Survey results

Whatisthereasonwealldothisfor?

For many years now the team has been organizing the Auenland Adventure Race. Although we are quite satisfied with ourselves and our race, we also face a couple of challenges. The ambitions of the racers and the organization, the logistics of in fact three races and the eternal question of what could be improved. So it seemed a good idea to ask your opinion about all this and conduct a survey among potential and former participants. You just might have a different opinion about us! 😉

With this survey we wanted to gain insight into:

• Satisfaction of participants of the Auenland Adventure Race about different characteristics of the competition.
• Preferences of the participants regarding a number of possibilities to improve the current race concept/set-up.

To our delight the survey has been completed by over a hundred people. We really appreciate your replies to our questions and thank you all! The feedback has given us a lot of inspiration for the Auenland Adventure Race 2019. We promised to tell you about the results, and this is it! We summarized the feedback and will give you the most important results and best comments below!

Whatisitthatyougaveusback?

First of all, it is important for us that the Auenland Adventure Race offers a competitive, challenging, satisfying and enjoyable experience for racers of all levels. The pleasure with everyone before, during and after the race is an equally important reason why we organize the race. To our delight, you appreciated this in your answers with results that Kim Jong-un would be proud of. This means that we will also maintain the basic concepts of our race in 2019. Secondly, there is a fanatical group of racers that sees the Auenland Adventure Race as an excellent race to gain experience for longer international races. Some would like to have the long (master) race being extended way over 24 hours, others requested the possibility to race with a team of 4. We struggle to accommodate everyone’s wishes and still have a race that is fun for all.

In the survey we asked you about other formats of the race. For example, would you like a race with sleep or moments of rest inbetween. Or a prologue a day earlier. Or a concept without a short (beginners) race. Or start the long (master) race earlier or later. Although there are certainly respondents who were enthusiastic about some ideas, by far the lot of you are the most satisfied with the current set-up.

At the Auenland Adventure Race we make navigation challenging, without it becoming a puzzle. We also like a tactical race in which everyone can feel competitive by leaving out some checkpoints. Both starting points are endorsed by the respondents. However, the strip route (an all time favorite of ours…;-)) is less appreciated and will therefore no longer be part of the Auenland Adventure Race. The number of special tasks in a race remains a dilemma after the survey. Some of you can not get enough of it, others find it an annoying break from racing. Survey results also show that not all participants consider paddling as favorite sport. Unfortunately for them the organization does not want to make concessions at this point, paddling is great and an essential part of our sport! But we will do what we can to make it worth your while.

Whatdowemakeoutofallofthis?

The current design of the race is appreciated, but some want a longer race. The appreciation is nice, but the organizational challenges do not disappear with appreciation. We have decided to maintain the basic set-up of the race, with a number of adjustments to make the race more interesting and less complicated to organize. How exactly? Experience it by participating in the Auenland Adventure Race 2019!