Play by Play continued....

DAY 30.  During the water tunnels I remember jogging up to the spot to go into the water and there was some loud mouth photographer at the entry zone yelling, "come on blokes, go under the pole don't go over it! I didn't sign up for this you did!" As much as I wanted to cannon ball a splash of water his way, I thought of WWHD What Would Howard Do? Pastor Howard Boles is one of the smartest, kindest, maybe funniest guy I know. He is mine and Angs pastor. I am sure if he read that I splashed an innocent, but rude, bystander I might get a talking to after church on Sunday. So I jumped in against my desired judgment and focused on the pole laying across the water. I reached under and wrapped my arm around to the other side of the pole. I went under the water and came out the other side. I was gasping, gasping. No other way to describe it other than- no breath, so cold, no breath. After the pole we headed for four railroad ties laying across the lake with a couple square windows in which we can come up for air. I did this as fast as I could, trying not to think of the cold. Under the first, gasp, gasp! Under the second..aaahhh this is so (add unchristian-like explicit word here) cold! I am jumping in the water as much as I can, gasping....under the third, Aaahhhhhh!!, take me now lord - swear if you keep me warm I will never miss another Sunday sermon again!....under the last one- Baahhhhh!... Holy poop I want to die...(Wade, wade, wade) I finally get to the other side of the lake and try to climb up the shore, but I am frozen and can't grip my bearings to figure how to get out so I just do motions that would look cool in movies- jump, dig, climb! I'm out and need to jog to get the blood pumping, but I know what's around the corner-that dreaded plunge I mentioned earlier. I really had dreams about that plunge that night. Tossing and turning having my flashbacks of no breathing and pin pricking cold water.
After the plunge we jogged through another fire field and around the lake to another monkey rope 30ft tall contraption. You could either shift across the flimsy parallel ropes, called the "Dragon Pool" or you can wade across the pond. I wanted to go across the ropes so I didn't have to get wet.Joel was halfway across when some guy shifted the ropes and he fell in- so much not getting wet. Before I even knew it was a choice, I was wading across the pond, chest high, and freezing. Come to find out this was the time slashing I needed to catch up to Joel and Tracy in the race. See they have been around 5 minutes in front of me pretty much since the long part of the run. I had a plan from the start, don't use all your energy up front. So as I ran a 10 minute mile to start off, they took off in front of me and stayed ahead around 30 seconds or so. That gap grew and grew as the obstacles mounted and the time past. I was alone, although I did find a military group and some Americans named Team Overlord (after the Normandy operation.)I stayed with this group all the way to the skywalk.I kept seeing Joel and Tracy every time I was entering an obstacle but could never catch up. Finally, at the Skywalk, they were three rows in front of me. The Skywalk was another monstrosity that was filled with logs, cargo nets and parallel ropes. This came right before the water tunnels. A cool part of the event went like this. We started with a group of fellow brother tough guys, and we had to climb together. About 12 of us would form a horizontal line and put our arms around each others shoulders, like we are about to do the chorus line or mimic the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. Arm in arm we climbed around 20 feet up the log wall. What an amazing thing to be part of- it was like God said-put your differences aside and accomplish this feat together. As we were walking up the steep log wall, arm over shoulder with your new comrades, this German guy says, "where else would an American, Frenchie, an englishman, and a German be arm in arm working together, what great times, eh!" Man was he right. After what the theme of this event is modeled, it is cool that the grandkids of those soldiers, no matter what side you fought for, could work with each other and have fun.
As we reached the straight up climbing part of the wall, I climbed to the top and had to walk a 50ft long balance beam across the stretch of the structure. Being frozen, exhausted and down right disoriented, I managed to make it across without falling in to the cargo net 15ft below. Don't even know what I'd do if I fell, lay there?
