Rugged Maniac 9-28-2013

Once you start doing obstacle races, it it hard to quit. So here again I find myself on a beautiful fall day driving an hour north to Southwick, Massachuestts Mototcross track for the Rugged Maniac, which describes itself as “a 3.1 mile course filled with 20 +obstacles designed to push you to your limits.” Like the Tough Mudder and Warrior Dash, Rugged maniac is an international brand, that is considered one of the best of its class.

I pay my $10 parking fee and am directed to a nice paved parking lot, not far from the registration area. I change into my trail sneakers, and then grab my backpack and head to the registration area. On my way in, I see Jamison from my Tough Mudder class, as he is walking out.

Jamison is a bit of a physical freak. He did not run with us at the Tough Mudder, but ran with his brother. He likely could have run the course twice and still finished before us. We chat briefly and he tells me he also ran the Warrior Dash last week. This race, he says, is a lot harder. Lots of hills, he says. “Good to know,” I say.

On one hand after the Tough Mudder at Mount Snow, hills do not frighten me, but Ii do worry about the obstacles. I have made it safely thus far, could this race, one I don’t need to do to prove anything, be my undoing.

Again, I am impressed with the organization of these events. I check in in a matter of minutes, am given a souvenir tee-shirt and a race bib, and then check my bag, use the bathoom -- the string of port-o-potties is right by the bag check. There is no line and the one I go in smells clean and there is a stack of toilet paper rolls. Impressive. Finished with my business, I head to the starting corral. Like Tough Mudder you have to hop the fence to enter the starting corral. The fence is perhaps four feet high, not the eight foot fence at Tough Mudder. I place my hands on the top, jump up and then sit on the fence top and swing my legs around. Not the most agile start, but good enough to get in. I am not in the corral, more than a few minutes when the race starts. Like the Warrior Dash, the waves seem to be going off every fifteen minutes and there is no one checking to make certain runners are in the proper wave. I believe at least here that may be because the later waves, which I am running in were not fully sold out, unlike the morning waves. This event is untimed. If I had paid an extra $10 I could have gotten a timing chip, but if I was interested in the time, I could just look at the clock.

The start goes under an arch, and I am surprised to look up and see that the race is actually above us. As dried mud rains down on us, I see muddied racers crawling and rolling across a cargo net about twelve feet above us. We run though a wooded area and are soon at a backup at the first obstacle. Some racers try to pass the rest of us stopped waiting our turns.

The obstacle is a series of five foot walls. A woman ahead of me falls awkardly as she jumps off the wall and calls out in pain. I try not to take it as a warning sign. I climb the first wall a bit slowly, being extra cautious, but feeling a little unmanly as I do. I glance at the woman sitting by the side of the course, friends around her. Her ankle looks bent. I wonder if maybe the Gods on Olympus looking down on the race weren’t trying to take me down for my cockiness in thinking I could do these races at 55. Their Thunderbolt intended for my ankle, struck hers instead. I watch the racers attack the next wall ahead of us, and decide, be damned I will attack the wall like I am twenty five and come what will come. I run at the wall, leap up, put my hands on top, lift myself up, and spring my foot to the top of the wall, and then push myself forward, landing gently on both feet. It is a brief and largely unnoticed by anyone by myself, but is an athletic move and I am as proud of it as anything i have done in the last year. Whether I have angered or impressed the gods with it, I don’t care. I am young at heart and alive.

As we run on, I hear the other racers talking about the first wave this morning. I hear they had to quickly redraw the race route this morning as the opening wave was attacked by bees -- an unexpected obstacle. I imagine the idea taking root with other race directors eager to differentiate themselves in the increasinly crowded obstacle race market. The old cry of “release the hounds!” could be replaced with “Release the bees!” “Release the skunks!” “Release the bats! Release the falcon!” “Release the stampede!” You could have snakes in the trench crawl! Fire ants in the crawl under barbed wire! A snapping turtle in the mud ponds. And where in the Spartan race they have two gladiators with pugil sticks you must pass, they could have a chained bear and tiger.

