A day at the races… Highlander II

We set out early in the morning, Dahlia, Gabriel and myself. (Cian was with his mother.) Early was 5:45, so really early. We got coffee and hit the road. The drive was an hour and a half, but could have been shorter if Bartow’s Van Fleet Drive didn’t dead end into a Walmart instead of heading out to lake Wales as expected.

The course is set out in a circle around a largish hill. Spectators can stand on the hill and watch a large portion of the course. Gabriel agreed to be our photographer.

First thing we saw was a family all dressed as “The Incredibles”. Mom, Dad and 3 kids. I couldn’t believe the kids agreed to wear spandex. None of them were even whining. Ok, that IS incredible.

There were a lot of zombies, Captain America, the Green Lantern, some kilted “highlanders”, some guy dressed in a tie and suit, another fellow wore overalls and a straw hat. I wore a felt cowboy hat with upturned brim and a handlebar mustache, going for a “Charro” look. Just for silliness, ie I didn’t affect an accent or anything. Dahlia had her hair in colorful braids.

We ran the 6 mile first wave. There were 3 more waves of 3 miles each. Dahlia and I were tempted to jump into the last wave as it left, running down the hill. Only good sense and pity for Gabriel having to wait on us prevented it.

The obstacles consisted of (some of these were repeated, I’ll only mention them once):

Large piles of sand, followed by shallow pits of wet sand. It would have been mud, but apparently had dried up.

A quarter of a mile into the race, I was already huffing and puffing like I had run somewhere. "Large pile of sand" doesn't sound like much, but it winds you in a way just running doesn't. Don't ask me how or why.

A coral for cows. Some races treat their runners like cattle, this one made no bones about it. I was tempted to shut the gate behind me as a prank on Dahlia, but resisted the devil’s impulse.

Through a creek and back. Except it was dry :-)

Over a tree. At least the lowest branches of the tree. There were a few steps up the the lowest branch, then the trail continued on the far side of the tree. Coordination really helped here. It could be easy or hard, depending on where you put your feet.

Up a hill, through another tree.

Barbed wire and mud. The runners in the 6 mile race I was in did this as an “over” obstacle. I hear the 3 mile waves took the challenge as an “under”, and belly crawled between the barbed wire and the mud. That sounds like fun, too. I sank knee deep each step as I went over the barbed wire. It felt a little brave to step over. I mean, if I slipped….

Past an aid-station, over some ropes. Yellow rope was strung over a wide area at about one and a half feet high. Step high over them all, or crawl under them. Some people did each. I found over easier, basically it was “high-stepping.”

Over a ramp with a rope. Use a rope to pull yourself up a steep ramp. It was 10 or 12 feet high.

Over a 20’ ladder. This ladder structure was repeated many times, at least 3 times in the loop. Twice with the option to go over a tire ladder instead.

Over a boulder, with a rope, slide down the other side.

Monkey bars, with water underneath. I managed both times fine. Dahlia fell the first time :-) but who’s tell’n?

High-low ropes. Contestants held the high rope and walked on the low rope. Its harder than it sounds. The tighter the ropes, the easier. I went over the shorter version of these (50’) easily both times. At the end there was a much longer version, 150 feet I’d guess. I fell off that pretty quick.

Underwater. There were a roped-off segment about 80 feel long in the pond with 4 or 5 water-surface ropes tied down so that you had to go underwater to get by them. My only problem was my hat. It got soaked and I felt like Indiana Jones jamming my soaked hat on my head while racing up the hill.

Walls. Blue plywood walls about 3 and a half feet high.

Balance beams. I didn’t witness it, but I heard later that the water was chest deep.

Tire balance. The objective was to jump from half-submerged (and large) tire to the next. 4 or 5 in a row. Many of the tires were wet and slippery. I did fine on these.

Zip Line. Hold a rope, push off hard from the launching mound and curl up your knees. And if you are me, fall off within ten feet. I started to slide down the rope immediately, worried that my hands were going to be rope burned and let go.

Big wading pools. The approach to the large water slide led through the drainage from the water slide, water was about 3 feet deep.

A huge water slide down the side of the hill. 300 foot water slide. I climbed the hill slowly, thinking Dahlia was right behind me and kind of waiting for her, but she didn’t show. (She was making multiple runs on the zip line apparently.) So when I got to the top, I decided to go for it, I ran and jumped, landed on my belly and arched my back. I went so fast I thought I was going to break the sound barrier. Then just as I started to squew around and go sideways, I hit the water.

Fifty feet later was the finish line.

Dahlia finished a minute after me, after being right with me the whole way. Apparently we were step to step right up to the finish zip line where when she got to the end, she didn’t jump off the zip. She expected the guy at the end to catch the line and hold it for her. Instead, she went backwards to the middle of the zip line and he had to go get her.

We had a great time. It was a hard run, quite a bit slower than our usual run. Without obstacles we could have finished a run like this in 54 minutes. We finished in an hour 28 minutes. I was about the middle of my age division, Dahlia won first place in hers.

/Michael