One of the premiere adventure races in North America has announced its dates and locations for 2014, giving teams a full year to prepare for the event. A few days ago, race organizers for the Untamed New England Expedition Adventure Race announced that the 4+ day race will take place from June 17-22 and will be held in the 100-Mile Wilderness in Maine. This is one of the most remote and beautiful places in the eastern U.S. and a perfect place to hold a race. It is surrounded by dense forests, features miles of trail and has some of the most wild terrain imaginable.

The race will feature teams of 2, 3 and 4 competitors with the coed teams of 4 being the predominant category. They'll be trekking, mountain biking, paddling, white water rafting,  orienteering and climbing their way across a course that should be amongst the best ever offered by this popular and well known race. The top prize for the event has gotten more impressive as well. The winning team will take home $10,000 in prize money, double what the winners in 2012 won. Better yet, the race is part of the AR World Series and serves as a qualifier for the AR World Championships, which will be held in Ecuador next year.

Registration for Untamed New England 2014 will open on June 1.

Last week the Expedition Africa Adventure Race took place in South Africa, where 31 teams went head to head on a 550 km (341 mile) course that was specifically built to test their skills and push them to their physical limits. The event was part of the Adventure Racing Wold Series and is the only qualifier for the AR World Championships to be held in Africa his year. By all accounts, the race was an excellent one with fantastic trekking, mountain biking and paddling legs that really showed off the amazing landscapes of the host country. After more than four days of non-stop racing, Team Haglofs Silva of Sweden claimed the victory. Second place went to Team Technu Adventure Racing from the U.S. and Canada, who were about three hours behind the winners. Team Raidlight of France rounded out the podium.

My friend Lisa de Speville was on hand to cover the race from start to finish, which is no easy feat in and of itself. Lisa is a fantastic AR corespondent because she not only knows the sport inside and out, but is passionate about it as well. You can read her race recap here and catch the rest of her outstanding coverage here. If you're already a fan of adventure racing, you'll enjoy catching up with everything that went down during the race and you can learn a lot about team strategy, race logistics and so on as well.

Below you'll also find a video from the race directors that shares highlights from the event. It'll also give you a great idea of what the teams faced while out on the course. Having visited South Africa myself and seeing again here in this video, I have to say that it makes a fantastic location for an race like this one.

Last year, the all-femaile adventure racing team of Ducati Bicycle Rideaway made history when they not only competed in, but completed the AR World Championship in France. That was a first for a team consisting entirely of women. This year, the girls are back and aiming to do it all over again in the ARWC to be held in Costa Rica this November.

The team, which now goes by the name of AdventureOfSweden.com, consists of Jeanette Aviander, Carolina Andre, Kristina Carling and Linnéa Grahn, is the only all-girl team competing in Europe and is one of the few in the world. Traditionally in the sport of adventure racing, the coed teams consist of three men and a single woman. Occasionally those numbers shift to two men and two ladies and rarely do teams have a single male racer with three females. A squad entirely made up of women is practically unheard of.

Despite this gender discrepancy however, these four women simply love racing with one another and are looking forward to competing at the ARWC again this year. When they do go to Costa Rica to compete, they'll be followed by adventure filmmaker Randy Ericksen who will document their race from start to finish. That should definitely prove to be an interesting film.

Good luck girls!