Race Report way late … but better late than never 🙂

Since I wanted to get the fun back in racing I figured I might try something new.
Since Military I enjoyed obstacle races and excelled at them. I figured I might as well try one of these obstacle race which haben been showing up all over. I decided to try BattleFrog since it fits my schedule. Note: that this race series has been canceling all their future race to focus on something else. So the website doesn’t show anything useful anymore.

I figured, since I am fairly fit, I should sign up for the elite wave. That meant 2 laps of the course which was a total of 16km with 44 obstacles. Also in the elite wave you get a special elite wristband and if you can’t finish an obstacle you have to turn in your wristband. You can still finish the course and get a medal but you will be listed as a DNF under elite.
Once it got closer to the race and I started looking at the details and realized how big of an emphasis was set on upper body strength. I came across the following video:

I knew, if they have an obstacle like that in Seattle, that it would mean the end for my elite band.

The elite wave was a rather small group of roughly 50 people. I lined up a couple rows back and wondering if I should be farther up front. I’m currently not in the best running shape, but wasn’t sure how many of them would be fast runners. To my surprise the start pace was rather high. I tried not to start too fast, but probably did it anyway. After a few turns on the road we reached the first obstacle where we just had to crawl underneath. Afterwards we were on grass and soft dirt. There were several more simple obstacles and the group was still reasonable close together but started to spread out. The terrain got hillier and some of the obstacles got harder. For example we had to run over some dirt hills several times and climb up and down some ladders. Then we reached the first upper body strength obstacle. The 8 foot wall. While intermediate and novice had steps on the wall this was just a flat wall. I pulled myself up and swung the foot up and caught the ledge with my ankle and pulled myself up that way. Hard but manageable. After a few more obstacle and running came the first harder challenge. A 6 foot inverted wall. So no wall to work with just the ledge. I tried to the same technique but it took me several attempts until I managed to land my foot on the edge and could pull myself up. Tired but happy that I made it, I slid down on the other side of the wall and saw the next obstacle which was only 20 feet farther down. The dreaded rig.

Lines were already forming of people who had to retry the obstacle. I tried it 3 times and made it 2/3 through but failed every time at the square monkey bar. The obstacle was interesting it started with a rope and then a upward slanted bar to climb up along some more robes and then a square bar. From that square bare there was a gap to a round bar and then 1-2 more things. But I could never swing myself to the next bar while trying to hold on the square bar. After the 3rd time I gave up and conceded my elite band. My arms were hurting and I knew it wouldn’t get better. I decided to still try to finish the course and just have fun with it. Only 100 yards latter was a rope wall. My forearms were so spent I even had to skip that obstacle. Afterwards were several fun obstacle. Like carrying water tanks, carrying sand bags, climbing over walls, mud flats. Then the monkey bars, I wasn’t sure about it since my arms were still tired. There was a big water hole underneath, which didnt look appealing to fall into. There were several bars upwards (About 8-10) followed by the same amount downwards to the other side. To my surprise I managed this obstacle without much problem. Except I ripped of a callus in my hand which now was hurting because of the dirt.

The elite had to go up on the very right. I call it leap of faith 🙂

Then we arrived at my favorite obstacle the 12 foot wall with a 2inch ledge. It looks really intimidating. While the intermediate and the novice had steps all the way up for the elite there was only one ledge about 3-4 foot of the ground. The idea was to come running jump up on the ledge push of and catch the top of the Wall. It took me 2 tries, but I made it. Really cool!
This was followed by some crawling, lots of running, and going through a tunnel to arrive at another rig. I tried but failed horrible. My arms were still shut. Amy was spectating and had the time of her live watching me fail at it 🙂
Eventually, I skipped that one too. There were 3 more obstacles on the first lap. A rope swing which I failed again and then a wall with climbing grips which I couldn’t do either. However one of the race organizers was there and told me since I don’t have the elite band animore I might as well try the intermediate or novice one to get something out of it. Which I did. Certainly easier obstacle but didn’t feel as bad as just giving up. Then the last obstacle was just a really big net to climb up and down.

Then onward to lap 2 and do the same thing again. I had to skip the same obstacles again and for some of them I just did the intermediate/novice version. I finished that 2nd loop and still received a medal and a shirt for finishing. Even thought I didn’t finish as an elite it was lots of fun and I would do it again. But next time I’ll come a little better prepared since I now know what will be required of me.

I was the 2nd fastest of all elites who DNFed 🙂
Results: https://www.athlinks.com/Events/542485/Courses/808643/

Someone made a video of the Seattle race.

This video shows of all the obstacle and gives an idea of the open (not elite) race. The guy in the video mostly does the intermediate difficulty obstacles. To his right are the harder ones which are for elite and to his left are the novices version.
In the video you can also see several elites still struggling with the rig 🙂 Note: The guy filling didn’t finish the rig either