I made us t-shirts that read "Threat Level Mudnight. Clean up on Mile 5!". Charlie was "Cherokee Chuck" and I was "Mud-in-Face". If you haven't seen The Office tv show lately, you may not get the reference (see here for more info), but we got a kick out of it! We met a few friends of ours up there about an hour and a half prior to our 2:30pm heat. HEAT being the key word. Yowsa! We had great weather, but it was at least 80 degrees and full o' sun for our wave. Hot hot heat for a 5k race!
Our wave of the race started promptly at 2:30 and we were off with the other Loonies in our wave!! Charlie graced me with his presence the entire time, bless his sweet heart. After the first mile there was a "Texas Tornado" where a guy in an air boat blew dirt and debris at us as we passed by. Next came running up a muddy, steep hill (with rope assist at the side, thankfully), getting DOUSED by a fire hose at the top, then sliding down the other side. We slid feet first into the pile at the bottom of the hill, wet & muddy, then continued on. I can't remember the next sequence of obstacles, but they included: more little hills along the dirt track, a low, dark, HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT tented obstacle we had to bear crawl through (total spine knocker!), a tangled web of bungees to maneuver through, over walls/under barbed wire, a horizontal cargo net (my knees are killing me from that one!), a vertical cargo net (which we ruled!!!), jump through a tire run (or step slowly, in my case...charlie high-stepped it), run through a small pond and over floating logs (thank you for the cool off!!), climb up and over a tall hay-bale hill (where I fell at the bottom of it on my arse), jump over two fire obstacles (hot foot!), then finally jump into a swimmy mud pit and army crawl underneath barbed wire to the finish line. My time was ~43 mins...and I did walk or break for ~5 total minutes of it.
Whew. Warriors!!
We all survived without any notable injury, though once Charlie face-dove into the mud pit at the end, he popped up after the first set of barbed wire and misjudged the distance to the next set...slashing his arms on the wire. Whoopsie. A little medical tent cleanse hopefully keeps him free of infection ...ewy dirt water! After the cleanse in the lake, we changed out in the open, in front of god and country into new clothes and went to party with our posse in our new hats and free beer for racing :)
I highly encourage any and everyone to participate in this race if you ever want to try out a minor version of an 'adventure race'. The distance was a manageable one and the obstacles were super fun. There are people of ALL kinds there, ready to have fun and party.
Recommendations:
1. Choose an early-ish race. Helps beat the heat and gives you more time to party to the live music and festivities afterward. Saturday would be best (so you can rest on Sunday), but we had a really great time even though we have to work tomorrow :)
2. WATER. Bring it. Bring it to drink and maybe even to clean off with. They didn't provide free water for our race (except at the midpoint and the finish line), it cost $1 for a bottle.
3. Bring: A change of clothes & shoes, wet clothes bag, old shoes (our race had a shoe donation pile (rather, mountain!) for those who didn't want their shoes), Qtips for your nasty ears and nose holes, sunscreen, towels, snacks for after (if you don't want to spend the $$ on the turkey legs and other awesomeness). The bag check was easy-peasy and well worth it to be in good clothes again.
4. Dressing up can be super fun (even with just a silly t-shirt), and everyone is doing something wacky from body paint, costuming of ALL kinds or regular running clothes. Be creative and enjoy yourself!
More pix to be added to the album once I get them from the other participants, but for now: Enjoy the show!
2 comments:
Sweet run Jamie, glad you had fun! A lot of people went up to run this weekend and it looks like you enjoyed it!
Way to go guys!! Looked like an awesome time!
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