Well this one started off Friday when I drove down to pick up my packet. Went smoothly enough, though I wasn't overly impressed with the goody bag. Basically just flyers for Wellsboro stuff and one of them had a granola bar attached. There was a nice tech tee though.
As for the race itself?
Well it was early...
I got up at about 3:55am, out the door about 4:15am.
Arrived at the high school parking lot about 5:30.
There were a lot of people there waiting.
One bus shows up. Didn't make it on.
I think it was about 5:52 when (5:45 was supposed to be the last bus) the next one showed up. And then thankfully like 4 more buses.
It was almost a half hour trip down to Colton Rd. Same place the rally cars run.
So we got there just before 6:30. One last potty break and then basically just hung around the woods for half an hour.
And then we were off!
Now, I have to say... I wasn't entirely sure about the elevations... From their description it made it sound like it was mostly flat with maybe a few little hills, or that's what I was picturing. But from the rally car days of walking these roads, I didn't remember anything flat.
And in the end, that was all kinda correct... There weren't any big hills like I'm used to... But there was NOTHING flat.
So... there was a bit of up and down throughout, but more down for the first 2/3 maybe. So I was aiming for a 9:09 min/mile pace to break 2hrs, and I was beating that on those downhills, but not by enough that I thought I was going to keep it for the way back. Thought for sure I'd be walking parts. But no, I DID manage to run the whole thing. But I did slow considerably for the way back up. Ended up with a 2:08 finish time and considering the hills I'm quite happy!
Oh, also had a short chat with someone shortly before we started heading up again, she was saying the same thing about how on the way down we weren't looking forward to knowing we had to go back up. It was nice to have someone to chat with!
Afterwards, got a nice medal and a box filled with all sorts of post race recovery foods like chocolate milk and hummus and chips and a few other things. That made up for the goody bag. And they had water, sports drink, bananas, apples and pretzels out as well.
So I hung out for maybe 20 minutes afterwards stretching out my calves. Then decided to head back to the buses.
Well... I ended up right behind this like over 6 foot tall European guy who was just SO enjoying his post race high. "this is so awesome!" Every couple minutes. We got in line to wait for the bus and talked a bit with him and a couple of his friends who ran as well. It was nice to be around other crazy runners!
This ended up being a while. We waited for I believe over an hour for the bus. This is also evidence of just how sweaty I must get cause I was STILL dripping by the time the bus came. I literally soaked every inch of my clothing. And I missed any notice that there was a bag check at the race itself, otherwise I would have at least brought a towel.
So we finally get on a bus at like 10:40 or something... And we start heading back. We drop off spectators. And more spectators. Then... We start heading back a bit. I laughed it off, but obviously there were some mess ups with the buses. I guess they were saying the buses were so slow because they didn't have full buses going to Wellsboro. So they decided to swing back to the spectator area and combine the half full buses of runners into one full one. Now, why no one could have figured this out back before we got ON the buses is a mystery to me. And while I laughed it off, some people were getting quite frustrated with it and some were complaining that they had to check out within an hour and we weren't back yet. Hopefully they'll get that figured out next year.
When we picked up more runners, ended up having another nice chat with a lady from West Virginia about all the races she was doing as well.
It was also interesting to hear the number of people who were going to do the full the next day too! I'm not THAT crazy yet!
Anway, about 11:20 and we finally were back to the high school parking lot.
So, in all it was a lot of fun!
Next up is just a 5K, but those Spartan races are coming up soon!
Saturday, July 26, 2014
Saturday, July 12, 2014
Tough Mudder (VS Spartan?)
So Tough Mudder...
Did this one with my friend/neighbor/mechanic Mike. This was my first time having someone else to run with and was a lot of fun! I was kind of wondering how we would pace each other. Mike works all day with his hands, so I figured he probably had me beat on upper body strength, but he hasn't run as far/often/fast as I have, so I thought I might have him beat there.
As it turns out, we seemed to end up right about the same pace from what I could tell. Though he is taller which I hadn't really noticed until we were in this run and he would stop to a walk and I had to periodically bump up to a run to catch up to him since my strides weren't as long! He also seemed to have some advantage jumping to things, etc.
