The race and all its glory...

February 1st, 2010

DAY 30.  This is a lengthy post so please pull up a chair and some coffee. If you want to skip the play by play I understand.

We are all up now on Monday morning without a complaint. Joel is hydrating, Tracy is up and stretching and I am taking a Tylenol. Why Tylenol? I just did the Tough Guy yesterday a four hour opportunity for blood, injury or possibly death. We walked out unscathed. That is right the injury came when I tried to roll over in the middle of the night and crinked my neck. Some Tough Guy, getting injured sleeping. It did wake me up in time to hear the English jerks next door come home from partying. Guess us old men needed our beauty sleep. Although we said that we needed to get to sleep because we have a long drive to Wales in the morning. I think it was the macho silent understanding that we are old and wanted to sleep because we were beat down. It kind of reminds me of the situation where two guys are driving in a car and a relatively sissy song comes on and one says to the other "you can turn it you want to" and the other says "whatever man, if you want to change it, cool, I am fine too" and the station never gets changed. Chest thumpers.
One of the best quotes of the day yesterday after the race was "I think I am going to start taking up spectating." It is so true. Those spectators or as I refer to them, fans, looked so cozy and warm eating their hot dogs and hot coffee in big fluffy coats. Most of them stared in awe. I would too if I saw me chest high in the icy water. I can't stress enough how difficult this was to finish.