Well now after the Skywalk, through the water tunnels, around the lake, through the Dragon Pool, we were off to the barbed wire crawl called the Stalag Escape. This is the barbed wire crawl part of the race I mentioned in an earlier post. I think the photographer got a good picture because 50ft at the start it was hand and knee crawling. As you reached the end it got narrower and narrower until you had to crawl with your armpits and turn your head sideways. As I was getting out, the exit was so small my fat belly pushed my back and butt up into the barbed wire- waste of good army pants! Just then I hear the cameras clicking and I can just hear the photographers thoughts, "work it!...hold it...now growl like a bear who is stuck in a trap!" Once through the barbed wire we had to run a good half mile or so through a deep muddy tire field. I pretty much jumped tire to tire so I didn't lose a shoe to the suction of the mud. I made it through that annoyance and headed for the Anaconda Sting. I knew I was getting close to the end so I went all Bo Duke on these 5ft diameter concrete tubes that laid across the path. The only way through is over. I caught a weird 15th wind:) I approached the first one handed jump to the peak of the tube and flung myself forward, over. I felt like one of the Duke Brothers escaping Boss Hog! But after the third and forth one my Bo Duke finesse turned into Jim Belushi rolling over onto the stage at the Blues Brother cafe'. I was miserable and over exerted knowing I had one more challenge ahead...more water. I turned the corner and headed toward the finish and found more water to wade through and more mud hills to climb. After the last jog we had to jump across a pond, chest to shoulder deep to get to the final hill. What sucked is that I could barely reach the floor of the pond. Once I finally reached my frozen corpse to the other side, we had to pull ourselves up a huge muddy hill to the top and down to the finish barn for my medal! The only thing is this was a Muuuuuuuuddddddyyyy hill. I just pulled on that rope like my life depended on it- weird how after being pushed to the human limit physically and emotionally, you can still find something to get you going. So after I reached the top, the finished looked sweet. All the Army guys and gals were waiting to hood you with a medal with a reflective blanket. I followed the cattle herd (so to speak) into the horse barn for hot tea hot chocolate and cookies....oh yeah a wash down. As I looked around for the guys I realized they hadn't finished yet. Joel came in as soon as I turned around and he looked terrible.
This is my EMT, bad ass IFD best friend how can he be in bad shape? This is the guys who coaches Cross-Country and Track at MV and runs with these kids. Joel is our endurance guys and he is now shaking bad. He says he fell off the ropes at Dragon Lake. That was one more submerge than the rest of us. Plus the guy wore full Army jump suit and helmet...I said HELMET, the entire race. I got him some hot chocolate and he spilled it everywhere because he was shaking. Poop joel:)
Tracy finished about 2 minutes later because the medics saw a huge gash on his head, bleeding. He was told to stop but he said I am from Hancock County....USA and we don't quit! Plus he is a freaking Snider. I have fought a battle or two with Sniders and they are about as loyal and tough as they come. The three of us stood under the overhead horse showers trying to warm up and get the crap off of us. We found dirt for a while after, where dirt just shouldn't ever be on a person. Although I did this race mostly be myself, I couldn't have found two better men to battle this challenge. These two Tough Guys exemplify what this Challenge was all about- Honor, Determination and Heart. We Honored our grandpas and forefathers for always being the strength to our country to keep us free. We honor our Cancer survivors and the ones we have lost. All that we honored gave us the strength and determination to finish such a challenge. All this is never accomplished without the heart to honor or the love from God.

We finally got back in th car and drove back to the hotel. We were happy to get in the hot shower....wait NO HOT WATER! We sat there shaking, aching and ready for a beer or food....dunno which was smarter:) we rinsed off best as possible and threw on some clothes and headed to downtown Wolverhampton. Replaying the Wolverhampton Vs. Tottenham Hotspur (Sturges favorite team) game we ate the best fish & chips and toasted to our accomplishment with a nice warm Guinness!
Cheers!

Thanks for taking the time to follow us through our extraordinary challenge. I wish you could all visit this place to truly see what a task this was to accomplish. I will post pics when I get home. Until then look for my summary on this first of many challenges.

Until then enjoy the posts from the rest of the trip:) I hope the grammer (ha, ha) is better in those. It is late and I have to get up in 2 hours-nite!