Well, it wasn't Hunter McIntyre. It was David Magida.
Another amazing Mud, Guts, and Glory event with 500+ participants. Being a spectator was free again, and the "Glory Village" offered spectators and participants plenty to do.
I didn't hit my sub-59 and went about 2 minutes slower than last time due to the following reasons:
The next Mud, Guts, and Glory race is Saturday, August 16. Sign up early. And run lots of hills before then.
- Chris
Another amazing Mud, Guts, and Glory event with 500+ participants. Being a spectator was free again, and the "Glory Village" offered spectators and participants plenty to do.
I didn't hit my sub-59 and went about 2 minutes slower than last time due to the following reasons:
- Failed to hit Goliath in the head with a paintball using a slingshot (later learned I could have hit any part of his beard and face..doh!).
- The "carry five pieces of firewood" obstacle was replaced with a "carry two 5 gallon buckets filled with something" obstacle along the same path, but the path was twice as long.
- The Start was pushed back about 100 meters, which was a good thing.
While I'm thinking about it, rumor has it the OCR World Championship version of the course will include 3 more miles on top of this already challenging ~5.3 mile course.
Jeff Bent and another guy took the pace out quickly, but I hung back with Pak and Magida. Magida probably thought I was just following him, so I ran along side and then pushed ahead a bit at the top of the first hill. Within the first mile, I found myself in first, which I held until we reached the mud crawl before the monkey bars. It's probably a good idea to reach the monkey bars in the top 5, so you can be first in line for one of the rows of bars.
Someone remembered to connect the battery to the wires above the mud crawl, because they got me this year. It took a few shocks to slow my roll down, and then finally crawl out. At that point, the mud was thick. This nice coat of mud made the monkey bars even more challenging, but I was able to get most of the mud off of my hands and cross without any issues. Pak took over the lead at this point, and I think Magida and I reached the other side of the monkey bars at the same time. We went through the gauntlet together and traded 2nd and 3rd through the second stage.
Things went downhill when we reached Goliath at the top of stage 3. But I must say, I knocked out my 30 burpees with ease. However, Pak and Magida were gone at that point and 4th, 5th, and 6th arrived. 4th and 5th hit Goliath, so we left together for the log carry. At that point, I was 6th. We hit the traverse, which uses old light poles (they can be harder to wrap your legs around). When my feet hit the ground (successfully making it across), I was off like a mad man (looking back, I'm not sure what was going through my head since I was running down hills you probably shouldn't run down). From the traverse, you head down a hill to the creek again and make your way to the rope climb. Up the rope I went (glad they put 1.5" ropes on) and then started trekking up the first of three major climbs. (The second time I ran the course on Saturday--yes, I ran it twice--I didn't use the rope on this first climb and it almost felt easier or at least faster.)
I held 3rd from that point to the finish. Scaled the walls. Weaved through the Weaver. Repelled down the cliff. Climbed back up the cliff. And slide down the water slide. Boom. 3rd place. 1:01:55.
Pak was 1st in 56:28. Magida 2nd in 59:08.
In other news, Jeff Cain of OnMyWayToSparta.com invited me to be on his team a couple days before the race. I'm completely humbled by this invite and was honored to be on the team. The team was stacked (usually "Schapman" and "stacked team" don't go in the same sentence) with Magida, Boone, Banawa, Kauder, and I. We won the fastest team award.
The next Mud, Guts, and Glory race is Saturday, August 16. Sign up early. And run lots of hills before then.
- Chris