So let's see...
We got there about a quarter to 8 and figured we'd do the 9am wave. We were early but that was good, we got a decent parking spot that I think might not have been the full half mile distance from the starting line area. When we left, the other end of where people were parking was probably another quarter mile away across hay fields. We opted NOT to take the $5 each way shuttle. (:
Got our bibs, bathroom break and headed back to the truck to get ready.
I went with:
Fivefinger Spyridon shoes. Upped one size since I had a did lose a pinky nail on a 13 mile trail race with thin socks and I went with thicker Injinji knee high compression socks this time. I'm undecided on this at the moment. I think the socks were a good idea for protection, but the upped size Fivefingers feel a hair large and the straps definitely seem too long and at one point when I tried to re-tighten them after some mud/water, the straps seemed too long to be able to get a good grip with the velcro. Really thinking I would prefer the Spyridon LS. Not entirely sure which size... would be nice to get a good handle on this before Sept Spartans!
UA Compression shorts, UA Running shorts, UA Coldblack shirt, UA trainer fingerless gloves, bandaids on the nips, Glide a bit on the feet, Spibelt and took my Fitbit One and old Boost Hydro phone in LokSaks in the Spibelt to track the run.
So we thought we had time still, but then they said the 9am wave was leaving. When we headed up for the 9:20 wave we'd realize we probably did still have time, it seems they have a pre-starting line holding area where they keep people until like 10 minutes before, then you head up to the starting line, spend another 10 minutes there or so and THEN leave. As such, we were at the back of the 9:20 wave pre-holding area and I started Runkeeper on my phone, and it was apparently 9AM, but it was 9:20 when we actually left to start the run.
Overall? I dunno, I feel I can only compare it really to the harder races I've done. One being the 10 mile Pfeiffer Nature Center Trail race that was wicked hilly. The other being the Tuxedo Spartan Sprint which was 4.5 miles on ski slopes.
So...
Mud:
-Spartan really wasn't that muddy at all. Yeah, there was some, but not a ton of it. Though I ended the race the dirtiest of any race I've done.
-The trail race had a light amount of mud throughout the entire race.
-Tough Mudder definitely had the most mud, deeper, pits of it, mountains of it to repeatedly climb over, etc. Though it seemed to be placed out so that by the end, I was the cleanest of any of the OCR's I've done and not soaking wet.
--From what I could guess, this may have changed if you did the legionnaires loop and more likely, ran Sunday. We were only in the second wave and you could see the paths were muddy and getting worse. I can only imagine after everyone ran Saturday, let alone on Sunday when it was raining!
Running/lower body:
-The trail race pretty much was the hardest. It was a number of times up and down maybe 400'+ hills, one of which they had a rope to help you go up, and generally everyone was running as much as they could. This one left me a bit sore afterwards.
-Spartan was definitely second. The slopes were similar in height to the trail race, but ski slopes, so some were significantly steeper, but usually not quite as far/high at once as the trail race. And of course it gets broken up by stopping to do obstacles.
-Tough mudder was EASY in comparison. There were only a few hills and of those, only about twice maybe was there anything that was even a real hill. There was like one steep climb(I think they called it the cliffhanger as an obstacle) and it was a steep hard climb, but it wasn't as steep or as long as the majority of the trail race or Spartan was. I think we were only going up it for a couple minutes at most.
Upper body:
-Well, probably obviously the trail race was the easiest, since other than the rope or scrambling for a grip on a steep section or two or pumping your arms, there isn't really any upper body used.
-Tough mudder ... OK, I was gonna say it was easier than Spartan and it was for sure, but I'll add that it was a bit different....
They had parallel bars that were long and went up maybe a few feet, then back down. I wasn't sure I would make it at all, but I did actually get about 75% of the way before I just kinda ran out of enough strength to keep it and I was in the water. That was definitely more taxing on my shoulders than any other race I had done.
