Double Trouble 5k-Day
Run-Climb-Crawl
Valpo, IN
We had two 5K's scheduled for this day....and, yes, we MEANT to do that....we thought it would be *fun*....the only problem was that we hadn't really realized the severity of it being 2 back-to-back trail runs!!!!........and, as usual, my mom messed things up ROYALLY!!!! Mt mom was supposed to babysit the kids that day, well, they were supposed to spend the night at her house on Saturday night, and we'd go get them Sunday after our runs. NOPE. FAIL. Mom calls me on Friday to let me know that she can't....I'll spare you the agonizingly lame excuse she gave me.....so, anyhow, and thank God for 'em, Chris's parents immediately volunteered to have the monsters spend the night with them, and take them to church on Sunday, and we'd pick them up from mom and dad h's after our runs. Problem (and, mini-crisis) averted. After taking the kids to mom h's, we decided to play hooky, and head to M'ville to go see a movie, then head home for a pre-run dose of Cap'n :-)
Sunday morning arrives all too quickly. It is dark and cold. We actually leave on time, and get to run #1 on time. It's at some park in Valpo. Now, the name of this run is the Run-Climb-Crawl. We paid handsomely ($25 EACH) for this run, but it is advertised as a mudless Warrior Dash....so, we are pretty excited to test our phyical abilities aside from running our 3.17 miles! The packet pick up was quite a joke....great packet, just NO, ZERO, NADA, NOOOOOO organization amongst the volunteers, noone had any clue about anything, and they couldn't find our names anywhere on the 'master' list...yet, we had packets WITH our names, age, DOB and shirt size on them!! After a little while the oh-so-knowlegeable volunteer FINALLY let us have our packets and we headed back to the car to warm up. The race begins at 7:30, and it is not yet 7, so we have some time to kill.....we walk around hunting through the dark for the bathrooms, and mostly putz around till the sun comes up. This run is advertised as "old-fashioned"....and we slowly begin to see why. There is no 'start line', nor is there any timing, at all. We finally figure out where we are starting and (12 minutes LATE) they make an announcement about getting a numbered popsicle stick when you finish -- you are to take your stick to the right table (male or female) and they will place your # from your stick beside your name so you know how you did.................*seriously*
Oh well, at least we get to run, climb, and crawl.
So, the race starts, and about 2 turns into the field, there are the hay bales they advertised.........wait, what????? At Warrior Dash, it was a HUGE wall of hay we had to climb up and over (super fun) this, however, was about 8 bales spaced like this hay hay hay hay hay hay......yeah, you get the point, the really FIT people walked over them, the not-so-fit people walked around them. Then, we continue running through this field for another mile or so, before we hit the open grass. This 'open grass' was actually the break in the field due to those MASSIVE power line tower thingees.......nothing but a hill up to the metal tower, then run through the valley before you crest another hill to the next tower!!! I believe there were 8 towers in the open grass, and (I can't find my Garmin report on it) but I think it was something like a 642 foot ascent to each hill....that was rough!!!! After finishing the tower valleys, we round a corner back into the park where they have place 2 tubes. Yup, this is the whole, entire, whopping, mega 'crawl' portion of the run -- 2 little tubes that are about 20 feet long. We had to crawl through them, which was actually really challenging b/c they were only a smidge wider than I am (which happens to be quite a bit SMALLER than Chris is), after crawling through one, you had to run about 15 yards to tube #2, then run down a small hill to the finish line (where you got your popsicle stick)We were both really dissapointed with the advertised vs actual run, adn with the amount of $$ we paid, they could and SHOULD have made a much better run out of this!!!!
Neither one of us placed and we only lingered for awards b/c there was hot cocoa and a TON of door prizes.....which, coincidentally enough, were only won by people who went to the tae-kwon-do school sponsoring the run......hmmm, sure smells suspicious to me! We will NOT be running this one again next year, so, Team O'Connell will NOT be getting $50 from these people :-)
Our times:
(this was a trail run, so time are expected to be about 15-20% longer than a street 5K)
Chris:
29:16
32:16
(there was no age group, or overall placings, and these are the times from our own personal watches, b/c they didn't record any times there!!!!!)
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Haunted Hustle
Portage, IN
After leaving one run, we immediately headed to the next. There were quite a few (25-30) people who were running both runs, so it was kinda fun to see everyone at run #2. The Haunted Hustle was a costume run, so we dressed up a little......we still wanted to be able to run too. After a quick, easy, adn efficient packet-pick-up, we headed back to the car and off for a real bathroom!!!! Feeling better, and, a little emptier, we went to mingle with the other runners for a bit. We saw some funny costumes, and some weird ones too. Everyone seemed to be in a great mood, and the whole feeling was just nice and easy.
We were given a brief speech about how to run on a 'real' trail, and we were off. I was a bit tired from having JUST run a trail 5K, but felt pretty good right off the bat. The run started on a trail that was single-file.....so, for the first .4 miles, you were literally stuck at the mercy of how fast the pack was going, it opened up a bit in places, but not enough to pass anyone or to be passed either! At about the .5 mile mark, it was passable for a little while, I did my fair share of passing the older folk, and passing the fancy-nancy's who just couldn't bear to get their precious running shoes dirty (ugh)...and, I got passed, alot!!!! There was one REALLY annoying woman who was pacing off me, but she refused to run the tangents....she'd pace me, then see a 90 degree turn ahead with a tree marking the turn, so she would stop about 20 feet from the tree, wait till I had run down and around the tree, and once I got to the trail, where she had stood, she'd hop back in line behind me!!!!!! HOW IS THAT FAIR WOMAN???????? It put me in a really bad mood! She did this about 5 times through the race!!!! This trail was steep, and tough! I mean, this was REALLY tough!! The majority of it was single lane, and just completely infested with roots, rocks, shrubs....all sorts of hazards! The trail itself was well marked, and there were volunteers at the few places that were really tricky to navigate, and that helped alot! The entire elevation for this race was in the 800 foot chunk of the Garmin graph, it was a lot of long steep hills, with loose sand at the bottom of them, before climbing the next one. It was the kind of run that leaves you drained, but filled with pride for having done it! (Oh yeah, and it leaves you REALLY sore the next day!!!!)
Our times:
Chris
31:18
Julie
34:34
(again, no group or overal placememnts here either :-(
(I can NOT get these pics to post right at all -- the costume-y ones are from the Haunted Hustle, the other two are from the Run-Climb-Crawl)
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