The wave quickly stretches out, and the rest of the way there will be only the minorest of delays at each obstackle. I run slowly as cutting back on my running due to my feet has taken some toll on my wind. The crowd at this event, seems younger and healthier than the Warrior Dash, and I sense it is because of what Jamison hinted at this may not be the easist of courses. Our early run is shaded and broken up by periodic short walls, maybe five feet tall. We run through some hanging tires in the middle of a patch of tires. You have to push them out of your way as you run without getting hit by them. If this were a winner take all race, you could do some damage to fellow contestants with well timed push of a tire across a rival racer’s path. But here the runners are careful to be cautious with each other.

We come to a series of diagonal trenches. It is sort of a reverse hurdles course. You have to run, leap over the trench, take two quick steps, leap again over the next trench, and on and on, over seven trenches. I run hard and air over each, imaging sharpened stakes in each, or a cute straight down to Satan’s boiling pot, or a pacing tiger. I take a few quick steps, then hurdle the next. I am impressing myself. It was not an obstacle I had prepared for, but I handle it well.

Next is a balancing act up fallen trees that lead uphill. I walk fast and have only minimal diifiuclty staying on, my playground practice paying off. Then more climbing. I come around a corner and there is my nemesis again, the underground tunnel, and this time, I see there are no slats in the boards. “Its dark in there,” a volunteer says, just watch your head and keep going. A larger woman in front of me pauses, peers in, and then chooses not to enter. “I don’t think so,” she says shaking her head and walks around the obstacle. I try to guage which one looks the widest and enter that one. Fortunately the ground is soft dirt, and there is room to kneel. The tunel itself is dark, and I am soon enveloped in complete darkness. As I age, my eyesight in the dim light has grown steadily worse, and now I can see nothing at all. I crawl right into a dirt wall, that stuns me, then reaching out I discover the tunnel turns 90 degrees and goes right. Still in darkness, I feel the sides of the wall, and then catch a hint of light. The tunnel banks left, and there ahead is the light at the end. I have made it through again. Like many things the worst tunnel was the one in my nightmares.

There are twice as many obstacles in this race than the Warrior Dash and the course is anything but flat. If you have ever watched motorcross on TV, wall, that is the kind of track we are now running on. Up and down dirt hills, climbing 12 foot walls or mound after mound of mud. I try to keep running and pass an increasing number of walkers, but soon I am finding that I am breaking into a walk on arriving at an obstacle and walking for ten, then twenty yards after each obstacle before running again.

And then ahead is another balance beam obstacle. This one the board is truly narrow and goes across murky water. The plank is as thin as any I have encourtered in a race this year. It is at most two inches across. My heart sink. Is this my Waterloo, where I will fall and embarras myself, where i will finally be exposed. I get up, take two steps, feel myself start to fall, quickly piroutte around, then hop back on the ground. I consider skipping the obstackle, but the fighter in my rises and says no. So what if there are piranahs in the water or a giant anaconda snake or crocodile, who will grab and then pull me down in a death roll, I am an adventurer, tough mudder, warrior, and soon to be rugged maniac, I can do this. I get back on and start walking. As soon as I feel myself start to sway, instead of stopping and trying to regain balance, I take off, and run. With each step on the board I spring foward closer to the end. My final step I hurdle through the air in a Bob Beamonesque broad jump, landing on the far shore. Yes! I pump my fist. I made it!

The obstacles are unrelenting. I think I have mastered the balance, and then there before me is another test. There are a procession of four tree trunks. You have to leap from one stump to the next. Again I run, my long legs helping and make it through. More trenches, some filled with water we have to jump into, one well is so steep we needs ropes to climb out of. We climb another platform, then ride a fifty foot water slide into another muddy pool. The slide is nothing compared to a good amusement park water slides that Zoey and I tangled with this summer. I flash double peace signs to a photographer, then plop into a muddy pool.

