Ran the Jailbreak 3.8 mile "adventure" race on Sunday morning with about 8 of my running buddies. It was a blast!
Got to Darin's house at 8AM. Rode with him and a few others to Texas Motorspeedway, where we caught the shuttle to the paintball park that was hosting the event. It was a great morning. About 75 degrees and sunny.
Got there about 2 hours early. Picked up packet, affixed bib, then walked over to see some of the other "heats" starting and finishing. This event is interesting, as they have waves of about 50-70 people starting every 30 minutes. Our scheduled time was 10:30AM. We could only see the start and a few hundred yards prior to the finish line -- the rest of the course was out in the wilderness.
Around 10:20 we started loading the starting corale. Darin (my competitive running buddy) and I worked our way to near the front. At 10:30 the gate was dropped, the sirens went off and we were off! Down a hill, up a hill, through some mud, around a few baracades..through some more mud, up another hill (and that was just the first 100 yards). I was already breathing hard and my quads and hammies were feeling it. I was wondering what I got myself into.
I let Darin go from the beginning, but kept him in sight. There was lots of mud, and streams. The first major obstacle was a 75 yard chest-deep stream crossing. I tried swimming some of it, but shoes made it difficult, so I just trudged through. I had caught Darin by the other side, but quickly let him get away as I had trouble navigating through the extremely slippery mud immediately after. We meandered through a paintball course consisting of a few sheds, wooded areas, and trails, over piles of haybales, tractor tires, mud holes, and streams. Darin was a little ahead of me when I hit the 40 ft waterslide into the creek. Then I caught him again. We climbed the tire out of the creek nearly together, then we ran together. With about a mile to go we caught Darin's son (Zacahary). I tried to get him to come along and try to beat his day, but he was out of gas. I ended up finishing about 5 seconds behind Darin. I'll get him next time! Darin was 3rd, I placed 4th in our heat. (not bad..I have a feeling a lot of people running this race have never run 3.8 miles before.
It wasn't the usual road-race crowd. Some people wore costumes..it was lots of fun! I'm definitely looking forward to doing it again next year -- but, I don't think I'll make a habit of it.
Here's some pictures if you're interested! | 