Race Review - Great Pumpkin Haul 2014

This was our 2nd visit to the Chatfield Botanic Gardens for The Great Pumpkin Haul. The last time we were here was 2 years ago at the inaugural event, so we decided to pay another visit to see how the event has evolved. In some ways good, and some not so good. The major player in this race is the pumpkin that you pick yourself, and then get haul with you for the full course. Prizes are for fastest run, largest pumpkin, best costume and something with hauling 2 of the orange orbs, that I wasn't exactly clear on.

It can go hard or easy. The choice is yours.

This race was quite a bit larger than it was 2 years ago, and they split us up into heats. These heats, however, were only staggered in 5 minute increments, which was far too short a time in my opinion, at least for how this race was setup. Last time we were here, the race was 2 laps of a 1 mile circuit. This was improved with a single 2 mile course this time around.

We were in the 3rd heat and quickly caught up to the 2nd heat at the first obstacle, which was a crawling obstacle made up of some boards and hay bales. A fine obstacle, but it was pretty low. I couldn't even roll my pumpkin under it, so had to find it's narrowest point and push. Not sure what people with even bigger gourds did. But worse than that, it was only wide enough for 2 people to scoot under at a time. That coupled with the fact that it was so early in the race caused a massive backup, and we waited around for several minutes before we got our turn. Many people chose to skip it altogether.

After this, only about 50 yards further on was a short tube crawl, that was also a bit backed up, but not nearly as bad. Then it was a pretty good run with some simpler obstacles. One was a duck under weave type thing that wasn't exactly clear on how it was to be performed, so people just kind of did whatever. The hazards are pretty simple, jumping over hay bales, climbing through and under bungee cords and things of that nature. The biggest challenge is predicated by what size pumpkin you choose.

So, there's this.

Of course the obvious answer is to pick the smallest one you can find, but when there's more than one man around, there's competition, and someone's going to push their better judgment aside. This year it was me, bumping up to 29.5 pounds and my son, Kellan, increased his haul to 22 pounds. This does create it's own set of problems, especially if you're smaller framed like my son and can't hoist the mellon up on your shoulder at least some of the time.

We finished in just over 35 minutes, and if not for the backups, we probably would've shaved a good 10 minutes off that time.

41 pumpkin birthday burpees. The Boy cheated.

This is a very family oriented event, and if you're like the jerk who pushed his way through everyone on the bridge crawl obstacle, you should probably just stay at home. There will be a lot of little kids around and there's no big prize money, so relax and enjoy the crisp clean Autumn air. Post race had some free beers, food vendors and discounts off the fall festival corn maze. The "band" seemed more like a few dudes trying to wing a jam session (complete with an ad-hoc beat-box portion that was quite amusing) more so than anything really cohesive.

It's a good family fun run or race as a group event for sure. And if you're planning to go to Chatfield Botanic Gardens to pick a pumpkin anyway, for about the cost of the corn maze entry and a medium pumpkin, you can race and get the free beer plus still go home with as big a pumpkin as you want. My only real complaint is the festival grounds seemed to shut down and pack up really early. It was such a beautiful day for drinking beer in the park. :)

Post race in the corn maze.

Race Review - Tough Mudder, Snowmass 2014

When it comes to races, I was really not looking forward to Tough Mudder. I had never done a Mudder, and from what I saw and read, it looked more like systematic torture, than physical challenge.
Well I wasn't totally right, but I wasn't far off in a way I didn't expect.

We had signed up well in advance of the race. One thing about TM is it's really hard to find a deal or discount, so your best bet is probably to sign up early. We also signed up, regretfully, for a Sunday heat, as it was the best deal we could find. Then, once you're on their mailing list, you will see that they are all about the money. You will be bombarded, often daily, with emails urging you to buy Tough Mudder gear.

Snowmass is a small ski village about 3.5 hours outside of Denver, making it nearly essential to rent a place to stay for the race. We got a motel room in neighboring Glenwood Springs and spent the night on Saturday, to race Sunday and drive home post race. Glenwood is about 45 minutes from the actual race venue, so we still had a bit of a drive to get to Snowmass Sunday morning.

When we got to the venue, we were pushing it to get through check-in in time for our heat. The line was long, but I figured we'd make it since we had printed off and signed our waivers ahead of time. Then some lady with a bullhorn asks everyone to check and make sure they have the correct waiver. How could we not? I think. Then it turns out we, as well as a ton of other people, have printed off the Spectator Waivers. Now why in the hell they have 2 different waivers, is beyond me. Why each is 2 pages long, is another mystery. And lastly, why this info isn't printed in giant red letters on the online race packet is a bad idea.

This led to dozens of people realizing their same error, stepping out of check-in and over to the long waiver line, where they promptly ran out of waivers. So they had to send someone off to who-knows-where to print more and about a half hour later we were back in check-in, promised we'd get to race even though many of us would definitely miss our heat times. Once the waiver debacle was sorted out, check-in was pretty simple and we scooted through to the race area.

Worst way to carry someone, BTW.

We were to be the last heat of the weekend and we immediately headed to the start line. Shortly after we got to the start area, an emcee began to push us through a short, and humorous (in a good way) warm-up. Then he handed the mic, which cut in and out repeatedly, over to the motivational guy, who then made us take a knee, for no less than 10 minutes, where he basically said the same thing about 4 times over. Not that it was bad content, but taking a long, really uncomfortable long, knee right after a warm-up, sort of defeats the purpose. We then sang the national anthem, no music or lead singer, just us racers, which was cool and we were soon on our way.

