Mud, Ice, and a Little Shock: Savage Race 2014

I remember going to bed Friday night thinking, "why am I doing this? Who let me sign up for this?" as I prepared myself for the Savage Race the next day. Savage is a 5.6 mile run with 25 obstacles spread throughout the course. I realize that overcoming obstacles is kind of my thing as a traceuse, but I don't often encounter barbed wire, live wires, and muddy lakes that I'm required to wade through while carrying 2x4s on each shoulder. Well, not in DC I don't... my parent's house in Maine isn't too far off from this. Just kidding (kind of).

Anyways, there were a lot of extreme challenges in this race—both mental and physical—but it was a hell of a lot of fun. I went into the race with zero expectations. I just wanted to complete every obstacle to the best of my ability and have fun with my team. Mission Accomplished.

"Big Ass Cargo Net"

Six foot walls dropped into a pit of muddy water

Me in the middle making my "why am I doing this?" face...

I won't go through all 25 obstacles for you but I'll try to cover the best and the worst of them. Most of the obstacles were challenging in an awesome kind of way, but there were also obstacles that I desperately wanted to skip. I don't know who was in charge of naming these, but what part of "Colon Blow 5000" makes you want to dive right in?

Before the race, when the dirt was dirt instead of a mud lake

I made a team member go in front of me AND behind me to talk me through this one because I was terrified of getting stuck inside. This and Tazed were the only two obstacles that I paused in front of... and felt like crying beforehand. The first one because of the small dark space and the second because, well, who likes getting an electric shock? I ended up turning and rolling sideways through the wires with my hands over my eyes instead of crawling through. I only got shocked a few times but it was so disorienting rolling around, eyes closed, getting zapped by random wires all over my body.

The other serious mental challenge for me was crawling under the barbed wire (yes, it's real... we checked). Nothing like a spiky canopy to make you stay low.

Me on the bottom left with my teammates

Staring at the barbed wire hoping it doesn't cut me as I pull myself out...

I was impressed by my crawling skills on the first few barbed wire obstacles (above)... until my knees were so raw on the last one (Thanks to CB 5000) that I started dragging my entire body through the mud using my arms. I looked kind of like this with less speed:

I finally made it out from under the last barbed wire only to enter a giant pool of quicksandy mud. I don't know what's wrong with me but I am completely hopeless when mud is involved. I just can't manage to stay vertical. I figured this out early on in the race after the "Nutt Smasher." This obstacle was super easy for me (it's basically just a balance beam over water) until I got to the other side, stepped into the mud, attempted to catch myself, and then gracefully flew backwards onto my butt...

I proceeded to fall in the mud over and over again throughout the course. It's amazing that I can beast out on 8 ft. walls with no assistance...

8ft. wall climb

...I can jump over fire or into a pool of ice, but I can't manage to stay standing when the ground is slippery. Oh well, I can't be good at everything, right? Walking isn't important.

Let's get back to the part where I kicked ass. My two favorite obstacles were the "Sawtooth Bars" (monkey bars over water pictured below) and "Pipe Dreams" (see below).

Again, pre-race/pre-mud lake on either side.

Testing out the obstacle - official Savage Race photo

Both of these obstacles take some serious upper body strength so I wasn't sure how I would measure up, but I wanted to push myself. I wanted a girl to have the strength to succeed on these obstacles. No feet, no falling.

It was extremely difficult and I was worried it might be slippery but the dried mud on my hands helped me keep my grip a little bit. Sawtooth was especially hard at the peak when I had to swing up and then back down on the monkey bars. I paused a few times on both of these but I knew I could do it and I kept pushing until I made it to the other side, triumphant and proud of my accomplishment.

I think the best part of the race for me was when our team high-fived one another after each obstacle, congratulating each other on getting this far and fueling us to keep going.

Overall, it was an amazing experience. I was proud of myself for running the whole thing, making it through every obstacle, and overcoming the physical (monkey bars & pipe dreams) and mental (tazed and colon blow) challenges throughout the course. Thanks, Team Primal for an awesome experience!

Post-Race Team Photo (me in the middle #2933)

I'm in a sprinting mood today... said nobody ever.

Week 62

Looks like I've been neglecting my blog for the last couple of weeks--sorry, guys! It's the last semester of my senior year of college so you could say I have some things to get done... but even major life changes and that whole graduation thing can't keep me from playing!