Alas, I am now walking with bits of running thrown in, but the course is beating me down. I need my breath and legs for the obstacles. Up a muddy hill, down a muddy hill. Down on my knees crawling under barbed wire, crawling through a corrugated pie into muddy water then crawling back up through another pipe. I am weary. All of this plays out in front of packed bleachers with view of the course, racers who have already finished and family members drinking beers and cheering. I feel like a gladiator in the coliseum, except if there were lions there instead of mud obstacles, I would dead.

There is jump into a pool of mud, people do cannonblls and jackknifes. I settle for a short jump. Where others disappeared, I stay above water as my feet hit the bottom hard. I am guessing the water is only five feet deep. I am glad I did not jackknife as I might have broken my back.

There is the fire jump, three rows of fire. I sprint and hurdle each, then walk and gasp for breath. The end is near.

We climb another tall obstacle and at the top in the cargo net that goes over the race start. As I crawl across cautiously some racers leap into the net, which causes everyone already on the net then lose their grips and fall on each other. I try to keep moving and then I am across and climbing down and at the finish line.

I have my picture taken in front of the race logo. I roll my sleeves up and give the muscle man pose, then get a banana, and orange section, a water, then shower. The shower is a cold hose that hangs from wood. It is cold, but nothing compared to the ice plunge at Tough Mudder. I change and get my free beer -- an unfiltered Harpoon Ale. It tastses really good. I think what fun it would be to have run this race with a group of friends, and to hang out after and listen to the band, and drink, a couple, three, four, five of these fine beers, and to know that someone else would be driving me home. But alas, I am fifty five years old with a five year old daughter waiting at home for me to take her to the park on this fine day.

I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

Swim

20 minute swim.

Pullups/Bike

Did some pullups and bike at the gym, then rode the bike more at home.

Warrior Dash 9-21-2013

Ran the Warrior Dash today in Thompson, CT that is the farthest possible northeast corner of the state - an hour and twenty minute drive from home.  I do the race (as written below) to overcome my fear of crawling under the earth.  The photos are generic photos of what the obstacles look like in other settings.

http://warriordash.com/location/2013-warrior-dash-connecticut/

***

So, you ask, the book begins with a scene of me underground, stuck, in dire straights.  A teaser with no delivery.  True, I was pleased, thrilled, relieved, exuberant, thanking God and any and everyone else that the Tough Mudder chose not to include Trench Warfare in their Vermont race.  But now, in the aftermath, I feel unsatisfied.  I did not get a chance to face my ultimate phobia - crawling in a narrow dank, dark tunnel, under the earth.  That is why I find myself driving an hour and twenty minutes on this foggy Saturday morning in September to the Thompson Speedway in the farthest Northeast corner of the state to participate in the Warrior Dash, a 3.2 mile obstacle race that promises underground trenches, as well as the balance beam over water, and the Death Leap over Fire  that I also escaped in the Tough Mudder.

I have been feeling good about this all.  I would wear my tough mudder finisher tee-shirt to show I have no fear, but since I am a tough Mudder, I don’t need to advertise, so instead, I wear a plain white racing shirt.  I am a tough mudder inside where it counts.  Despite that positive feeling, I do start to have some worries on the drive.  I recall what my friend Rich told me when I told him I had failed to sign up in time and wouldn’t be able to race.  Maybe, it is a sign, he said.  That night, desperate to be able to say I conquered all my fears, I email the race support team and tell them I screwed up and missed the registration deadline, and is there any way I can still register. I offer, in fact, to make an additional donation if they can find a way to let me race.  I am delighted when they email back that I can register onsite for an extra ten dollars cash.  Driving to the venue, the sunny skies over my house turn grey, a deep fog sets in.  I see one, then another, then another dead animal in the road.  I try not to make any analogies.  I keep Rich’s it may be a sign comment at arm’s length.  I could just end this book at the finish line of the tough mudder, with raising the Dos Equis to the race gods.  It would be a shame to end it in the hospital, getting my fractured hip pinned.