Lined up, right in front of us, was a ski slope, so I figured we'd be starting with a long uphill start, but the path quickly veered off and went down. And down. And down some more, to the lowest point on the course, conveniently marked with an elevation sign stating as such. With only a small obstacle along the way, we started off with 2 miles straight down on concrete. Not my favorite thing to do to my knees. The torture had begun.

After the decent we began to climb slowly up and hit the Arctic Enema obstacle. With is basically a couple roll-offs full of cold water with a board across the middle forcing you to fully submerge. Now maybe it was because we were the final heat of the weekend, but it wasn't as cold as I was expecting. Now it was cold, mind you, enough to rob you of your breath and cramp up those muscle that just took a downhill pounding, but it wasn't full of floating ice, like I've seen in pictures at other races.

Mysterious blue water at Arctic Enema.

From here we started a steady ascent of the mountain, punctuated by a couple obstacles. A rope/wall climb and a tented monkey bar obstacle being the standouts. Then it began to get really steep, and we climbed and climbed what seemed like endless false summits. It began to rain and the cold wind threatened to chill us to hypothermia, but it relented and the sun came back out as we neared the top obstacle section. There were a couple really cool trail running type sections along the way that I really enjoyed. Unfortunately they were relatively short and most of the course was exposed and had to be hiked more then ran.


At the top was a series of obstacles grouped together. Some really tick mud pit walls that required assistance to get through for all but the most hard core participants. An electrified obstacle/water pit that wasn't marked, at least not that a saw, as electrified, but we soon figured out watching those ahead of us. This is important, as I have a pace maker and electric shock is a serious no-no for me. There was also the infamous Walk The Plank obstacle up here, which seems to be managed very well since Avishek Sengupta died on it back east a couple years ago. (We also heard several times from organizers about not jumping into the water if you can't swim).

After this series of challenges we wound around and began a terrible, knee destroying decent. Now, it may be the fatigue of being sick for a week leading up to the race, or the 2 mile concrete decent at the beginning, but I have never experience joint pain like that before. It was excruciating. I had some pain at the Spartan Beast in UT, which had a similar elevation profile, with some steep descents, but this one really got to me. My right knee especially, which is my "good" knee. It became torturous and we had a long way to go down still.

As far as the obstacles, none of them were particularly hard, save for the monkey bars (which I generally have trouble with) and the Pole Dancer, which dislocated several shoulders that weekend from what I heard. Some were down right laughable, like Bushwhacked, which was just cutting through some weeds and over a couple fallen logs, Bell Hop where you jump and try and ring a bell as you run by *shrug*, and Gorilla Something-or-other that was just a short steep climb up and down on an already steep course.

Tricky, but with few upper body obstacles, doable.

Hold Your Wood was very cool and we partnered up was a stranger on that one. And there is always the classics, like Everest, that you just have to have help to get through. For me, the sheer presence of the mountain offered the biggest obstacle and most pain.

A new (and pretty smart) addition this year, was a course diversion know as the Legionnaire's Loop, where only previous Mudders could split off and do special obstacles built just for alumni. As this was our first TM, I can't comment on what was over there, but it sure sounds awesome.

I did like the signage posted throughout the course, which was obviously corse specific in many ways. That was until the end, where there were a string of thinly veiled anti-Spartan Race signs that I found in poor taste. Now I know Will Dean and Joe DiSena have no love lost on each other, but I've never heard or seen any anti-Tough Mudder propaganda at a Spartan Race.

All said and done, I did like the race overall. It was a challenging, well organized course. Aside from a few registration hiccups, it went really smoothly. We met several friendly folks on course and the team aspect of it is cool. In short, I didn't hate it as much as I thought I would. We had a really good time. The race shirt is definitely one of the best I've gotten, they get some really nice, free pictures of you and the post race content was really good, even though we had to have a quick beer and hit the road for the long drive home.

I don't always drink Dos XX, but when I do, it's free race beer.

I clocked it at 10.5 miles, but my GPS is notoriously off, and most people seemed to agree it was right at 11 miles total. We finished in about 3:20.

When we got back to Denver, I could barely walk. Probably due to sitting in the car for hours right after the race, and usually when we run a tough race, we have a rental with a hot tub we soak in soon after. Fortunately the pain subsided after a day or so, but it was enough for me to question whether these long steep races are worth the punishment on my now 41 year old body.

Post-post race, I received no less than 3 separate surveys from Tough Mudder and many "buy gear" emails. Sometimes more than one in a day. This may be the most annoying aspect of the TM franchise.

Headbands well deserved.

Race Review - Green Beret Challenge

The Green Beret Challenge was a new race this year. Very lightly publicized and I only heard of it through a Facebook post. If you aren't into the local OCR scene pretty heavily (or have a friend who is) you probably didn't even hear about it.

Serious gear weight.

It sparked my interest for several reasons:
1. It was at Ft. Carson, which is probably my favorite venue.
2. It's obviously military themed, which means challenging obstacles.
3. It was limited to 500 participants. Small heats = good events.
4. It was inexpensive. $30 with no hidden fees.

