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.