Race Recap - Highlander III 6-mile Adventure Run 9/22/2012

Race season has officially started! YAY! Saturday I did the Highlander III 6-mile Adventure Run put on by Rock On Adventures.  It was a very well put together race.  This is my recount.  I can’t guarantee that the obstacles are in the right order, but I will try to list them as accurately in the correct order as possible and hopefully will remember all of them:   

1. Run through tires
2. Run through, over or under criss-crossed ropes
3. Climb over a 4 foot wall
4. Run for a little while
5. Run through mud
6. Walk over a sand pit on tree
7. Climb over an 8 or 9 foot wall
8. Carry a sand bag on your shoulder while you walk through mud that’s like the scene from the Never Ending Story where Atreyu and his horse, Artax, get stuck
9. Climb over a slanted wall.  The first ledge that you can actually grab onto is about 6.5 ft.  So, if your legs aren’t too tired, then you can attempt to run and jump.  Otherwise, you have to have someone help you up, like me.  Thankfully my boyfriend was there to push me by butt
10. Climb over a tree
11. Swim over two barrels in the water
12. Run for a little while
13. Swim under two barrels in the water
14. Next obstacle you could choose from either a pull up bar with another bar on top that you have to get over or picking up a tire and putting it over an 7 or 8 ft pool and then lifting it back off.  The pull up bar was out of commission.  So, we were forced to do the tire over the pole.  I am way too short for this one.  I could barely lift the tire over my head, let alone lift it another 3 feet to get it to go over the pole.  I had to have someone help me on this one too  
15. Run some more
16. Run through some more criss-crossed rope
17. Crawl through tires suspended between trees
18. Jump into a watery mud pit and climb out with a rope
19. Walk through some more mud carrying a sand bag.  This mud was not nearly as bad as the first one. 
20. Crawl through mud under barbed wire
21. Walk through more watery mud
22. Crawl through mud under barbed wire again
23. Run for a little while
24. Climb up a rope and touch the top
25. Climb over fallen trees
26. Carry a tire and walk around a circle
27. Run for a little bit
28. Carry a sand bag and walk around a circle
29. Walk over another pit on trees
30. Jump about 15 ft into water
31. Run for a little bit
32. Cross water walking on a line and hanging on to a rope above you
33. Climb over a wall of sand – there were actually about one of these for every obstacle a little after the half-way point.  Instead of mud, it was climbing over a wall of sand.  Although, there were still a couple of more mud obstacles near the end, but not nearly as many as in the beginning
34. Hop in a potato bag and go about 20 ft
35. Cross slippery monkey bars
36. Swing like Tarzan into muddy water
37. Zip line
38. Climb a wall with a rope and/or use little steps to help you up
39. Walk through an ice pit about three feet wide.  This was actually kind of refreshing because it was closer to the end of the race when it was getting hot.  So, it cooled my legs off. 
40. Climb a wall of tires
41. Carry someone on a stretcher (one or two people carry the person on the stretcher) or use blocks with ropes under your feet and walk around a circle
42. Slide about 15 ft into water
43. Crawl through some more mud
44. Run up and over some more sand hills

I think I got everything.  I may have missed a couple of mud pits, but I definitely listed all the different kinds – walk through knee-deep to chest-deep, jump into and climb out of, and crawl through on hands and knees under barbed wire.  Some mud pits were really thick and tried to each your legs, others were watery but had just enough gross clump stuff to make you want to hurry up and get out before you threw up.  It’s quite a few obstacles all packed into 6 miles.    I mentioned earlier that I really like races that give out unconventional awards.  Rock on Adventures has this down.  Overall male and female winners get a huge 6 or 7 ft Viking sword.  Age group winners get a beer stein.  Better placing gets a bigger stein.  I finished in 1:29 and placed 3rd in 20 – 29 age group.  Finisher medal on the left, a/g award on the right: Not sure if you can see the scratches on my leg.  Here’s a better shot: It was another take home . 
Summary:  This race is pretty awesome.  I will definitely do it again.  It’s kind of like Tough Mudder but less commercialized.  You can actually have your friends and family come out and support you for free!  What a concept, right? 
Pros:

• They have local food trucks out so you can get your choice of grub after for pretty cheap.  I had some coconut gelato, sausage corn dog, and a Portuguese  Piri-piri (spicy) grilled chicken sandwich.  This sandwich was delicious! 
• Their shirts are really comfy and they are cool enough to wear out when you just want to wear something relaxed and comfy. 

• They have a LOT of obstacles all packed into 6 miles. 
• There aren’t any electric wire that aren’t going to shock you so that other people can laugh
• There isn’t any fire to run through where you have to breathe in smoke and/or possible catch fire
• The ice pit was cold but you weren’t in it long enough to lose feeling in any of your body parts
• The awards are SUPER COOL!
• Water stops (with cold water) every about 1.5 miles.  And, the way the course was set up you passed the same water stop twice in less than .5 miles
• The waves were far enough apart with roughly 50 people per wave making it easy to get through the obstacles without having to wait long.  I never had to wait longer than a minute, if at all, for any of the obstacles
• They really care about safety in this race.  Tree stumps in the woods were spray painted so you could see them, you didn’t have to complete any obstacle that you weren’t comfortable doing any water that you had to jump in was deep enough, if the water was shallow they warned you and with the wall of tires, they instructed everyone to go between the tires at the top instead of going over the top railing of the wall
• The water to rinse off at the end was good once the knobs were removed and the water was coming out faster.  Could maybe use one more station like this or make sure that the water can flow freely from all sides. 
• Chipped timing.   

Cons:

• I really did not enjoy needing help for the first slanted wall climb.  It was impossible to get up without help unless you have springs in your feet or are really tall.  I don’t know why I was, and still a little am, so insistent on completing the course without any help.  There were teams signed up and that’s fine if they want to have obstacles specific to team work.  But, I signed up as an individual racer and I wanted to finish it that way.
• So, for the same reason as above, I did not like the obstacle where you have to pick up the tire and put it over a pole and then take it off.  There was an alterative, but it was not being allowed to be used.  Probably for safety reasons.  Which is fine.  Some guy was nice enough to help me with this one.  Daniel didn’t realize that I needed help and was working on getting his own tire on and off the pole. 
• This is more of a wish list item.  But, there was a lot of crawling through mud and a lot of times the mud splashes up in your face.  This isn’t a huge deal except when it gets in your eyes and you don’t have a single clean inch on you anywhere to clean the mud out with.  So, it would be nice to have someone with a little wash cloth or a tub of water to clean your hands and face
• The walk-around for missing an obstacle wasn’t always a long enough route to make up for missing the obstacle