Mud, Sweat, and Beers

Last weekend I had the opportunity to participate in the Gladiator Assault Challenge at Seven Oaks in Boone, Iowa. I hadn't done an obstacle course run yet and this one just happened to pop up in Iowa, so I was really excited about it.

This is the group before the race. 

The Gladiator Assault challenge was billed as a 5.3 mile course with 30 obstacles and a guarantee that we would get muddy. Well it lived up to that, and then some. My first thoughts were, I've run farther than that before, how hard could it be. I severely under estimated the difficulty of this challenge.

The course was set on a ski hill with some nice wooded single track mountain biking paths on the back side of the ski slopes. The first thing you do is walk up the ski slope to get to the start line, so the huffing and puffing and sweating started before the race even began for me. Then our start time came and back down the ski slope we ran, at the bottom was a series of mud pits to jump in and then climb out of. We're maybe a quarter of a mile into the race and we're all soaked head to toe with mud and water, and I'm already exhausted from pulling my weight out of the mud pits. 

The next element of the race is to run right back up the ski slope. Well some people ran, most walked up the steep hills, I don't know what you call what I did, but I made it. Then we got to the fire, where we ran through a chute with some burning hay. A tip for anyone planning to do a race like this. Don't do what I did at the fire obstacle, which was breathe normally. Hold your Breath! 

So the race continued on like this for another 4.5 miles or so. There was plenty more mud, barbed wire, cargo nets, balance beams, hills with ropes, walls, and hurdles along the way. After about 2 hours and plenty of help and encouragement from the group and other racers, we completed the Gladiator Assault Challenge. And it was awesome. They were literally pouring beers in the finishing chute, which was way cool. It was one of the most physically demanding things I've done in my life. I can't wait for the next one, but I've got a lot of training to do.

The group post race full of mud.

Drake Relays 8k

The Drake Relays 8k race went quite well. I set a new PR of 56:18 with help of my good friend Kelsey. I think we pushed each other just enough. Then we after everybody finished, some people in the group ran the half marathon, we went down to the Hessen House and started drinking German beer like all good runners.

Picture of the group post race

The Drake Relays race is a really fun one. It's well put together and I really like the distance for an early spring race. I hear that they're bumping it up to a 10k for next year, so I'll have to make sure I'm ready for the extra 1.2 miles next. 

That's about it for now. Get ready for the next post though, because it will be an assessment of how well my progress has gone in the 1st third of 2012. I've been dreading writing that one because I haven't quite done everything I've wanted to do.