The other one they had was the monkey bars. I think Spartan's were maybe unevenly spaced, but they weren't as long and they weren't as elevation changing. And they didn't seem as slippery. I made Spartan's monkey bars. For Mudder, there was again maybe a few feet elevation change up then back down and it was a span of... Maybe 20 feet? I grabbed the first bar and thought I was going to fall off immediately, my fingers had like no grip. But then I guess I grabbed farther on the next one and got it hanging on my palm more and I'll be darned if I didn't make it up, across the middle and again, about half way down the other side, but then I felt my fingers slip like a half inch too far and I was like "nope, I don't have the strength/grip to reacquire what I just lost!" and poof, I was down in the water again.
-Spartan... Like I said with those two exceptions, Spartan is WAY more upper body. I wasn't really sore at all after Mudder. Spartan took out my upper body for a few days. The monkey bars may have been shorter, but they also had a monkey bar cargo net, a big sand bag lift, atlas stone carry, log carry, cement block drag, barbed wire crawl, rope climb... Traverse wall... Probably others I'm forgetting.
On that note, rope climb. Yeah, Mudder gives you a wall next to the rope and I had no trouble climbing up over that(though it was a bit scary to realize you're about 15' up and just holding on to this rope and should you drop your grip, you're going to be lying flat on your back with nothing but a bit of mulch to cushion your fall...) Compared to Spartan's maybe 15' just vertical rope climb that I couldn't even quite get myself out of the water at.
Wall comparison.... Eh, hard to really compare. I think they both have the same sorts of variations... Mudders reverse inclined walls didn't have boards to stand on like Spartans, so I only made it over Mudder's walls on my own by standing on the supports on the side.
6' walls I made it over either way...
I think Spartan had like 8' walls that I had to get a boost to get over. Mudder I believe had like 10' walls, but with a 2x4 2' up which made them somewhat similar. I think I got over those by using the studs and center support as well. Can't remember for sure, cause I think I remember getting a boost over some walls as well, so I may be forgetting another set somewhere...
Mudder has some different maybe more fear oriented obstacles. I definitely felt more fear when I did walk the plank than I have on any other obstacle. I went right off, but it was a bit scary jumping like 15' above the water. And interestingly that one threw me off more than any other because it hit my nose/ear/inner ear thing and took a solid day before my head was clear again.
Arctic Enema was about what I expected. I was mentally prepared and not worried about it, but it still kinda took over the body a bit and took a bit of work to keep everything focused and moving and going under the water to get under the board took more effort than I would have thought, but it wasn't bad.
Electro shock therapy... I was apparently too ninja like and completely avoided the shocks! I half wonder if I should have gone back for the full experience! Mike said he caught a good one to the chest.
Oh, I'll also note that Mike made it across all of the obstacles without a problem.
Yes, there were like some 6' high round bales and I couldn't get over those without a hand as there was just about nothing for me to grab on or get a foot hold on.
And the mud mile was difficult sometimes just to find a foot hold, and after you did 5 of those 6' banks (and then again in the other direction a little later) you could definitely feel your legs!
And I thought for sure I'd fail Everest, but when we got there it was dry, so Mike went up without a problem, and even I ran right up the thing, but I couldn't pull myself up at the top and needed a couple volunteers to help me up.
I think that was most of it... In the end we came out about 2hrs, 40 minutes later. Considerably quicker than I had thought likely.
And as I had suspected, the Dos Equis beer at the end was about the best tasting beer I had had(since I don't really like beer at all).
Then we stopped by the Muddy wheaties tent. I had never even thought of chocolate milk on cereal! Which turned into us jumping on the trampoline for a chance to be on the Wheaties box. Well... They couldn't quite get me registered but we went on together, I kinda wondered how that was going to work. Sure enough, right after the short video they took I ended up getting thrown off the back of the trampoline! Ahh, it was a fun time!
Not sure if this motion jpg will show on here or not.
Did this one with my friend/neighbor/mechanic Mike. This was my first time having someone else to run with and was a lot of fun! I was kind of wondering how we would pace each other. Mike works all day with his hands, so I figured he probably had me beat on upper body strength, but he hasn't run as far/often/fast as I have, so I thought I might have him beat there.
