Bockino participated in "The Longest Day" race, which took over 24 hours to complete.
During the summer, David Bockino, professor of sport management and director of the media analytics program, participated in an adventure race called, “The Longest Day,” which took place over 24 hours and was around 100 miles in total.
The race’s course lies in the Adirondack mountains of New York and involves a mix of biking, running, hiking and canoeing. Additionally, participants are given nothing but a series of maps and a compass, and are required to find their way to certain checkpoints using only those tools.
Adventure racing is a small community, one that Bockino first became aware of after watching the show “World’s Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji” on Prime Video. The show followed participants as they competed in a 7-day adventure race in Fiji.
The show was released in 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Bockino didn’t actually participate in his first adventure race until 2024.
He says he enjoys adventure racing because it combines his hobbies of running and biking. He also enjoys the orienteering aspect, which for his most recent race, meant finding his way through 100 miles of woods without a phone or GPS.
“It’s probably not for everybody, but I enjoy it,” Bockino said.
The “Longest Day” race began at 4 a.m., and each participant was given an hour to look through the maps given to them and plan out their routes to the checkpoints. The teams were also given pads to mark the checkpoints they reached. Each checkpoint hangs from a tree or is somewhat hidden in the woods, with a unique punch tool allowing scorers to accurately count how many checkpoints were reached during each stage.
After going through the maps, participants are driven an hour away and dropped in an area with hiking trails to begin the trekking stage of the race. Bockino and his teammate, Matt Moyles managed to reach all of the checkpoints in this stage.
By the time they reached the biking stage of the race, it was already dark again, and Bockino and Moyles ran into a big challenge: The chain on one of their bikes broke during this 40-mile stretch, resulting in them having to walk the bike for around eight miles.
Fortunately for them, a participant from another team was able to give them an extra chain for the bike. This small and helpful community is another reason why Bockino enjoys adventure racing.
“It’s fun being around those people, and everyone’s helping each other out a little bit,” Bockino said.
Unfortunately, Bockino’s team didn’t get any checkpoints during this stage because of their issues with the bike.
In the next stage, Bockino and Moyles paddled down a river, using glow sticks to light their way in the dark until the sun began to rise.
Finally, they finished with another mountain biking section, and after crossing the finish line and having all of their points counted, Bockino and Moyles learned they had won second place for their category.
“It was awesome. We finished it, and we’re like, ‘That’s cool. Let’s do another one,’” Bockino said.
After earning second place in this race, Bockino is already ready for more.