The Savage RaceSM was
my first obstacle course race…and I loved it! I have to admit it was probably
the one of the most fun races I have done, second only to the Ragnar Relay
series. I love team races because they are super supportive and far less
competitive than other races. My team, known as Carrie’s Crew, consisted of my
husband, John, team leader and CrossFit queen friend, Carrie, and myself. Small
team but big dreams!
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| Carrie's Crew! |
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| Carrie's Crew with more mud! |
The race had a great group of friendly,
energetic athletes present, many of whom helped people finish obstacles, which
is encouraged rather than penalized on this race. Several times I needed
assistance from teammates to complete an obstacle and other racers stepped up
to help. And being an athletic woman myself, I would be remiss not to mention the
major hotties on the course!
Obstacles
The running portion of the race
was basically brief sprints (or walks) in between obstacles so I decided to go
through each obstacle to detail my experience. I attempted all but one obstacle
and did not finish four of them (stars denote not finishing). There was no
penalty for not finishing or attempting an obstacle, though, which is
apparently different from most other races of this style. I cannot remember the
order of the obstacles with 100% certainty, but the following is my
approximation of the course order.
An ice bath about 15 feet long. They force you to go
underwater at one point. The cold was not too bad (it was definitely a shock),
but the ice itself was sharp. Ouch!
A long mud pit with wooden slats to force you to dunk your
head. I’m still cleaning dirt out of my ears! My one complaint about this one
was that there was no water after to wash the mud out of our eyes and it stuck
to my eye lashes. But this obstacle made for great photos (check out the Savage Race Facebook Page!)
Basically this was a balance beam with extra bouncing. I got
about a third of the way then it started shaking significantly. DROP! SPLASH!
Did not finish it. And then I could barely get down the muddy hill.
A barbed wire crawl in dirt. Not bad at all, but I don’t
think I was doing it properly. I was short enough to basically crawl on my
hands and knees rather than doing the actual Army crawl. The worst part about
this and ALL the crawls in the dirt or mud was that the location was a shooting
range normally and all the dirt had clay pigeon/skeet shooting remnants. It was
painful putting my hands, arms, knees, and legs on the shards!
Swamp Ass
Basically going through a eutrophied, smelly, waist-deep pond.
Not bad.
Tires
This was supposed to be tires swinging, but they were just
on the ground and you had to step in the tire holes. Kind of silly and not much
of an obstacle.
A ledge walk similar to indoor rock climbing. The wood was
too far apart and I did not have enough upper body strength to finish this
obstacle. If they would have made the footholds a little better (wide enough
for two sets of toes rather than only one), I would have been able to do it, I
think.
Mud Berms
Muddy hills! For some reason these three obstacles causes
the longest lines. People would stop to run up or down the berms, but they
weren’t really that bad at all. I think people were afraid of folks sliding
back down, which is a concern. But I thought they were pretty fun. The sliding
one down reminded me of Arnold’s character in Predator, though!
This was the only obstacle I was disappointed that I did not
complete. I used to be a wiz at monkey bars. Because it had a sawtooth shape
with two rises, I was not able to just use my skeletal structure to swing
across. I got to the third bar and dropped in the water :(
The name is exactly what it was. My husband helped me with
this one. I stood on his back and he slowly stood up until I was able to grab
the top and get my leg over. Unfortunately we had no one to help him with it so
he did not get to do it!
An angled wall with a rope to climb up that had a sprinkler
spraying you and the wall. I did not think I would complete this, but it was
actually pretty easy if you got enough of a running start to reach the rope.
Fun!
Log carrying through a pond. The hardest part of this was
there was a wire or something that tripped me along the way. Supposedly
carrying two would have made me a BADASS (they had a few “Badass” obstacles),
but I chose to just carry one of the small ones.
A slatted wall that you could just climb over. Pretty
simplistic.
Giant rolls of hay that were stacked like a pyramid. Super
fun, but kind of scary going down because they had been stamped down by
previous racers. I treaded it very slowly!
Similar to the other barbed wire crawls, but water was
spraying you in the face when you did it. This was pretty fun.
Alligator Alley
Running through a muddy corn field with ice cold water
spraying on you. Not much of an obstacle, but the mud got pretty thick!
Back Scratcher (without hay)
Imagine hurdles with five foot walls and barbed wire limbo. I
did not fully complete this one, but I did 4 of the 6 walls and all the barbed
wire crawls in between. I have some lovely brusies on the back of my leg behind
my knees as proof!
Wet Willy
Probably the most boring “obstacle”. It was just a pond you
could walk or swim across. I obviously chose to swim.
The second best obstacle of the course and all we had to do
was jump of a tall dock (probably the same height as a high dive diving board).
With a cute lifeguard in scuba gear so there was good incentive to jump off. I
forgot to blow air out my nose on the way down so I got water up there. Oops!
This was a 20 foot (or thereabouts) cargo net that you had
to climb. It wasn’t quite vertical, but it was steep enough that I was a little
scared.
The most difficult obstacle on the course. Basically this
obstacle was a short concave ramp leading to a vertical wall with a rope you
had to climb to reach a ledge. I cannot believe I was able to reach the rope. I
got to the last knot, but could not reach the ledge. I tried going perpendicular
to get my legs up, which did not work. Then I slid down a little burning my
hands. OUCH!!! Fortunately, not one, but TWO volunteers at the top helped me
up. I hurt myself in the process, though, so even though I got lots of help I
am considering that a completion!
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| A few bruises I picked up from the Colossus and Mud N'Guts! |
The other fun obstacle and all I had to do was slide down a
very steep water slide ramp. Loved it!
Only one member of our group attempted this shocking
obstacle. This one had a car battery attached to cords with exposed wires.
Instead of running through, which would have been painful, but fine, they made
you roll underneath. I chose not to attempt this as I HATE electricity, getting
shocked (like when my car door shocks me trying to close it), and rolling makes
me nauseated. The teammate who did it did not even make a peep when most of the
racers were squealing or yelling obscenities!
A mud pit under progressively lowered barbed wire. The last
obstacle and actually really annoying because of the aforementioned clay pigeon
remnants. The mud got so deep I eventually had to use my elbows to pull myself through!
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| Finisher medal and t-shirt + race bib. |
It took Carrie’s Crew 1:54:17 to
do the four-mile obstacle course. Even though we did not do all the obstacles,
I am still really proud of my team. We were muddy, cut up, and bruised and
proud of it! I even had to throw away the tank top I wore because it got so
stretched out from the weight of the mud! They had showers, which were
essentially low-pressure hoses. It took me almost 15 minutes to clean up. Unfortunately,
we were so hungry we did not get to enjoy our after race beers (food was
ridiculously expensive so we chose to get food at a local restaurant – taco salad,
yum!), but leaving, unlike most races, was quick and efficient.
I highly recommend this race!
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| Me after the race. |
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