As it turns out, we seemed to end up right about the same pace from what I could tell. Though he is taller which I hadn't really noticed until we were in this run and he would stop to a walk and I had to periodically bump up to a run to catch up to him since my strides weren't as long! He also seemed to have some advantage jumping to things, etc.
So let's see...
We got there about a quarter to 8 and figured we'd do the 9am wave. We were early but that was good, we got a decent parking spot that I think might not have been the full half mile distance from the starting line area. When we left, the other end of where people were parking was probably another quarter mile away across hay fields. We opted NOT to take the $5 each way shuttle. (:
Got our bibs, bathroom break and headed back to the truck to get ready.
I went with:
Fivefinger Spyridon shoes. Upped one size since I had a did lose a pinky nail on a 13 mile trail race with thin socks and I went with thicker Injinji knee high compression socks this time. I'm undecided on this at the moment. I think the socks were a good idea for protection, but the upped size Fivefingers feel a hair large and the straps definitely seem too long and at one point when I tried to re-tighten them after some mud/water, the straps seemed too long to be able to get a good grip with the velcro. Really thinking I would prefer the Spyridon LS. Not entirely sure which size... would be nice to get a good handle on this before Sept Spartans!
UA Compression shorts, UA Running shorts, UA Coldblack shirt, UA trainer fingerless gloves, bandaids on the nips, Glide a bit on the feet, Spibelt and took my Fitbit One and old Boost Hydro phone in LokSaks in the Spibelt to track the run.
So we thought we had time still, but then they said the 9am wave was leaving. When we headed up for the 9:20 wave we'd realize we probably did still have time, it seems they have a pre-starting line holding area where they keep people until like 10 minutes before, then you head up to the starting line, spend another 10 minutes there or so and THEN leave. As such, we were at the back of the 9:20 wave pre-holding area and I started Runkeeper on my phone, and it was apparently 9AM, but it was 9:20 when we actually left to start the run.
Overall? I dunno, I feel I can only compare it really to the harder races I've done. One being the 10 mile Pfeiffer Nature Center Trail race that was wicked hilly. The other being the Tuxedo Spartan Sprint which was 4.5 miles on ski slopes.
So...
Mud:
-Spartan really wasn't that muddy at all. Yeah, there was some, but not a ton of it. Though I ended the race the dirtiest of any race I've done.
-The trail race had a light amount of mud throughout the entire race.
-Tough Mudder definitely had the most mud, deeper, pits of it, mountains of it to repeatedly climb over, etc. Though it seemed to be placed out so that by the end, I was the cleanest of any of the OCR's I've done and not soaking wet.
--From what I could guess, this may have changed if you did the legionnaires loop and more likely, ran Sunday. We were only in the second wave and you could see the paths were muddy and getting worse. I can only imagine after everyone ran Saturday, let alone on Sunday when it was raining!
Running/lower body:
-The trail race pretty much was the hardest. It was a number of times up and down maybe 400'+ hills, one of which they had a rope to help you go up, and generally everyone was running as much as they could. This one left me a bit sore afterwards.
-Spartan was definitely second. The slopes were similar in height to the trail race, but ski slopes, so some were significantly steeper, but usually not quite as far/high at once as the trail race. And of course it gets broken up by stopping to do obstacles.
-Tough mudder was EASY in comparison. There were only a few hills and of those, only about twice maybe was there anything that was even a real hill. There was like one steep climb(I think they called it the cliffhanger as an obstacle) and it was a steep hard climb, but it wasn't as steep or as long as the majority of the trail race or Spartan was. I think we were only going up it for a couple minutes at most.
Upper body:
-Well, probably obviously the trail race was the easiest, since other than the rope or scrambling for a grip on a steep section or two or pumping your arms, there isn't really any upper body used.
-Tough mudder ... OK, I was gonna say it was easier than Spartan and it was for sure, but I'll add that it was a bit different....
