Wolverine 5K adventure race

[Mac66]

This was the weekend for the Wolverine 5k adventure race & shoot in northern Michigan. It's theme was the movie Red Dawn

https://www.wolverine5k.com/index.html

It was held at the
www.marksmanshiptrainingcenter.com

My son had a team competing in it. He initially asked me if I wanted to compete but after checking it out decided that while I had the skills, I wasn't in shape to do it this year.

The W5K is a 5 kilometer orienteering course with a canoe phase, obstacles and a bunch of other challenges. When done with the 5k part you then do the skills/shooting part which is a series of shooting tests.

I didn't compete but wanted to see the facility which is about an hour northwest of my woods house. So I volunteered to work as a range officer at one of the shooting tests. I think there were 8 or 9 shooting events. The event I RO'd at had 5 phases. It was pretty complicated.

It was a long, long day running my course of fire. Some teams didn't finish. Most teams were 4 people x 5 phases.

Not going to go into details but some general observations...

-Everything was well run. This was the 10th year so they got the thing down.

-Being a new (old) guy, I was made to feel welcome

-Most of the shooters were military, ex-military, law enforcement or ex LEO. There were still a lot of civilians (including my son and his team)

-We ran at least hundred guys through my event. Everybody, and I mean everybody were very safe and competent shooters.

-4 of the phases were rifle, one was with pistol. I was surprised how many guys were using suppressed rifles (including my son). Suppressors take the edge off. There were a couple teams that used all suppressors. We still used hearing protection but what a joy it was running them through our course of fire.

-As a volunteer I got a ticket for the after event raffle. I won a $150 AR scope mount.

-My wife also volunteered, she helped with lunch and everything else.

-We were both exhausted afterward. I can't imagine how tired you'd get actually doing the event.

-I'm probably not going to compete next year. Still debating whether to volunteer again. Kind of a been there, done that kind of thing.

[Mac66]

Here's my son's team. The front four. He's on the far right. It was a nice 70 F day.



They also gave me a patch. If you remember the movie Red Dawn it took place in Colorado and the high school team the guys were from had the wolverine as their mascot. They would hold up their captured AKs and shout "Wolverines!"

It just so happens that Michigan's state animal is the wolverine so that's the connection.