo Title at Mandatory Gear AR

Dwight Shuler from Team ROAM/Inov-8 took the solo crown at the inaugural Mandatory Gear Adventure Race near Myrtle Beach, SC. He could not talk his teammates into competing on back to back weekends so he made a successful go of it on his own, finishing an hour faster than the next team in 4:03. Congrats D-
Race report below:

Mandatory Gear Adventure Race

Since I couldn’t drag the rest of the team out to partake in back to back race weekends, I decided to try this one out solo.

This was the first year for the Mandatory Gear Adventure Race, MGAR, and Dale Long and crew really did an exceptional job putting it all together. MGAR was a 6hr Sprint Adventure Race held near Myrtle Beach, SC and what it lacked in hills and mountains it made up for in flat land navigation and swamp. There are three things you need for navigation, Bearing, Distance and Elevation. Take away one of these and you can still find your way but you better not space out and drop a second component or you can find yourself turned around in waist deep swamp or thick briars crying for a way out. With only 160’ of elevation gain for this 35 mile race, I was already down to just two navigational tools.

The race coordinates were handed out the night before but no other information was given other than we would be Boating, Biking and Running at some point during the following day. The race started out a frosty 25 deg and the teams were split up into two groups. One group would set off on bikes to the boating location and hit the water portion first. The second group was off on foot for the trek/run section. All the checkpoints (CP’s) could be obtained in any order although there were a number of mandatory points for each leg that had to be obtained in order to be an official finisher. This lack of order made for a good amount of strategy and kept teams from following each other since you really didn’t know where they were headed.


I was lucky to head off on foot first and since I was going solo, soon out ran the field to take a clear lead. This haste also had me run right past CP8 (my first point I was looking for). Once I realized I went too far, I decided to keep going for 9 and 10 because I didn’t want anyone to see me sneaking off into the woods/swamp. I looked at the map and figured I would be able to hit all the trekking points and still swing back around to look for CP8 later. I was able to find some good runnable backroads and made good time, just stumbling a little bit mired down in cat briars looking for a few points. I made successful attempt at CP8 on my way back to the TA and came in just behind the first place team.

Next, I headed off on my bike to the Boating section; a swampy bog area along a blackwater river. I had 5 points to hit along the river and in some small creeks and backwater areas before heading out of there. Luckily, it was still quite cold so any alligators that might be active that time of year were very well hidden or in their winter catatonic state of inactivity. This is a very foreign environment for me and it always feels very creepy. I was able to pick all the points up quickly and headed back out on the bike for the next section.

On the bike again, I finally realized what all the ‘white’ sections were on the map. They were fields! Since there was no elevation changes, there were no gradient contours on the map. These white areas were fields (as opposed to forest or swamps). In the mountains, white areas usually represent private property and are to be avoided or off limits entirely. Anyway, once that was figured out, the remaining bike points were picked up quickly and I tempo’d back to the finish line to find myself in first place. I finished in 4:03 just over an hour ahead of the next team.


Racing solo in an adventure race is not really comparing apples and apples. You can generally go much quicker by yourself, you don’t have to discuss anything as you are the captain and crew and you can push yourself to YOUR limit. There is no need to keep the team together. It is, however, more difficult to navigate. You only have one set of eyes to look for the points, there is only one person to remember the rules and there is nobody to bounce ideas off of. Being on a team requires that you work together and trade your strengths with your teammates weaknesses and vice versa. So, its really not fair to compare results. Anyway, I had a good race and feel like my training is right on track for my next challenge, The Black Mountain Marathon at the end of the month.