About Rootstock Racing
Rootstock Racing is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Rootstock seeks to add adventure into the daily lives of its racers, regardless of age or experience. Serving the greater community of Philadelphia but also reaching well beyond the city limits, Rootstock encourages individuals, friends, and families to explore the natural world around them while also challenging themselves physically and mentally. In addition to fostering sports and adventure, Rootstock Racing seeks to give back to local environmental and conservation efforts while advocating for responsible use of the amazing outdoor spaces participants will visit.
Founders Abby Perkiss and Brent Freedland have been marathon-ing, triathlon-ing, adventure racing, orienteering, mountain biking, paddling, and more for the better part of a decade. During their time competing in more than two hundred adventure-based events, they have spent years learning about and studying adventure sports.
Inspired by races great and small, from local beginner adventure races to multi-day, international events, and most importantly by the wide range of racers that form the heart of the adventure community, Abby and Brent hope that Rootstock Racing will offer participants manageable adventures while also pushing them to and sometimes past their limits. Rootstock Racing offers a variety of events that challenge people of all levels while also encouraging them to learn and master the skills and disciplines that come together in the sport of adventure racing.
Founders Abby Perkiss and Brent Freedland have been marathon-ing, triathlon-ing, adventure racing, orienteering, mountain biking, paddling, and more for the better part of a decade. During their time competing in more than two hundred adventure-based events, they have spent years learning about and studying adventure sports.
Inspired by races great and small, from local beginner adventure races to multi-day, international events, and most importantly by the wide range of racers that form the heart of the adventure community, Abby and Brent hope that Rootstock Racing will offer participants manageable adventures while also pushing them to and sometimes past their limits. Rootstock Racing offers a variety of events that challenge people of all levels while also encouraging them to learn and master the skills and disciplines that come together in the sport of adventure racing.
RACE DIRECTORS
Rootstock Racing’s course designers bring with them decades of experience, having collectively competed in hundreds of adventure races and adventure-based events, including trail running, mountain biking, orienteering, paddling, and other endurance and ultra-endurance sports. They are constantly learning and growing as race directors, both from designing races themselves and from participating in events in the United States and around the world.
Abby Perkiss entered the world of adventure racing in 2007 and has since competed in dozens of events at the regional, national, and international levels. Her favorite races tend to involve a high level of strategy and route choice and a healthy dose of off-trail travel, and she privileges those elements in her course design as well. Abby subscribes to a philosophy that bike sections should generally be rideable and foot sections should take you to places inaccessible by bike, and she works hard to bring that to bear in her own course design.
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Brent Freedland brings fifteen years of competitive adventure racing experience and a decade of course design to Rootstock Racing. He has competed in more than 100 events, ranging in duration from six-hours to seven-days, and he prides himself on his mastery of the maps. His experience as lead navigator translates into an impressive level of detail in his course design. Brent is able to see the big picture of a race and works hard to develop a course that is at once accessible to less experienced racers and challenging for seasoned athletes. He values route choice, creativity, and well-placed checkpoints.
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