Morroco, French, and Adventure racing with Breathe Mag

It happened quickly , in fact the phone call came only 2 1/2 weeks ago. I received a phone call from Breathe Magazine (www.breathemag.ca/), the premier adventure racing and multisport magazine in North America, myself and Pura Vida Adventures co-owner Julia Pollock were selected to represent Breathe Magazine USA at the TransMarocaine Adventure Race in Morroco http://www.transmarocaine.org/ . Not normally willing to pass up an adventure, especially one that is to be partially financially supported the two of us did not need to do much deliberating before we had signed on the dotted lines and were on our way.

Well we actually committed to the trip prior to finding out too many details about the race itself and the country of Morroco. The past two weeks have been spent gaining this additional information that we needed to get prepared for this international racing opportunity.

The first thing we did is find out what we signed up for in terms of racing and have been excited about what we found. The adventure race will be stage style and include foot travel, ride and tie, mountain biking, ropes, and orienteering. We were pleased to see that horseback riding and rollerblading were not included in the list of disciplines. Julia was greatly disappointed that camel riding was excluded from the race. Oh, one other minor detail about the race it seems that the language is French. This has added some additional challenges to the preparation process, however with the help of a bilingual race administrator, internet translation sites, 5 years of high school French, and the Breathe Magazine Canada team, who also does not speak French, we feel we have gotten most of the information we need at this time.

After getting our hands wrapped around the race itself we moved on to find out more about the country of Morroco. Prior to my research, my knowledge of Morroco was limited to watching Eco Challenge Morroco, but since then I have found out the following:

The official language of business is French, but the spoken language is Berber Arabic. In 2002 a mandate was made that English be taught in schools after the fourth year.

It is third Largest Arabic country and is just larger than California with a population of 34 million.

The Atlas mountains rise as high 15,000 ft. This mountain divides the north higher populated areas with the low populated desert area of the south.

We hope to continue to provide information about our trip and this international race throughout our travels so stay tuned and visit http://www.transmarocaine.org/ for further race details.

We also want to thank Breathe Magazine http://www.breathemag.ca/ for this great opportunity in addition to Pura Vida Adventures http://www.pvadventures.com/ for supply support and Looking Glass Outfitters http://www.lookingglassoutfitters.com/ for providing gear support.

I am sure this trip and race willl provide additional stories and learning experiences to share with all of our 2009 Adventure Racing Camp Participants http://www.pvadventures.com/news/index.html .