COURSE PLAY BY PLAY:
Once we parked, we walked down through the pasture/parking lots and headed in the direction of the organized madness. As we make our way past Superman, Batman, the Green Hornet and the '300' Spartans, we have to bob and weave past, the guys dressed as dairy cows, chickens a giant rubics cube. We find the registration shed and have our race numbers marked with black marker on our foreheads. Now we have to find our corral- Queen Wizza's. That right we are in a group in between The Queen Teams and The Wobblemockers. The outfits these guys come up with are entertaining in itself. ESPN could have just done the show on that alone. Could you see Bob Costas interviewing a couple guys in their pink boas accompanied by hot pink tutu's locked head and wrists in the stocks?
Costas: excuse me sir but where are you from?
Tutu guy: from Chelsea!!!
Costas: so how are you adapting to these stocks and why are you locked in them?
Tutu guy: well the cold air is blowing up me skit mate all because I had me number on me back not the me front.Balliks!
Costas: well that says it all. Even in this mayhem there are rules that are punishable by stocks. Live from the top of the hill at the start/finish line, I'm Bob Costas over to you Boomer....
(Sorry about that tangent!I will get on with the play by play)
To start this race you are behind this huge hill that you have no clue what hides on the other side. As we walk to the top the cannons go off and you run down the hill and are met by a field of yellow smoke bombs. You can barely see in front of you. We run until is becomes a comfortable jog as soon as you turn a corner you are met by about 5 or 6 steeple chases with pits of knee high water in between the next. so as you climb over or under the steeple which is really just a tree truck stretch across 50 feet you are met by the water. You grin and bare the first one, I totally walked around the 2nd but got my bearings for the rest. Once you jump into these pits and wade to the other side you have to crawl out. Most of them were taller that your head so the people behind you helped you out and then you turn around once your out and pull them out-all day like that!
Running was a big part of this challenge and I am not just talking about the jogging in between each obstacle, but the first hour and a half to two hours was nothing but running and climbing hills. We ran this sideways z shaped paths along a long steep hill. Running with your ankles cocked at 45 degree angles for 20 minutes is not fun. After that, off in the distance we can all see the dreaded Slalom. Twelve pairs of 150ft(you can covert to meter feeling up to it) long, Z-shaped up and downs on a steep, steep, steep hill. Over half of the downs you slid down on your backside until you caught grip to stagger-run the rest of the way down. turn a corner ans go back up. Towards the top half or so there was no sprinting anymore- too muddy, too steep.
When you were wishing for death on the 5th slalom I thought about my Grandpas and the rest of the US military who stood right were I was fighting what seemed like and endless war. That is just like praying in my opinion, gathering strength from something bigger than yourself. Talking with Joel and Tracy after the race, they were doing the same thing. Tracy, who is just a big Cancer fighter as I am and honors our loved ones just as deeply used that as his strength. He told me that he knows what kind of battle his uncle and family went through and never gave up. He would think of his "little sis" Shelly and know she would have loved coming out there. Tracy ran with so many names on the back of his fatigues to honor the lives who have battled Cancer. Joel pulled his strength from being such a history buff, he loves to point out where certain battles happened and why it is so important to never forget those guys who gave up so much for our freedom. This is just what it means to have your wits about ya because this race is 90% mental.
After the slolam you head through the woods and have to climb over big spools of bailed hay and under an endless sea of netting. I got my foot caught on the net and fell on a large rock. Thought I cracked a rib. Got up caught breath and kept on, ouch that was smarts.
After the woods was the third worse part of the race-Muddy Ice Pits. First we went through 10 or so pits like the steeples but no steeple/fences. Fine and freezing but when you done with the last you need to turn the corner and jog about a 1/4 mile and then you see it, more ice pits, about 15 more in a zshape or zig zag. What is with these people and the Zshapes? Accomplishing these and your ready to call it a day. The freezing water makes you feet feel like clubs. You can even tell if you are wiggling your toes. After the icy zig zags, you really need to jog and shake your arms to get you blood circulating. I have never been frozen before, have you? Truly frozen? Well as we jog on our clubbed feet to the next obstacle someone yells "hey everyone look more netting!" Everyone laughs because sure enough before you get to The Tiger-50ft tall logs with cargo netting that you scale up and down to meet the jelly fish electrical wires to weave through just to go up and down another wall. This reminds me of the electrical fence we had up around our horse pasture to make sure the ponies don't get out. My brother and sister used to stick things on the wire to see if it shock us. This gives you a nice jolt. This part of the obstacle was around a 50ft by 20ft field of hanging tentacles ready for you to weave through but you still get shocked. Once you get down from the wall you have to run to the next obstacle around 500ft away called the Colditz Walls. These wooden log walls vary in height. The first one was 8ft and the next ones probably went as high 16ft and we had to scale every one of them. We went through some deep, muddy, shoe losing slush before we meet the Behemoth. This fifty foot giant life sucker as I described in an earlier entry, is something to marvel. We scaled the 50ft wall of rope and horizontal logs to reach the top. Once at the top you have to keep yourself from plunging to the bottom by climbing across the horizontal parallel ropes called "Monkey Ropes." This was so appropriate because these walls we're the thing I was fearing most. Come to find out I am a little monkey! Yeah, I can climb really well even with ice legs. So come to find out the parts I dreaded the most came out to be my best.
You would think that loving the cold weather would have prepared me for this challenge coupled with my love for running, and the outdoors. Nothing and I mean nothing can prepare you for the water on this obstacle course. Whether it is just shin high or over our heads, it is all shocking and breath taking cold. This water had a sheet of ice over it before the race started. Some poor sap in the front of the pack had to break the ice in every obstacle:) There was one obstacle, The Plunge, that made us climb up 30ft to a platform with planks and jump in a lake and swim to the other side. I held my breath and jumped. Once in the water I felt the prickles all over my body and you lose you wits for a bit. When you come up you are gasping for air and can't find it. Well it was worse for me because the natural thing to do is inhale, gasping and I jumped on an inhale. Almost blacked out from that one- idiot! Once I got to the other side, there was a field of fire to run through. I stood next to it for a few seconds wondering why the hell I am even doing this race. The other bad water obstacle is the water tunnels. These water tunnels were the death of everyone. These even put the leader and 3rd place guy out of the race because the medics wouldn't allow them to proceed. The leader passed out for a minute and then came to and wanted to keep going. Medics said no.

(I am not go through obstacle for obstacle or I could write a book. So I hope you enjoyed the parts that were described)

To be continued....

Gotta sleep now - Continue more tomorrow...

Quote of the Race-
"Is it normal that I can't feel my legs!"