The racers have been going off in waves every fifteen minutes, and already I see some walking from the finish line black with mud.  The crowd has a different vibe that the Tough Mudder.  Instead of ripped serious athletes, this has more of a grab your wife, boyfriend or son and daughter and come out and run.  There is little tension, and much festivity.  I register quickly, leave my bag at the bag check and walk right to the start corral.  Like the Tough Mudder, no one is checking your start time.

After only a short wait, the race starts.  We run out onto to the speedway, and up the banked track.  I have not been running much due to the plantar fasciitis in my feet, and I can feel it in my wind.  Still I jog along and pass many of the racers , some of whom are already walking.  There are no obstacles for a while, a trick organizers use to thin the waves so there is little waiting time at the obstacles.  After we have looped the track, we run across the infield where we must climb over wrecked cars and then through rows of tires, and then over more cars, then back to running.   The early obstacles involve lots of climbing, which I love, and goes fairly easily.  There are footholds in the walls, one obstacle has a slanted wall with a rope that you grab and help pull you up, another wall is straight up, but again, it has both a rope and footholds to help you climb.  I take my time at the top, and gently swing my legs over and back myself down.  If I am going to break a hip, here would be a place, perched twenty feet in the air on a thin wall, but I am soon down, and still together at least so far. 

While the climbing comes easily -- I see few people having difficulty with it, I do feel quite winded.  I permit myself to walk on the approach to the obstacle and then to take a few steps after before breaking back into my trot.  

We cross mud mounds with pools off muddy water, waist deep, then up a mound and through another pool.  I have caught sight of the balance beams farther ahead on the course and see one person fall off with a splash.  The beam doesn’t look too narrow, but the wind is picking up, and now my shoes are muddy and wet.  

And then there it is in front of me -- the tunnels.  There are three of them, holes into the earth.  A cloud crosses the sun and the wind picks up again.  Here it is my tormentor.  At last we meet.  I examine to see which one is wider, but they all look about the same.  Rather than taking the open tunnel, I get in line behind four girls who are all entering the same tunnel one by one.  I figure this way I can follow their voices at least until I am left behind.  The ground is very rocky, as I descend into the hole in the earth  I My back hits the top of the wall if I try to kneel.  I have a little wiggle room from side to side.  I stretch to a plank position, keeping my toes on the ground.  I use my hands and start to bear crawl and find I can, although it squeezes my abdominal muscles.  The women in front of me are already gone.  I grunt as I move forward.  In the gym when lifting weights I try not to grunt as it is not considered proper etiquette, but I hear I unleash each grunt as an SOS type signal.  People can laugh, but at least they know someone is in the tunnel, someone is alive in there.  If there is a sudden earthquake of cave-in, they will shout  “Help -- He’s in there, a guy’s in there being buried alive.  We need shovels.  Dig!  Dig!”

I keep my head down and focus.  I hear Dr. Fuller’s words, “Be logical, keep going and you will eventually come out.”  I have to stop and rest a moment.  My breathing is growing heavy!  The rocks cut into my arms.    I get back in the bear crawl position, but this time, my back hits the ceiling again.  Fortunately, the ceiling is not earth, but plywood.  I grunt again, and then force myself on.  Just a little further, just a little more, and then to my amazement, I am out.  I get first to my knees, and then use my hands to stand.  Its done.  It couldn’t have taken me more than a minute.  I watch other racers, rise out of the other holes and sprint on.  I look back at my nemesis and smile.  I feel like doing a little jig.  I make a checkmark in the  air.  Did it, done.  I break back into a run.  The flags on the poles that mark the course are stiff in the breeze that has now turned lost gale force.  I am am cold and I get a shiver as I see what lays ahead.  The balance beams over the water.

