1) I'd been sick for the entire week leading up to it and was still sick.
2) It was very cold for the week leading up to it (at least for September).
3) This was the race's inaugural event, so things usually go wrong.
4) I was originally supposed to do it on Sunday, but they canceled Sunday and moved my registration over to Saturday.
This one was only an hour from my house, so no hotel stay was needed. Also, inexplicably, my wave was at noon, which is very odd for me since I tend to choose 10ish as my wave time. Once I got there, I figured out why (The first wave was at 10:00 and I like to stay out of the waves where the elites tend to start). The drive was uneventful and they had the same $10 parking in a field near the venue, but this time there were no buses, so we had to walk (not far at all). I checked in without incident, but noticed that they had it set up weird. I'm used to this, so I went straight to the waiver table and filled mine out. They had the waiver table after the registration table, so tons of people were getting in line, getting all the way to the front, and being asked, "Did you sign your waiver? No? You have to do that first."
Well here's the weird part. They kept the waivers at the waiver table so you didn't have to prove that you had filled it out. All you have to say is, "Yep" and they don't check. However, I'm accustomed to this, so I had already turned mine in. I confirmed on my bib number that I was, indeed, the noon wave. It was.....9:30 at that point, so I had some time to kill. I had planned on jumping into an earlier wave like I did at Rock Solid Mud Run. They did chip timing on the bibs like at the Warrior Dash. This didn't work out for me at the Warrior Dash and it didn't work out for me this time either (my chip was never picked up). I ended up running into the two women I saw at the Rock Solid Mud Run. They had an entourage with them, which is how I ended up with some pictures.
Pre-race dasher
I joined the 10:30 wave (the second wave). It was around 60 degrees when the race started, warming up slightly throughout the day. Neither the 10 or 10:30 wave started on time. I thought it started close to 10:35. We ran up a slight hill and high stepped through some tires. I was doing well, except that I was behind these two elderly women who kept tripping. After that, we had to jump over something like a dozen barrels that were on the ground. At this point, I saw someone injured. Yes, there was an injury in like....the first 100 meters. We rounded a corner and had to climb up these buses that were in the ground as permanent structures on the paintball course. I saw someone ELSE get injured here as she jumped off the side of the bus.
This is what gets me kinda irked about the explosion of obstacle course racing. It's good because there are SO MANY races, but it's bad because people train by running. That's fine, but it's honestly not as important as training for rough terrain and landing. People aren't training themselves to land and their knees and ankles get injured. There is a LOT of jumping in these events.
After this we crawled through those corrugated tubes and into the mud. I hate those corrugated tubes because it's murder on my knees. The mud was cold and THICK. Unfortunately, due to my cold, my nose was itchy and running, and every time I tried to wipe it, I got more mud on my face. I had a little mud mustache for a majority of the race.
We leapt over fire, then rounded a corner to crawl through more tubes, be shot at by paintballs, more mud, and more tubes.
Then it was up the hill and into the woods. This was the first long jag of running. The woods were semi-technical. It wasn't horrible but there were some rocks, sticks, and logs...and of course...injuries. I thought there was an obstacle in the woods, but I can't really remember. I do know that we hit the halfway point and I was like, "What? There's no way that was a mile and a half." We had to jog around this pond, then get into the water and wade through. Finally! I could rinse off a bit. We went up a hill and had to crawl through this drainage tube (more murder on the knees). More woods running. Then we broke through onto a field and started the last mile or so. This was where the remaining obstacles were. We had to go uphill and around, then over this pyramid of hay. There was this girl that I had noticed back in the woods. She had curly hair in four pigtails on her head, big, thick glasses, and she kept snorting while she ran. She would sprint past me, then walk and I'd pass her. Repeat. It was strange. We got to the hay pyramid when I saw this guy I'd seen before the race come charging down. He was clearly in the wave behind me.
He was bare chested, waxed, with all this spartan warrior paint on him (from the Spartan race that I haven't done yet). The hay pyramid was three tiered. One was just above my waist, the other wave over my head, and the one was above that. I pulled weird girl aside just in time to see him leap up to the second tier, over the next tier completely, and over the other side. She didn't even NOTICE him. It was insane. He was one of three people to pass me from the next wave, which means I was actually pretty awesome in this race. Anyway, weird girl was confused about how to get up the hay pyramid. She did manage, got to the top, and screamed, "TONIGHT, WE DINE IN HELL!" from 300. oooooo-kay. Then she sprinted past me, started to walk, and I passed her again. Up some more hills and into a cargo container with tires hanging everywhere. I swear I never saw her leave the cargo container.
Then it was over the giant walls. There were three walls, connected. There was the "lil dasher" wall (for children), the dasher wall, which was about 5' tall, and the team wall, which was about 10' tall. Obviously, I was supposed to do the middle one. I saw these two teenage boys trying to pull themselves up the team wall by sheer force of will and refusing help, thus holding up the line for everyone else. I went up and over the dasher wall with no problem. I saw tons of people cheating by going up the Dasher wall, but using the little dasher wall as a place to boost themselves up. ooookay.
Then we had to go through the permanent paintball structure where you go over sewer tubes, over these giant wheels, etc. Around the corner and it was a quick sprint to the finish line. After the finish line, you slip and slide down and get your water/medal/banana.
I started, I think, around 10:35, and the clock said 11:13 when I finished. I think it's right, so I finished in about 38 minutes which is AWESOME for me. A 5k + 12 obstacles in 38 minutes is utterly remarkable for me. I'm not really that sore, but I do have some bruises. My ankles feel pretty tight, which is normal for a race after running in my vibrams. The only thing is that I think it was a little too easy and, of course, I can't stand how people don't treat these with the respect that they deserve. Running is not the only training you need to do. Sheesh.
Next up, Rock Solid Mud Run 2
No comments:
Post a Comment