This week was a great training week for me. Monday night, a few of us headed over to Meridian Hill Park (pictured below) to jump around a bit. This was my first time at Meridian even though I've lived in this city for the last four years. It's absolutely gorgeous and there are so many things to jump on! Even better, there are tons of people running, doing yoga, and doing their own cross training in the park so us crazy parkour people don't look quite so crazy.

View from the top of the fountain @ Meridian Hill Park

We spent a few hours jumping, vaulting, QMing, and traversing around the fountain in strange ways. I really liked this spot so hopefully we'll make our way back soon!

I let myself rest on Tuesday, but reluctantly took out my Nike Training Club app on Wednesday. It's a love/hate relationship. I love the challenge, it always manages to kick my butt, and I love the diversity of exercises. But then the app starts talking to me saying things like, "challenge yourself!" or "you're going to feel this tomorrow." These little motivational speeches tend to pop up right when I feel like I am about to collapse. I AM CHALLENGING MYSELF, I feel like screaming. But I always feel great when I finish it so I let the voice keep yelling at me.

Opposite Arm/Opposite Leg Plank Hold from one of the #NTC workouts

Last night was my favorite night of training. You know how I love my three-hour Thursdays... when I have the energy... Anyways, I went to the gym for conditioning and I had a pretty good session. A little playing, a little intense workout. I try to keep things balanced.

After conditioning, I headed outside with the early class. We jogged over to the apartments nearby and started working on vaults. We split into two groups along the jersey barriers. One group did lazy vaults up and down the barriers (which is a lot more tiring than I expected). The other group worked on safety/speed vaults.

I was doing sprints earlier in conditioning and I wanted to do more (what is wrong with me?) so we turned our vaulting practice into a sprinting drill too. Challenge: vault over the jersey barrier, sprint down to the cone, sprint back, and try not to die on your way back over the jersey barrier. When J said it was a great idea, I shrugged and said, I'm just in a sprinting mood today, then we both laughed and followed up with a "...said nobody ever."

After vaulting, we went on a stealth adventure around the edge of the lot, down walls, through fences, around buildings, and behind dumpsters. When adventuring was over, we headed back to the gym where I finally realized how tired I was as soon as I stopped moving. Lucky for me, we were about to do wall runs for thirty or so minutes. Can I pass out yet?

To wrap up the night, we played a don't-fall-in-the-lava game where you had to jump/stride between weights (the flat, round ones) spread out across the floor. We also had to get a ball from one end of the lava pit to the other. Apparently we were no better at this game than T's kid's class. Eventually we succeeded in getting the ball across the lava by passing it to each person twice, in a specific order. We even managed to do this in 60 seconds. Pretty impressive, I know. Challenge complete. Time to stretch.

I finally made it home, stuffed my face with pasta, took a hot shower and collapsed in my bed. Happy but very sleepy ninja.

Parkour in the Cherry Blossoms!

Week 61

Photo Credit: Peter Waterman.

It's cherry blossom season in DC! They're almost gone now but they were out in full bloom this weekend. Like any normal DC residents, me and a bunch of my friends went down to the monuments on Sunday to enjoy the scenery... and do parkour.

We went at 7am and it was already so crowded that parking was hard to find. I was both shocked and impressed that so many tourists were awake that early on a Sunday morning. But to be fair, it was absolutely gorgeous in the morning light.

Starting at the FDR Memorial, we made our way around the tidal basin through the blossoms and masses of tourists. It was just me and a few of the parkour guys, jumping around while P took photographs. I felt a little self-conscious because the guys were doing all these cool flips and impressive jumps, and I was just like hey, guys... I can balance on this pointy rock over here... Okay, fine I can do cool things too but I think between the tourists watching and the guys doing big things, I just felt a little shy. One of the only times I'll ever use the word shy to describe myself! But those moments of shyness were fleeting and I still had a blast :) It was so beautiful outside and it was great to just jump around with my friends.

I love that this is what we do for fun. Hey guys, want to go jump around in the cherry blossoms and take awesome photos? Umm, yes. Yes, I do. Here are a handful of shots from the day, all taken by our amazingly talented photographer friend, Pete. See the full album here.

Rail Plank
Photo Credit: Peter Waterman.

Flying through the cherry blossoms!
Photo Credit: Peter Waterman.

Handstands. What else is new?
Photo Credit: Peter Waterman.

He put the camera right under my face while I was handstand-ing. Very hard to keep a straight face.
Photo Credit: Peter Waterman.