Rogaining

Has anyone ever told you to "get lost" before? If so then Rogaining is the sport for you!

So what is this wacky Rogaining sport anyway? Few have ever been able to give an accurate answer to this question, this is because the answer depends on who you are. (Insert twilight zone music here) So here are some of the forms Rogaining can take: competition bushwalking, cross-country navigation, a car rally, on foot Rugged Outdoor Group Activity Involving Navigation and Endurance, an Easter-egg hunt without eggs, orienteering on steroids, a good excuse for a casual bushwalk, the most hardcore endurance sport ever.

Events run from six to 24 hours long, usually walking/running but sometimes on bikes, canoes or skies. In teams consisting of two to five members, you can go as far and hard as you want. You are given a map with control points and are allowed a compass; the idea is to visit as many control points as possible. It is rare for a team to visit all controls so the game is open ended.

And how did it get such a strange name? Does it have anything to do with middle aged balding men?

No!

Although some of the competitors fit this description. the origin of the sport is here. Yes, that's right: our very own MUMC invented the sport. In 1947 MUMC started running an annual 24-hour walk. Then in 1976, some enterprising young MUMCers by the names of Rod, Gail and Neil Phillips - have you worked out where the name Rogaine comes from yet? - reshaped the sport into what we have today. Since then the sport has grown, with hundreds of teams competing in each event, and has quickly spread across the world to become an international sport!

With the Australian Championships held in Victoria in May, for October the World Championships in NSW, and let's not leave out the Vic Championships and intervarsity competition in September, of which Melbourne University are the reigning Champions. These events will attract all kinds of people from super-elite athletes capable of covering over 100kms through rugged bush, scaling tall mountains in many small leaps, navigate like a GPS with legs etc. to the more common garden variety Rogainer capable of plodding around tall mountains, getting lost more times than a ship in the Bermuda Triangle, following a compass bearing to within 22°, and everything in between. Most importantly there will be a great banquet of food after each event which more than makes up for the lack of Easter eggs!