Early morning, teams piled into the traditional colorful Colombian Chivo (translates to Goat) Busses and climbed up the steep mountains surrounding the city of Medellin where they would kick the race off with boxcarts.

As the teams prepared for the screaming descent of over 8 kilometers of cliffed lined roads, a little extra dose of nervous energy was surging through the teams. In an effort to minimize some of the chaos, teams were lined with their carts based on their standing. Different approaches were considered; some planned to carry their cart through the crowds before getting on them, while others tried to push from the very beginning, but all the groups found themselves caught up in the initial pandemonium– crashing into each other and the carts. Two dozen teams were then zipping down the contours of the mountain, trying to keep control along the switchbacks, and passing by quiet country homes with their inhabitants enthusiastically cheering them on.

Colombian flags were waved proudly in the tiny village they got off the carts and began a lengthy trek across the Colombian Andes to their next checkpoint. A dominant feature of the race would turn out to be navigating across such extreme topography. Many teams would find themselves having to take alternative routes and backtracking in order to find the checkpoints.

Teams looked strong as they made it to the first transition point and switched to bikes and began grinding their way up the heavy climbs. Early in this stage the clouds cleared up and brought out the full force of the tropical sun – another prominent challenge teams had to overcome, as every pedal stroke became that much more exhaustive as the temperatures climbed.

After crossing the finish line, Outti from Team Multisport from Finland shared, “For us, the most difficult thing about the race was the heat. And, well, the hills. They are so big here. And then you have the heat and the hills. Very difficult combination.”
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In the Colombian town of Medellin, there are currently 23 teams racing across this concrete jungle in the 4th running of the 7 Cerros Urban Adventure Race.

The 3 day event began with an adrenaline filled boxcar descent down a steep and windy road cutting across one of the cities many forested parks. Teams ran to grab the first available boxcar and then had to maneuver their way through the chaos of two dozen boxcars trying to get by. Once they slipped out of the mass of competitors, the biggest challenging was controlling the rickety box cars as they reached speeds of up 20+ mph. They were greeted at the bottom with a checkpoint and were sent straight back up the hill in search of the next one. Racers then continued with lengthier trekking sections, utilizing the race maps that offered limited information, they had to find their way through a complex maze of streets, waterways, and tunnels to get to the various checkpoints.

Around mid-day they replaced their running shoes with bike cleats and got on a city bike track where they had 25 laps to complete before they could continue. Jaako, of Team Multisport (Finlandia) said, “I have never cycled on a track before and was afraid it would be boring, but every lap people cheered `vamanos Finlandia – Let´s go Finland` and it made it much more enjoyable.”

Other teams shared a similar experience throughout the race, as they ran past markets and soccer matches, the people would all stop what they were doing; and whether they had any idea of the adventure race or not, they would all invariably cheer them on.

Locals from Medellin competing in the race were even surprised to encounter parts of the city that they had never been to, while the other national and international teams got a crash course on the beauty of Colombia and the city of Medellin. Urban adventure races inevitably change your perspective of a city – while you might have normally continued down the street to a bridge over a shallow canal, you realize that you can easily just jump right over the water and get across much quicker or instead of taking the streets you might just recognize a great little singletrack on your way. In the end, these races have the ability to turn your every day city into an epic playground.
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