I quickly signed up my son and myself and spread the word to my buddies, who didn't seem interested, and waited and watched the attendance counter on their registration site. I figured it might be a low turnout, perhaps so low it might get canceled, but the numbers climbed steadily and we got the event instructions via email a few days before the event.

SF Group.

Having been on the Ft. Carson Army Base several times over the last few years for Spartan races, I was looking forward to seeing where this race would be. I thought it might be in the same area, but it was in another section for the Special Forces group. 100% of the proceeds from this event would benefit the Special Forces Scholarship Fund.


We arrived to free parking and wandered up just before the first heat left. We were assigned a later heat and wandered around looking at the sponsor booths, raffle table and the Army type stuff. We watched the next heat get briefed and then wandered back to the car to drop off our goodie bags and get ready for our run.

Magic legs!

First step in the Green Beret Challenge is to write your heat number on your hand (we were in heat 5) and "bring it in" for a mission briefing. The briefing consists of a map with the course layout and a hard ass, take no shit, Special Forces guy pointing out key features. When someone would joke, he would just stare at them. It was pretty amusing, but the dude was super serious.


Then, we were hustled over to the starting area, just a few paces away, on the tarmac where we proceeded to do a quick warm-up that involved doing 1 minute each of push-ups, air squats and finally burpees. We had about a minute to recover, then off we went.

Pretty sure this guy wanted to punch someone.

This race was quite different from others we've done. It started with a long run (by OCR standards) of about 2.5 miles. This run was pretty flat, with some minor elevation changes, gradually went up a long hill, then the course veered sharply off the road and up a steep hill. The hill brought us to a walk, then we trucked back down, up a short steep hill ran along some covered fences where the Army canines are kept, then up to the obstacle area.

The obstacles were all pretty well bunched up, with a short jaunt in-between here and there. It was cool to be on a real deal spec ops obstacle course and I highly recommend it if you get the chance. There was a burpee penalty on this course, 10 for any minor obstacle failed and 25 for the 2 major obstacles (rope traverse and sled pull IIRC).


They had a balance post obstacle, which both my son and I failed (our only failures of the race). If you've ever done a Spartan Race, picture those posts, but with a greater variance of height difference, farther apart and all clustered rather than in discernible lines. There were a couple other balance obstacles, consisting of logs at various angles or with sharp turns in them.

Everybody loves burpees.

For ropes we had a horisontal rope traverse, about 7 feet off the ground, which frustrated a lot of people and had the only real obstacle back up of the course. A standard rope climb, that was only about 15 feet, I'd say. And, my favorite, a rope swing over a pit where you had to clear a horizontal log on the other side and then hop down.

In the push-pull-carry category were things such as a water can carry down and back up a short, not too steep, hill. A Prowler type sled push, with 2 plates on it if I remember right, that my son and I teamed up on as I don't think he would be able to do it on his own. This was on a nice artificial turf football field and we pushed it down about 30 yards, spun around and pushed it back. Lastly, was a heavy duty plastic sled, made for dragging wounded off the battlefield, loaded with sandbags to simulate doing such. This had to be dragged up a long gravel road, that had shallow ditches on either side that wanted to pull your sled into them. It was fairly heavy, but my 110 pound son insisted pulling his own. He managed it, but it took a long time as the thing outweighed him by a good amount. I was able to drag it up and back without too much trouble.

Course map.

After the final obstacle, it was a quick half mile or so downhill sprint to the finish. I edged out The Boy, being well rested after waiting for him to finish the sled drag. We finished just under 1:10 and the course record is somewhere around 40 minutes, I believe.

Post race we grabbed some fruit, Cliff bars and gatorade and prepared for the raffle. The raffle was very gun/gear guy oriented, so I bought extra tickets. There were 40+ grab bags with MagPul P-Mags and miscellaneous stickers and patches, several shirts and hats, stuff from Hornady, some nice looking fighting knives, and a light and a flash hider from Surefire. The higher end items included a couple really nice packs from Kifaru. If you're not into shooting sports, you may be disappointed in your win, like the chick next to me who won a rifle case. We, on the other hand, made out like bandits, walking away with several P-Mags (I even turned down one grab bag after winning for the 3rd time) and I scored a nice Surefire hat.

Raffle time, w00t!

We left content with ourselves and impressed by the event. It was supremely well organized with staffing all along to course who were helpful and encouraging in true Army fashion. It was well worth our time and one of my favorite races of the season. I really hope it returns, as I would definitely do it again.

Muchos swageros.

Race Review - Warrior Dash, Copper Mountain 2014

Warrior Dash.
Warrior Dash, Warrior Dash, Warrior Dash... What can one say that's not already been said?

This was my second go around at this iconic event. We decided to rent a condo for the night, as we felt we missed out on a significant amount of partying last year. And make no mistake, Warrior Dash is a party. This year we even witnessed a group of runners hauling a 1.75 of vodka with them, drinking all the way.

A fair representation of the event.

Much to my disappointment, this was not a timed event this year. The winners were based solely on gun time in the first heat. I guess it makes sense, considering the party nature of this "event" (no longer a race without timing across the board), but even though I can time myself, I do like to see where I fall amongst the other competitors. All that being said, it wasn't a big deal as we ran together with a friend who doesn't run, so we were in do danger of breaking any PRs that day.

