This was the 2nd Savage Race here in Texas. I was signed up for last year, but when my training fell by the wayside last summer and then the temps on race day ended up being around 28, I decided to skip it. As we all remember, last Fall did not go exactly as I had planned. So to redeem myself, I signed up for Savage Race again as well as Tough Mudder, which I also missed last year. That one is coming up in a couple of weeks.
Imagine my disappointment when after a few setbacks in August, I was feeling a little unprepared for race day. I knew I could do it, but I had planned on being further ahead this time around. Not only that, but essentially I was running solo. I knew there would be people there that I knew, but most of them were running competitive and are WAY ahead of me, so I fully expected to run it on my own. The bright spot showed up a day or two before the race in the form of a massive cold front and storm. I know that there was some complaining out there at the start - 60 degrees did feel a little chilly after the temps we've had - but I was STOKED. I thought it felt awesome. Personally, I continued to keep my miles up and train in the crazy heat this summer, so I felt like this shift was just what I needed to keep some of that edge I'd built up.
I have talked about Lone Star Spartans before, it's a team that I ran with during the Spartan weekend in Burnet. I bought a tech race shirt right after that race and decided to throw it on for this race. I figured I may run into some other LSS out there and then at least I would have a few people out there who would have my back. I get out there, get checked in and when I head down to the start corral, I see a group of about 10 LSS hanging out, waiting for our start time, at 9:20a. Everyone was super nice and ready to race. I was excited that I at least knew a few people in my wave. We move up after the competitive heat left and the dude in the front does a great job of getting everyone hyped up! They are taping a lot of it - Savage puts out a pretty badass race video - and everyone was having a great time. There seemed to be a lot of teams in our wave, I think they had put most of the team entries into the same wave, which was fun.
BOOM! We take off and start to separate a little bit. After a quick dirt hill climb, we get to the barn doors, which are just big walls with spaced out slats that you climb, and realize that there are about 4 of us that are hanging together. There's a couple, Lindsay and Travis and then another guy named Jason and me. We were all laughing and having fun, even though we knew that the ice bath was the 3rd obstacle and coming up quickly. The thing about the ice bath - dubbed Shriveled Richard by Savage Race - is that there is a wall in the middle of the tub, which FORCES you to go all the way under the water. I jumped out as far as I could and intended to just swim right under the wall to get out as quickly as possible. Well that wall was further down than I thought and I bumped my head a little and had to come up first. Big mistake. I got stuck for a second, unable to catch my breath - that ice is NO joke. I came around and got under the wall and out of the tub but OMG, that was insane. Ice bucket challenge, my ass. Fortunately the organizers of the Savage Race aren't complete sadists and we immediately got into a mud crawl under barbed wire. The mud was nice and warm, so we warmed right back up. I seriously considered sending the race directors cookies for that wonderfully timed respite.
Next up was Davy Jones Locker, which is essentially a 15' (maybe higher) climb up to a platform where you then jump off straight into a big pool of water. This is designed to be fun, but since I'm afraid of heights, I was shaking. Everyone with me was super nice, encouraging me and yelling for me. I stayed back from the edge until it was my turn, then I just ran and jumped without looking. It was AWESOME. Next was Missionary Impossible, which is hard to describe, but looks like this:
You essentially pull yourself on your back uphill, using the net. It's not super hard, but it takes a lot of pull and will wear you out a little. After that, we hit a lot of the standard OCR fare: climb walls, go under walls in muddy water, slippery incline wall, dredge through a muddy bog. This muddy bog was where I was finally able to clean my camera off enough to take a few pictures. Before that, we had been in a lot of mud and I just wasn't able to use it as much. Here are some pics from the bog:
Next up was the Colon Blow 5000, which sounds gross, but it's basically climbing up a small tube to a covered platform and then sliding down the same size tube on the way out. I attempted this and had a minor panic attack on the way up and slid back out. I was disappointed that I didn't complete this and I won't let it beat me again, but I really started to freak out. MUST CONQUER THE CLAUSTROPHOBIA. Another quick low barbed wire crawl, then Sawtooth!
I like to call this "monkey bars from hell". There's a lot of up and down transitions and it's tough to get across them, even for the guys that are in great shape. You can see here that a lot of women were using hands and legs to crawl across. Jason got further than all of us - Lindsay, Travis and I all made it about 2 rungs. Those things were really slick with mud!
More standard OCR far after that: balance beam, over/under walls, big ass cargo net, steep mud hills, barbed wire maze. The last few obstacles were a lot of fun - there was a log carry, which wasn't too bad, and then we hit Colossus. This is an obstacle that Savage is pretty proud of and it was my biggest fear going into this race. You have to climb a slick warped wall to the top and then there's a monster slide on the way down. It's REALLY tough to get up that thing, most people need a lot of help. I tried to get up that thing twice and on my second try I slammed my hip bone pretty badly as I fell down the wall, and after that, I was done. I have a really nice bruise to show for that one. Looking back, I wish I had used a rope where the knots were a little closer together. I could hold on to the knots, but the ropes were so slick with mud, I had trouble getting to the next knot at the top. I think if I could have gotten to that, I could have gotten close enough to the top to transition over. More work to be done!
My very favorite part of the race was next - Pipe Dreams! I've never done an obstacle like this, but you have to basically hang from a pipe and work your way from one platform to the other. When we came up to it, I immediately thought "Oh well I'm going to fall in the water on that one." and then...then....I did it! I was SO stoked!
After this, it was pretty simple - Tazed was the last obstacle right before the finish. You have to crawl (seriously low crawl) through a bunch of live wires that will shock the *%#@ of you. I was almost through and hadn't been tagged, thinking I would get lucky, and then just as my torso pulls through, I hit one on my lower back. WOO! That definitely stung. After that, it was a nice jog to the finish line!
Our little rag tag group ran the whole thing together and we were handing out high fives and hugs as we got our medals and t-shirts.
I haven't run an OCR since May and at the end of that race, I realized how much I had missed it. Playing in the mud, making new friends, challenging myself, some fun bruises (race kisses)...I am so glad that OCR season is back! This totally reignited a fire in me that had died down a little over the last month or so and now I'm ready to hit the gym even harder! I have 2 big races coming up - Tough Mudder in 2 weeks and then the Spartan Beast (and final piece of my trifecta) in November. Tough Mudder will be more about having fun - kind of like Savage - but it is 13ish miles. The Beast will be a real test. My first year I completed in 5 hours (in relatively good shape), last year in 6 hours (in TERRIBLE shape) and then year I plan to kill those times. I am working to minimize burpees and keep a steady pace and I think I can do it. AROO! The rest of the year looks like:
October 5, 2014 - Tough Mudder
November 1, 2014 - Spartan Beast
November 16, 2014 - Blue Red Run Half (trying to get as close to 2 hours as possible)
I've signed up for a full marathon in March, which I'm excited about! I've been keeping my mileage in the 13-15 range all summer, so I won't have to kill myself training for this race if I keep that up through the winter. I won't really have to get serious until after Christmas. I want to do more trail running next year and may do the Captain Karl's summer series - I need to compare some dates, etc. Spartan is looking to bring 4-5 more Texas races next year, so I'm really stoked about that. That may or may not include a stadium sprint at the Death Star, which would be AWESOME. I still plan to conquer pull-ups, the rope climb and take more time off of my average speed. 2015 - I see you!
