Swamp Romp!

On Saturday, I woke up at the insanely early hour of 4:45, put on clothes that I bought specifically with the intent to destroy them, forced down a slice of toast with peanut butter (I couldn't get the cap off the jar of Strawberry Jelly), and headed off to meet the rest of my team. We congregated at the Aikahi Safeway and caravanned onto the Marine Base.

We followed the huge line of cars, and were pointed into a parking stall by the ever efficient Marines. At this point, it's about 6AM and the race starts at 7, so we get ready and head over to the start. Since this race is done in teams, many groups wear costumes or matching uniforms. We were in black pants, black shirts, and camouflage skull caps. According to race rules, we had to wear high-top shoes, and since I didn't have any, I had to hunt for a cheap pair. The only cheap high-tops I could find were in... sigh... Pink! To top it off, they were boys shoes! Go figure they were cheap. I debated spray-painting them, but eventually figured that people would find them entertaining. Of course, it could have also been like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Can you imagine being a big tough Marine running behind a girl in pink shoes? As it was, by 3 minutes into the race, you couldn't tell what color they were anyway, so nobody shoved me into the mud.

The race started at 7, and we were in the second wave. The teams were between 4 and 6 people, and you all started and finished together, no leaving anyone behind. They started three teams at a time with 30 seconds between waves. With 300 teams (1800 individual participants), it took 50 minutes between the first and last waves. I'm glad we were one of the first to start, because the obstacles were still "fresh" when we got there. I can't imagine how slick the A-frame or wall obstacles were by the time the last teams got there. It was hard enough as it was.

Anyway, we started and ran down a nice mud-free stretch for a few minutes. There were a few small mud puddles, which I gleefully ran through to hide the pink, and then we went around a bend.... Whoa! About a quarter-mile of thigh-deep muddy water stretched out in front of us. We had reached the swamp. With no hesitation at all we jumped in and then realized that the water hid a layer of mud that we sunk into up to our knees. After a little thrashing, we found a track of sorts, like a clear path through the mud. It was about a foot wide, so we fell into a single file line and made our way through. The track came and went, but thank heavens it was there at all. As it was, by the time we reached dry land again, my legs were jelly.

The next obstacle was a wall about 7 feet tall. It was built of logs and the bottom ones stuck out a bit giving you a place to put your feet to get over. When I jumped down, my quads cramped up and for a moment I thought I was in serious trouble. I stretched while I waited for the rest of the team to get over and thank heavens, all was well after that. For whatever reason, they gave that mild protest, and I had no further aches or pains anywhere for the rest of the race. Yay!

Next up was a mud puddle leading up to a wood A-frame. It was like a solid plank of wood about 8'x8' and propped up at a 45 degree angle. Since you had to run through the mud before you reached it, the plank was slippery as hell, so you had to charge at it and hope momentum would carry you before your feet skidded out from under you. I ran up and just managed to get my fingers latched onto the top. A team member and some random guy (Thanks, dude!) both grabbed a wrist and hauled me up. Thank heavens or I would have slid back down into the muck. I walked a few feet across the top, and looked down the other side which was a metal sheet which almost went straight down into more muck. I slid down and was startled that the mud came all the way up to my stomach. At the bottom, I waited for the others and yelled "Keep your mouth closed." Yes, this was learned through experience. I shouldn't have gone "Weeee" as I went down. Ick.

After this, things get hazy. I really don't remember a lot of specifics. There were many more walls to be climbed over, and mud bogs to got through. There were a few of note though. At one point, we went down a hill and found some of the nastiest mud on this planet. It was really more like clay. This stuff was grey and had an oder-du-pig-farm. We sank in up to our knees and discovered that it was impossible to get your feet out without going almost horizontal. So, hands had to go into the muck and we skittered across the top of it on hands and knees. Just lovely. You know it's bad when you're looking forward to the next pool of muddy water to get "clean."

After a little while, I noted that there seemed to be an accumulation of mud in my shoes, right around my toes. It wasn't painful, just weird. I felt like I had clown shoes on, and the tips of the shoes were filled with weights. It made my feet feel all floppy as I ran. Along the way, the rest of the team and I would occasionally feel a rock or stick or some odd thing or other poking our feet, but we'd just wait for the next mud puddle to move things around.

There were a couple of parts where you had to get on your hands and knees to go under ropes stretched across pools of muddy water. It really was more like swimming. I stretched my hands in front of me and dug in my toes and pushed across. After this was a run along the beach with a heaven-sent excursion into the water. We went out about 12 feet to touch a buoy and then came back in. It felt sooo good. Of course, as soon as you get all nice and clean, it's right back onto your hands and knees in more mud. After that, muddy water with sudden drop-offs dunking me clear up to my chin. Also duck walking through a water filled pipe.

We noticed after a while, that we had practically started to ignore the walls we had to go over. There was a series of these, about 4 feet tall, and we'd be talking as we approached them, lift ourselves up and over and continue on without ever breaking the conversation. Like it's a normal thing to jog down the street and encounter walls in your path.

Finally, we could hear the cheers of the finish line, and the Marines along the course assured us that we were right around the corner. What they failed to mention was that there was one big nasty obstacle left. We rounded the bend and saw a swamp with ropes laying out a serpentine path through it. We forged in and found the knee-deep mud with water up to the waist again. This time, there was no track, and each step was a struggle to not fall over as you tried to put one foot down and drag the other back up. I saw some people keel right over submerging themselves before coming up sputtering and laughing.

Our team grouped up and we linked arms and ran across the finish line. We all posed for the obligatory finisher's photo (I'll post it when I get a copy of it), and then headed over to the firetruck where firefighters were spraying down the crowd.

Our time was 1'52". Not a fast time by any standard, but we had some very serious shoe malfunctions along the way. Blisters that make you cringe. Still, the wearer of the bad shoes says it was fun and they're willing to do it again next year. Yeah!

Overall, I had a blast. It took me several showers and endless scrubbing to get all the muck out. Don't even ask about what happened when I blew my nose. Everyone was there to have a good time, and I saw many instances of people helping each other out even when they weren't on the same team. Teams aside, it really had a "we're all in this together" mentality. I just loved it and can't wait for next year.

Hash Run #10: Nuuanu Pali Drive

The run on Tuesday ties with the UH/Saint Louis Heights run as my favorite. It was hared by three people, and started at the intersection of Pali Hwy and Nuuanu Pali Drive. The run freaked me out a little at the start because we had to run across the Hwy. I waited for a big gap and dashed across with a dozen other runners, but it just seems like one of those thing that would give my mother a heart attack.

Anyway, once across, we soon found ourselves in a bamboo forest weaving in between, climbing over, and ducking under the trees. There was a guy in front of me with two dogs on leashes, and they kept going around different trees, tangling him up, so he handed one to me until we got far enough from the highway to set them loose. The trail was the least "trail like" of any run yet. I think we were just going randomly through forest. I don't know how the hares knew where they were going because if there weren't copious chalk marks, I would have been lost in a heartbeat. Still, it was loads of fun, going over streams, up and down hills, basically through some incredibly beautiful and varied terrain. What fun. I love this sport.