It is a pretty place for a party, though.

We had a later heat this year, and didn't get running until about 11:30. The course started same as the previous year and was just about exactly the same except for a few things. The long balance obstacle was absent this time, and a new large climb/net/water slide obstacle was in play and a snowy area about 100 yards long, that was new as well.

Snow field was new, but not difficult.

All went pretty well until we got to the high climb up and over wall. This thing was backed up pretty good and we waited around for a good 10-15 minutes before getting our shot at it. After that it was cruising along pretty good again, up some hills, over some small obstacles, etc. Until we came down through the village, where we knew we were getting close to the end, and ran smack into the largest obstacle backup I've ever seen.

It was at the new super-slide-climb thingy, and there were literally hundreds of people piled up. We hemmed and hawed a bit, then worked our way through the crowd to see what the deal was. Towards the front of the line we got info that the water level had dropped too low and it would be "an hour or two" before they got the obstacle up and running again.

This line went way back, around the corner and down the block.

An hour or two? No thanks. Thus marked an OCR first for me, I skipped an obstacle. As we walked around the impressive looking structure, we saw the finish was literally 20 feet from the water pool exit. This made for a really anti-climatic finish, especially for us. In my opinion, there should be at least a little sprint to the finish line to make you feel like you've earned it.

Looked like it would've been fun.

We walked away feeling a little empty. Our non-runner friend at least got some exercise, but with all the walking and waiting we did, I think Dave put it best when he said "I don't feel like I did anything." It was true, my daily workouts and training runs are harder than that. Granted, it would be different running solo for time, as we didn't really get to push ourselves, but the obstacle backups were depressing, especially skipping one... The biggest one... And the last one.

So what else could we do but drink and eat and drink and drink. So we did. We wandered around the fairgrounds after getting cleaned up, watched some of the stage contests, drink a lot of beers and did a fair amount of people watching. Warrior Dash definitely brings out some interesting people.

Women's push up challenge contestants.

We were actually surprised at how early the crowd petered out. In my mind, I had expected the party to go late, but it was all but done by about 5:00. We wandered back to the condo and hung out in the hot tube with some other competitors and chit chatted and drank (too much) and were all in bed by 9:00.

Final thoughts:
Warrior Dash is a well organized event. It prides itself on the party. It's getting taken less and less seriously by the competitive OCR crowd each year, and the timing removal won't help that. It needs to be run either in a big group of partiers and taken lightly, or sprinted solo. Run late for the former and early for the latter. I had a decent time, but I didn't have a great time. I don't know that I'll run it again next year.

Race Review - Survivor Mud Run 2014

2014 marked the 2nd year of the Survivor Mud Run for us. We had a lot of fun at this race in 2013 and were looking forward to doing it again. Dave had a group of friends from his Crossfit Box with him and I brought along my 14 year old son Kellan once again.

Pre race extreme haircuts.

This race was basically a repeat of last year's. The layout was exactly the same, as far as I could tell, which was a shame. It's never that much fun to run the exact same race, although you do know what to expect, I suppose. It was, obviously, at the same venue, a motocross track, so there were the nasty shot hills I've come to love and hate.

Although it's a shorter course, Dave's GPS came in at 2.88 miles, the up and down terrain make keeping a fast pace difficult. The obstacles are pretty standard. Mud pits, cargo net climbs, tunnels, and a good bit of crawling involved. All in all it's well laid out and managed and there were no significant pile ups, at least early in the day.

Post race flex shot.

The course wasn't as muddy as last year, which was probably the muddiest I've seen, but this was because we didn't get the severe ran leading up to the event like we did last year. I was OK with this, as clean up was a heck of a lot easier this time around.

They didn't have the free t-shirts this year, but had a headband instead. Also, the medal was so much smaller as to be almost laughable. I'm guessing this was a cost saving factor, although there appeared to be about the same number of racers as last year, so who knows. Event shirts were available in a couple different styles for $20, but I don't think they were as cool as last years free event shirt. My son liked one enough to buy, however.

2013 swag v. 2014 swag.

During the race, I was able to get out to an early 2nd place lead, distancing many people in the first water pit, but it wasn't long before my son passed me, followed shorty after by a handful of other racers, and finally Dave kicked in and beat me in the last 1/8th mile as well. Kellan won our heat and placed a tentative 11th overall. I say "tentative" because the timing chip system was awful, and many people, including Dave and myself. So it's anyone's goes who placed exactly where, all I know is Dave and Kellan both whooped me.

After party in the beer tent.

This is a fun race overall, well organized and a lively crowd. I would still recommend it to beginner-moderate obstacle racers, but more advanced racers might find more of a training tool than a competitive event, especially with the shoddy timing system.

11th place overall... maybe.

Race Review - Spartan Beast, Utah 2014

Stop number three, in our quest for the Spartan trifecta, was Soldier Hollow, the site of the 20xx Winter Olympic games in Midway, UT. We began planning our trifecta bid about mid-season the year prior. The 3 closest races to us being the Super in Vegas, the Military Sprint in our own Colorado backyard, and finally Utah, to finish with the Beast nice and early in the season.

