Half-Assed Runner

Archive for the ‘Adventure Race’ Category

This was the first “adventure” race I’ve run.  I signed up for this race months ago with a $29 entry via Groupon.  I was running this one with a friend and it would be my second 5K of that day.

The race has wave starts every 30 minutes.  When you sign up you choose the wave you want to be in.  We chose the 1:30 wave as it gave me time to finish my run in Saint Cloud, pick up my friend in Saint Paul, and get out to Taylor’s Falls (I ended up putting over 300 miles on my car that day).  Up until registration closed you could easily change your start time (as long as the time you wanted was not filled up) and even transfer your entry to another runner.  If you ran late on the day of the race, you could move to a later wave for $5.  There was an option for early packet pickup on Friday (in the Cities) or race day pickup (which we opted for).

I love that we live in an age where I can pull up a map and pinpoint my position via my phone at any time.  There was construction backing up traffic on the highway into Taylor’s Falls, but we were able to find an alternative route.  We arrived at the ski hill hosting the race right around 1 pm.  I was scared that parking would be a mess, but we were able to park about 200 yards from the starting area.  We did see a number of cars parked in a second lot about .5 miles away, but with runners from earlier waves leaving all the time plus I think the later waves were not as popular, we scored great parking.

Packet pickup was painless.  The race site advised that you needed to print out and bring a signed waiver.  I did this, but the volunteer seemed almost surprised to see it, so I doubt it was necessary.  You did print and sign your name after picking up your packet, so maybe that served the purpose of promising not to sue if you paralysed yourself in the course of the race.

The packet contained a blah cotton shirt.  The race was chip-timed so you had to tie a chip to your shoes with twist-ties.  We were able to get our packets and be ready to run by 1:10.  We walked around and killed time until about 1:20 and then joined some other runners at the starting area.  In a sign of things to come, you had to scale a mini-barrier to get into the starting area.

This was my friend’s first race of any type.  He has been running on the treadmill and doing 2 – 3 miles every couple of days.  I told him not to worry as we would just jog between barriers.  I did ask why the hell he was running the race in a cotton shirt, Rolex, gold bracelet, and $170 sunglasses.  It seemed to come as a shock to him that there would be a lot of water and mud on this course.  He told me that he would skip the water and mud obstacles.  WTF?  He thought that the barriers would be all of the climbing/monkey-bars type.  It’s not like there was a website describing the obstacles that he could have read over the last 5 months. ???

We started out running up a ski hill.  This was not how my buddy wanted to start his first race.  Soon he was winded and we began the first of many long, uphill walks.  We were far from alone in walking though.  The first obstacle was a series of sandy hills.  Next up were the first of several inverted v-shaped wooden barriers that you climbed up and down.  Then came the first mud obstacle.  You had to climb through a giant mud puddle while keeping under barbed wire.  I was having a blast getting my mud on until my right knee hit a big rock under the water.  Later in the race I would have the same thing happen to my left knee.  I finished and threw mud at my friend as he had skipped the obstacle.

There were probably three or four mud obstacles on the course.  One more crawling section that delivered the most mud coverage.  Otherwise, the vast majority of the obstacles were wooden barriers.  Most of the non-obstacle portion was going up or downhill.  I was a little disappointed that the obstacles did not match those listed on the website.  There were a number of minor obstacles like rope climbs, walls, tires, and cargo nets.  The major obstacles were the two mud crawls, a giant downhill slip and slide, a weird tube crawl into an underground mud puddle, and the final obstacle with a climb and a roll over a cargo net about 20 feet above the ground.

The most fun obstacle was the slide.  The most difficult was a 10 foot wall that you scaled via rope.  The wall was slippery and there were only two knots in the rope that were far apart.  Otherwise, none of the obstacles were anything that would pose too much of a challenge to anyone in reasonable shape.  There was a fire leap towards the end that was pretty trivial.  The most difficult part of the race was the uphill (and some of the steep downhill) sections of the race.  But since we (and many others) were not running those sections, it was a pretty easy course.

The weather was gorgeous.  It was sunny and the temps had risen to around 80 by the time we were done running.  There was a water stop in the middle of the course, but the low humidity, shade, and breeze made the race enjoyable.  Not to mention being covered in mud and walking. 

After we finished we removed our timing chips and I chucked my socks.  There were about 30 outside “showers” which were just garden hoses.  The water was not freezing which was a blessing.  You really could not get all the mud off, but you could rinse of a lot of it.  There was a free beer which I enjoyed along with bottled water and some orange slices.  We sat around for a bit to enjoy the day and listen to the live band.

All in all, it was a fun race.  Registration started at $48 and was $88 after September 7th.  I paid $29 with a Groupon.  At $29 I felt it was worth the cost.  I could not recommend it at $48 or above.  I would also suggest doing this race with a friend or group of friends.