They had parallel bars that were long and went up maybe a few feet, then back down. I wasn't sure I would make it at all, but I did actually get about 75% of the way before I just kinda ran out of enough strength to keep it and I was in the water. That was definitely more taxing on my shoulders than any other race I had done.
The other one they had was the monkey bars. I think Spartan's were maybe unevenly spaced, but they weren't as long and they weren't as elevation changing. And they didn't seem as slippery. I made Spartan's monkey bars. For Mudder, there was again maybe a few feet elevation change up then back down and it was a span of... Maybe 20 feet? I grabbed the first bar and thought I was going to fall off immediately, my fingers had like no grip. But then I guess I grabbed farther on the next one and got it hanging on my palm more and I'll be darned if I didn't make it up, across the middle and again, about half way down the other side, but then I felt my fingers slip like a half inch too far and I was like "nope, I don't have the strength/grip to reacquire what I just lost!" and poof, I was down in the water again.
-Spartan... Like I said with those two exceptions, Spartan is WAY more upper body. I wasn't really sore at all after Mudder. Spartan took out my upper body for a few days. The monkey bars may have been shorter, but they also had a monkey bar cargo net, a big sand bag lift, atlas stone carry, log carry, cement block drag, barbed wire crawl, rope climb... Traverse wall... Probably others I'm forgetting.
On that note, rope climb. Yeah, Mudder gives you a wall next to the rope and I had no trouble climbing up over that(though it was a bit scary to realize you're about 15' up and just holding on to this rope and should you drop your grip, you're going to be lying flat on your back with nothing but a bit of mulch to cushion your fall...) Compared to Spartan's maybe 15' just vertical rope climb that I couldn't even quite get myself out of the water at.
Wall comparison.... Eh, hard to really compare. I think they both have the same sorts of variations... Mudders reverse inclined walls didn't have boards to stand on like Spartans, so I only made it over Mudder's walls on my own by standing on the supports on the side.
6' walls I made it over either way...
I think Spartan had like 8' walls that I had to get a boost to get over. Mudder I believe had like 10' walls, but with a 2x4 2' up which made them somewhat similar. I think I got over those by using the studs and center support as well. Can't remember for sure, cause I think I remember getting a boost over some walls as well, so I may be forgetting another set somewhere...
Mudder has some different maybe more fear oriented obstacles. I definitely felt more fear when I did walk the plank than I have on any other obstacle. I went right off, but it was a bit scary jumping like 15' above the water. And interestingly that one threw me off more than any other because it hit my nose/ear/inner ear thing and took a solid day before my head was clear again.
Arctic Enema was about what I expected. I was mentally prepared and not worried about it, but it still kinda took over the body a bit and took a bit of work to keep everything focused and moving and going under the water to get under the board took more effort than I would have thought, but it wasn't bad.
Electro shock therapy... I was apparently too ninja like and completely avoided the shocks! I half wonder if I should have gone back for the full experience! Mike said he caught a good one to the chest.
Oh, I'll also note that Mike made it across all of the obstacles without a problem.
Yes, there were like some 6' high round bales and I couldn't get over those without a hand as there was just about nothing for me to grab on or get a foot hold on.
And the mud mile was difficult sometimes just to find a foot hold, and after you did 5 of those 6' banks (and then again in the other direction a little later) you could definitely feel your legs!
And I thought for sure I'd fail Everest, but when we got there it was dry, so Mike went up without a problem, and even I ran right up the thing, but I couldn't pull myself up at the top and needed a couple volunteers to help me up.
I think that was most of it... In the end we came out about 2hrs, 40 minutes later. Considerably quicker than I had thought likely.
And as I had suspected, the Dos Equis beer at the end was about the best tasting beer I had had(since I don't really like beer at all).
Then we stopped by the Muddy wheaties tent. I had never even thought of chocolate milk on cereal! Which turned into us jumping on the trampoline for a chance to be on the Wheaties box. Well... They couldn't quite get me registered but we went on together, I kinda wondered how that was going to work. Sure enough, right after the short video they took I ended up getting thrown off the back of the trampoline! Ahh, it was a fun time!
Not sure if this motion jpg will show on here or not.
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