Out of all the races I've done, Spartan or otherwise, this was the hardest yet. We weren't quite sure what to expect. We felt the Super was relatively tame, light on obstacles and long on running. We both ran the Super clean and aside from some cramps, had little trouble with the mid length course. But at a little over 12 miles in length and nearly 3,000 feet in elevation gain, the Beast was a 4 hour test of endurance.

In an effort to curb cramping, we planned ahead with some carb chews and brought our water bladders for the race. At our VRBO rental, in Park City, the night before the race, we did a little carb loading and had some more in the morning before heading out to the venue.

Pre race obligatory pic.

Our race time was late morning and it was shaping up to be a hot afternoon. We charged off a little after 11:00am and the race was on.

The race began heading downhill and quickly into a murky water pit. These water obstacles were spaced cunningly throughout the course to ensure wet feet the entire day. Shortly after the water, the course went straight up the mountain side, for something like 1300 feet. Being from CO, we didn't suffer the slightly higher elevation as much as some, and we were able to plow our way up without stopping. After the summit, and taking in the nice view from the top, the downhill trudge began. This is where my pain as well as some frustration with other participants began.

The course sort of wound down and up and down the mountain side. We spent a lot of time standing, waiting, on the single track path as the less confident racers crawled down the mountain. Occasionally we could break off to the side, but the brush was pretty thick, so it made for a slow descent. The pain came in my toes, as I consistently have a problem with going downhill and my toes smashing into the front of my shoes. I've tried different shoes, socks, boots, lacing techniques and haven't found a way to avoid the painfully bruised and blackened toenails that result. Maybe I have weird feet/toes, bad technique or terrible taste in footwear, I don't know. What I do know is that it sucks and makes for a long day.

Slick and slippery.

Back down in the valley, we start to get into the familiar Spartan obstacles. Our plan this year was to stick together at all the races, unties someone fails an obstacle, then the other can press on. We breezed through most of them, until the dreaded Monkey Crawl.

Now, I seem to have a bit of trouble with hanging obstacles. My left wrist has some damage and I've been known to slip off relatively easy things like monkey bars. The Monkey Crawl is a webbing net that tents up, then back down to a bell you have to ring to complete the obstacle. My first encounter with the Monkey Crawl was at the CO Military Sprint the month prior, where a failed just a few rungs in and did my only penalty burpees for that race. Well, I didn't fair much better at the beast, and let's just say Dave got to continue on alone while I played around in the dirt for a few minutes.

The next big challenge, for me, was the Hercules Hoist. usually I excel at this one, but it was particularly heavy and I made the mistake of grabbing a rope so slick with mud I couldn't hold it. Knowing there was no way I was getting this on my own and not wanting to do more burpees, I noticed the guy next to me having the same issue. The staff guy said we could double up on a rope, but we'd have to hoist it twice. So we did, and even with 2 of us, the slick rope took some effort to hang on to.

The Beast spike on my training watch.

After the hoist was a new one to me, a bridge with ropes attached at the top, and large tires hanging off the side. You had to pull the tire up and lower it slowly back down. At this point we had down several arm smoking obstacles in a row, and right around the corner the reason why appeared: the Spear Toss was next. Probably the most hated obstacle in Spartan history, but one I've come to embrace. I nailed my throw, putting my 5 for 5 on the obstacle. Here a shouted encouragement to Dave, as he did his burpees and I pulled ahead.

Here the course began to work towards another mountain. Starting off with the bucket carry, which a plowed through without stopping. Once you put that thing down, you're in for trouble. For me, it's much easier to just bear it and move as fast as you can. This one was steep, but significantly shorter than the one at the Super. Somewhere along to shorter ascent of this mountain, Dave caught up to me and we began tackling obstacles together again.

My advice: Keep moving.

We kept a descent pace until the traverse wall, where I fell. I'm usually pretty good at this one, only failing it once before, and that was before I started rock climbing, but I think the race was getting to me on a mental level at this point and I was starting to make mistakes and second guess my abilities. Dave breezed through the wall and was ahead of me again. I was surprised to catch Dave soon after the wall at the tire flip, when cramps again struck Dave hard.

I was still doing pretty good, but just like in vegas, once I had to slow down or stop, I would start to cramp a bit as well. We pushed on pretty slowly from this point, walking a lot of the hills and trying to run the flats and downs as much as possible. With Dave's severe cramping and my toes screaming at me, the race turned into a real grind. Again it climbed up the steeper mountain with some wall obstacles and mud pits thrown in for good measure. It seemed forever before we began to descend back towards the valley where the finish awaited us.

Longest. Wire crawl. Ever.

Near the end, there was another nasty surprise. Another rope climb. This rope was a little thinner and and I slid down from about halfway rope, giving myself some nice burns on the shins before deciding to give up and grind out a last 30 burpees, putting me at 90 for the day and giving Dave a lead to finish first. Pretty disappointed in this failure as well. Haven't failed a rope climb since my first race 2 years ago. I was physically and mentally smoked by this point and these burpees took a long time to bang out.

The final major obstacle was a super long wire crawl through some really thick mud. Perhaps the longest crawl I've done, with maybe the inaugural CO Military Sprint being a bit longer. Mercifully this one went down a gentle slope, so it wasn't too clogged and everyone seemed to be getting through in a timely manner. But it made for a seriously mud covered finish.

Trifecta Tribe at last!