Next there is another balance act that looked easy when I saw it on the video, but looks much different face to face.  We walk up a narrow plant, across a narrow beam, over a wall, along another beam, another, wall, then down another plant, all while being sprayed with a hose.  I should say the other racers do this.  I am standing and watching.  It looks much more difficult in person.  I make it up the first plank but then stop before going across the beam.  The water is blasting me, and I have to go down to my knees and hold on with my hands to.  I have no faith I will make it if I stand, so I crawl across the beam like a giant caterpillar in a rain storm, inching my way along.  I am able to stand, then and grasp onto the wall, which is easy for me to climb.  The next beam is also narrow, but by holding onto the wall, i can stand step on the beam and quickly reach across to grab the next beam.  I manage to make it the rest of the way on my feet without falling, as I run away, i hear someone remark about how fun that obstacle was, and I have to agree.  Obstacle racing is like an adult amusement park.  One fun ride after the next.  Adventure and thrills.

Now we are at the balance beams over the pool of water.  I stop to observe the obstacle.  There are four beams over the water.  I watch others cross them.  I check to see which beams wobble, which are straight.  The wind continues to gust.  One racer nearly blows over, but he is able to scurry across.  The next thing I know I am out there.  Please don’t fall.  I have my arms out like Karl Wallenda.  The wind hits me and I flutter.  I can see it now as I try to balance, I go down, conking my head on the other bar, getting knocked out, and then sinking into the muddy water below.  I break into a run, and with a leap I am across.  Did it done.  Another check mark.

The next obstacle involves crawling again. We crawl under barbed wire, but instead of crawling on rocky mud, we are on grass.  I feel one barb on my back and so press myself down.  I go slowly, but steadily.  After the barbed wire, we crawl under a mesh screen.  My but hits it, but the screen has play in it, so I can rise to my knees and scurry along and am not impeded until the end when there is one last line of barbed wire I have to duck under.  

We have to cross climb a cargo net, which is pretty easy.  With my long reach, it goes quickly.

I can hear the band now as we must be nearing the finish.  We have to run up a tall sand hill, and though I am tired, I recall all those hill runs, and make my class proud by powering up the hall, passing several other racers with ease.  We run along some trail, then down the hill.  I am cautious, but my balance is good, and I make it easily. 

Then we come to the warrior roast, the leap over fire.  The flames range from a foot to two to three depending on the wind.  The fire itself is not very wide.  At the other end a photographer takes pictures of racers doing the warrior leap.  I let the runners in front of me go.  To an observer, it makes me look like I am afraid.  I am after all stopped dead, staring at the flames.  In truth, I am just waiting for the other racers to clear so the photographer can focus on me.  This is my moment.  When he does I run with the swiftness of Achilles, and leap high into the air, soaring over the flames.  I am hoping for an iconic Michael Jordan Nike soaring in for the dunk type shot.  Peter Canning Tough Mudder, Warrior, FireLord, Skywalker, Hero.  I land, stumble, but stay on my feet and continue on. 

 There is the mud pit, and then the finish line, and then a shower, courtesy of the local fire department hoses.  I change into dry clothes, I find the St. Jude Warrior Fund tent and give them my promised extra donation, and then drive home to my three daughters and to Chevaughn.

Warrior

Finish Time was  47:16  134 out of 247 for men 50-59.  Overall place 4114 out of 8146

30 Minute Bike Ride

Easy Thirty on the Bike

4 Mile Hill Run

Ran 4 miles of hills with my training group.

12 Mile Bike Ride

Actually got on the bike this morning, rode for a while with Lauren and then did my route around the health center.  Didn't feel too bad.

Lift/Playground

Did some pullups at the gym, then did some more playground training with Zoey

Playground

More balance and climbing

Playground/2.4 Mile Run

Did some burpees and other exercises at the playground with Lauren and Zoey, then later ran 2.4 miles at a slightly faster pace than normal, although my time was still on the slow side.  23:26.

Swim

Swam a half mile