I've never been so happy to finish a race as I was this day. Getting that final piece of the trifecta puzzle was the icing on the cake and made the accomplishment all that much sweeter. I would like to try the Beast again, but I feel I need to prepare a little more, physically as well as mentally, before tackling it again. I also think shelling out the extra bucks for an elite heat entry would shave an enormous amount of time off my finish, by avoiding the crowds and the mucked up ropes, etc.

I'm much younger than I realized.

Flipping the Switch - Living life to it's fullest

Prologue

Carpe diem. Live life to its fullest. Little risk brings little reward. Grab the bull by the horns. YOLO.

We've all heard these sayings and we all have a pretty good idea of their meaning. You only go around once in this life, so make it count. Do the things others only dream of doing. Adventure. Risk. Acquire all those amazing, romantic stories to pass down for generations, type stuff.

But when do we go from thinking about that awesomeness, to living the lifestyle of it, to really understanding it?
That point of understanding is when the switch is flipped. The lightbulb comes on, you awaken and the meaning is there without you even being conscious of it. You've gone from dreamer to doer. From thinking about these things, making active decisions to get them done.

For some, this comes easy. You were born to do it. You grew up with it. You've never not been a serious go getter. For the rest of us, we usually need an event or an epiphany, or both, maybe even several of them, for the switches to flip. Below, I outline my continuing journey to live the life that deep down I believe I've always longed for. I have thought long and hard about this and I think I can identify when my particular switches were flipped.


Open Heart Surgery

I was born with an undiagnosed faulty heart valve. It wasn't discovered until I was in my mid 30s and soon after I had open heart surgery to repair it. Prior to this event, my switches were in the off position. Sure I took risks and sought out "adventures", but they were often of the reckless and idiotic sort, with copious amounts of alcohol involved. I was just a guy sitting around, working, and getting fatter every year.

This is an old story, perhaps even a tired one these days. One you've likely heard before. A guy has a heart attack, realizes life is short and runs a marathon, or the like. But trite as it is, that was when my first switch flipped on.

Now, little did I know, stick switches into the off position too. A friend of my mom's said when her husband had the exact same surgery as me (aortic valve replacement) he went the opposite direction. He became so scared of death that he became afraid of life. He mitigates all risk and does nothing to jeopardize his "fragile" life. The Dr. said that's not uncommon. I never would've guessed, but then again, who wants to hear about the guy who cheated death, only to hide in his home and watch TV for the next 40 years?

But I took the route most are familiar with. I should be dead, so now it's time to live. This led me to seek help, for the first time in my life. Namely, to get fit, so I could enjoy this new lease on life and do something great and wonderful before the reaper comes to usher me off to the great unknown for good.

A couple days after getting out of the hospital.

Jonathan Flips a Switch

Recovery from having your chest sawn in half takes a log time. I also decided to through in some knee surgery shortly after just for fun, so it was a while before I felt good enough to progress.

I kept walking by this gritty little gym called Ultimate Fitness Lab near my work. At the time I was trying to workout on my own and failing miserably. Finally I called and spoke to Jonathan, the owner, and scheduled a visit. 3 years later, I still go to UFL 4-5 days a week and have found a great trainer, mentor and friend who continues to help me push my limits and be a better athlete.

That flipped switch lit the fire. I needed a challenge. Working out just to look good wasn't going to be enough. I needed to test myself.

About 2 years in at UFL.

Spartan Race

Sometime around the winter of 2011, I stumbled upon the Spartan Race. I had never done a race of any sort before. It was to be the first, of what soon became, the iconic Colorado Military Sprint of the Spartan Race series. It sounded difficult. Just what I needed.

I avoided reading to much about it. I wanted it to be a surprise. I got down to the Ft. Carson Army base not knowing what to expect. I couldn't get any of my friends to join me, so I went it alone. Looking back, I'm glad of this. It really made it that much more personal and life changing being on my own.

The race was tough. The hardest thing I had done up to that point. But felt so good to finish that race. I compete as often as I can now, even going so far as to run 4 races in a single day. The Spartan Race fanned that spark into a fire that still burns to this day.

At my first Spartan Race.

Brett's Death 

Around Labor Day, 2013, my oldest brother Brett developed a persistent cough. He was quickly diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and given a grim prognosis. By New Year's his doctor essentially told him to "get his bucket list" together. We talked about getting all 4 of us brothers together and doing a fishing trip in Costa Rica.

By the end of January, Brett was checked into hospice. He died 2 days later on February 2nd, 2014, surrounded by his brothers and mom and just a day after having all his closest friends come visit him one last time. It was his 48th birthday.

I can't explain what it's like to watch someone you love die right in front of you. It definitely changed my life and flipped a major switch inside me. I realized I had taken my brother for granted. He lived only about 45 minutes from me, my closest relative in fact, but we rarely saw each other. I knew that I couldn't put off the things I wanted to do anymore, because there might not be a later. We never got to take that fishing trip.

Miss you brother.

Epilogue

I still struggle with motivation and weighing risk v. reward at times. But when I do, I think back to these times when my switches were flipped. Although some are very traumatic times and memories, they help clear the clouds in my head and make me focus on what's really important. People and our experiences together. When a challenge seems particularly risky, I try not to shy away from it. Because I know the experience will by worth it, perhaps even life changing. I also truly understand now, that there are worse ways to die.

Race Review - Boulder Mud Run

The Boulder Mud Run is a lot like communism. It probably looked good on paper, but it real life it's a mess. The entire event is centered (literally) around one big mega-obstacle and I'll explain why that's a good idea, and a terrible idea, in a minute.

Mega-Obstacle for the proletariat.

This local event was held, not in Boulder, as the name implies, but out on the dusty plains of Erie, Colorado at the CO National Speedway venue. Now I had never been to this particular venue, and I won't say it was hard to find, but a couple of well placed arrows goes a long way towards making one feel like they are on the right track. Especially when you're not sure if it's in the facility, a parking lot, on the side, etc. Needless to say I did overshoot the turn, but figured it out in short order.

I had no idea how big this event would be. They did have a prize money heat, several other heats scheduled, so I figured it might be of decent size. Well it turned out to be exceptionally small. This was actually a good thing, because they were in no way prepared for a big turnout.

We pulled in to a small parking lot with only 100 or so cars in it. The fairground was small, but with solid vendor booths. On the west end was the mega-obstacle and just a lot of people milling around. We checked in, which essentially meant having your name checked off a list. No race bibs, timing chips, t-shirt, etc. After being directed nowhere by no one, I finally asked a small group standing nearby if they knew what was going on. They all shrugged and said they were just as lost as us.

Small as they come.

After a few minutes people began to line up in a starting corral. There was some business about climbing a rope to ring a bell before entering, but it was unclear so we just herded in with group about to go. We were sent off with out much fanfare and headed away from the large center obstacle. Now, to be fair, there may have been very clear and concise instructions on all this that we missed, but they sure weren't repeated and we weren't the only clueless ones on the field that day.

Off we go! The track swung out to some concrete barriers that we leapt over. Then we came upon some small tires that needed to be flipped once. Up and over a series of ramp/walls that increased in steepness. After a short trot through some open field we came up to one of the more dangerous mud barb wire crawls I've had the pleasure of going through... 3 times.

Let me stop there and explain the wire crawl. I've crawled under several. Some simple, some in water pits, some on dry dirt, some on slick mud hills. They mostly have one thing in common: The wire is stretched pretty tight. This one would be the exception to the rule. It was loosely dangling and coils of it dipped low. I always see people get hung up at races, but this one was near impossible to avoid doing so, especially later in the race as it began to sag more and more. My son also gashed himself good on a piece of metal in the mud, but these things happen.

OK, we're past the wire crawl (for now) and we run up to some more tires, these ones stacked on poles. The job is pull one off one pole and place it on another pole. Various tire sizes, but all relatively small. No problem. At this point we can se the large wooden mega structure approaching and a small line building up to it. We slow down a bit as it's obvious we'd be waiting. But the wait wasn't too long, yet.

Confusing start/finish.

The Big One. The approach is the far right and is a plywood slope with couple small hand/footholds. This confounds several people, but we scrambled right up. Off the back side is a rope to descend off the edge. Pretty damn tricky, even for seasoned racers. Then it's up and across some 2x4 built grid, with some barb wire thrown in for good measure, which gets you to the base of an up, over and down cargo net vertical "ladder" that rises, oh about 15 feet or so I guess. You see these at a lot of races and they really seem to freak some people out. The generally create back ups, and putting one in the middle of a giant box isn't the best idea I've seen. Here we begin to wait, patiently... for now.

Bam over the net, a quick 5' wall hope and we're out the other side of the big wooden box and running again. We come to some plastic barriers, that probably are usually filled with water to be stable, but these aren't, so the move a bit if you try and scale them too fast. After these it's a short run to a pond a a guy directing everyone to grab a sand bag and head into the water. In we go, slog, slog, slog for about 30 yards, scramble out and run the rest of the way around the pond to drop the bags off where we got them.

Any race that gets him out of the house is a good race.

From here it's a short sprint back an obstacle I think about 90% of people (including myself) completed improperly and right in to the mega-box, this time through the middle part, marked "loop 1". This time it was a wall climb with some "tombstones" to negotiate and then an up and over consisting of boards chained together in a wide swinging ladder of sorts. This one was slowing up a bit too, as you had to have the timing right with multiple people going over the wobbly ladder. Then there was another wall to climb out of the box and begin the second loop.

Loop 2 follows the same path as the first. The only real difference is the tires are moving farther away from being flipped in the same direction several times and the barb wire in the mud pit is sagging a little more. The big difference is when we approach the big box. Now we are catching up with slow people from the next heat and it's a real mess. Takes a while to get our turn and the ramp and then entirely too long for our second go at the cargo net ladder. At this point my teenage son looks at me and says, "This is stupid." Now, he's 14, so he says this about a lot of things, but I have to agree, this is stupid.

We finally get out of the box, back around the pond and up the 3rd section of the box marked "loop 2" and "Finish". It's an easy ramp up and a totally confusing, not at all explained decent. So we just sort of climb down and go around for loop 3. The last loop is pretty much a repeat of 2, with a bit of the box entry cluster mercifully thinning out as the event winds towards it's anti-climatic end.

My GPS put the race at 3.3 miles and it took us 57 minutes to complete. Oskar Blues was there with free beer, and few things pack a wallop like a Dale's Pale Ale at 10:00am on a Saturday!

Pond on the right.

Now, unlike communism, I didn't hate this race. Like I said, it seems like a decent idea. One major obstacle with loops means you can have a race in a small space. But you can't have people going through the slowest part 3 stinking times. It was jammed up with only a couple hundred people, with a thousand or more it would've been a complete nightmare with no good solutions. When you only have one real obstacle, you can't shut it down to alleviate pile ups.

The mega obstacle was well built, however. I had ample time to look it over while in the jams the occurred there. I checked the joints and fasteners as probably 3 dozen people were hanging, climbing, running over various points of the structure at the same time and didn't see any undue splitting, loosening, swaying or shaking. The thing appeared to be pretty much bomb proof.

Maybe if the easy ramp "loop 2/finish" had been on the entry and the harder entry at the finish, then MAYBE you could pull it off with more people. But that's a big maybe. Lastly, if you're going to have a race that requires a lot of specific direction and explanation, you really need an emcee out there to speak loud and slowly... repeatedly.

I have to wonder if this one will be back. I kind of think not, but then again the Insanity Mud Run made another (although I heard equally dangerous) return this year. In fact, I wonder if it' the same people organizing both races? Anyone know? Shoot me a message.

Race Review - Colfax Relay Marathon

The Colfax Marathon (http://www.runcolfax.org) is a pretty popular race around these parts. Colfax is the longest continuos avenue in America, and runs from the foothills of Golden, out past the plains of Aurora. It probably also has the highest concentration of seedy bars, pawn shops, liquor stores and homeless people in the state. It runs beside some famous landmarks such as the Broncos' Mile High Stadium and the ever popular tourist trap, Casa Bonita.

Several race lengths are available, from the full and half marathon, down to a 5k sprint. I was conscripted to run the relay marathon with some co-workers, in which teams of 6 break up the 26.2 miles into legs ranging from 3.7 to 6.4 miles. I was assigned the 3rd leg, which was 6 miles and sported some decent elevation gain.

Relay legs.

The course for the relay varies slightly, so as not to muck up the full marathon runners. There's a timing chip in the baton, and it is handed off at locations where people line up according to bib numbers to await their teammates, and some poor bastard gets the never-ending job of calling out the bib numbers of approaching runners.

My leg began at Sloan's lake, which is a couple blocks off of Colfax, headed straight to the main street and began to head west up the hill. We veered off Colfax and run through Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, wound through the neighborhood, up another decent hill, where several people were in their front yards handing out food and drink for the folks putting in the big miles. Finally the course descended back down to the avenue to a quick finish off to the north side of the street.

Go time.

Post race you can hop the RTD bus, for free, back down to your starting area to get to your car or to the big post race party at Civic Center Park. With over 17,000 runners this year, it was easily the biggest race I've been in to date. It's super organized, well laid out and captures a good portion of Denver along the route.

I came in at 53 minutes and change, for my leg, and our team time was 4:03:58, placing us at 351 (out of 937) for Relay and 90th (out of 215) for co-ed class.

Finisher medal/paper weight.

Race Review - Hard as Nails

Yeah, I don't know what's on my face.

Hard as Nails popped up on my radar via http://coloradoobstacleracers.com who had a nice promo code available. The course map looking intriguing and the price was right, so I signed up my 14 year old son and myself for the event.

The venue was at the Westin Hotel in Westminster, CO and upon arriving it was clear this would be a smaller event. It definitely had a local feel (at the time I was unaware of it's homegrown roots), with a pretty small fairground area, consisting of a stage with the emcee and DJ, plus a handful of booths. Coming just 1 week after the popular CO Spartan Race may have contributed to a lower turnout, but the relaxed nature of it was a welcome break from some of the bigger races we run.

The heat structure was a little strange, with the first few heats being women only for some reason. We were in the 11:00 heat, which sported about 50 or so racers. The runners were an eclectic group, ranging from hard core OCR types with protective gear, to fun groups with matching costumes and everyone in-between.

These were the only places I saw back ups.

This is the first race I've run that went through a building, let alone a hotel. Soon after the start we crammed in the hotel's stairwell and climbed 10 or so flights of stairs to the top, then ran down the hall and back down to the ground.

Other interesting obstacles included an inflatable pool float we had to paddle out on the hotel's fountain pond and back, where son got stranded about 30 yards out and after I made my circuit I had to swim out and tow him back in, which was exhausting. Also, a sandbag fill and carry up and down a short steep hill.

Face rash from getting dragged up and over a creek bank.

After the pond, there were some low crawl type stuff and a lot of plowing through the creek that runs through the property. Some of the more difficult obstacles were ropes scaling up out of said creek, the last of which a guy from COR ended up hoisting my ass out in spectacular fashion.

Spent a lot of time doing this.

About the mid point there was a short fireman carry, which having my 100lb. son with me wasn't a problem, and a long and fast slip slide down a grassy hill, where I garnered enough speed to continue off the slide, across the grass and skid to a halt on the cement path below. I'll spare you the photos of my road rashed butt.

Fast slide = road rash.

At the finish we were handed a golden nail for our finishers prize to go along with the event T-Shirt we received in our registration goodie bag. It was a good, short race and worth our time for sure. I inquired the organizers for some photos to share here, but they were unsupportive, so I only have the few I took and some stolen off Google.

The Golden Nail.