Month: September 2024

“[…] I’m a stronger man by far.  There is power in me yet. […]” – Les Miserables  

Last year’s Chicago race was simply about finishing.  I struggled throughout it, including falling off of Berlin Walls and almost falling off of Murderhorn.  It was also a very slow slog overall — I think somewhere in the 3 – 3.5 hour range for 3.5 miles plus obstacles.

Between that race and this year, I had had the opportunity to be in Vermont.  As I mentioned in that blog, I came away stronger in several ways.  Also, implementing the incremental changes that Don talked about helped tremendously.

Even so, I was nervous going into the race.  Simply because the race was going to be in the dark for the first ten hours.  But I knew I would be safe — I had two strong guides in Scott and Anna.  Also, Scott B. (Producer) had provided information pre-race that helped to quiet a few of those concerns.

Prior to the race, I had purchased a harness, rope, and carabiner to try and help with the climbing obstacles (specifically Everest and Mudderhorn, but others as well).  While the rope was the proper strength, it wasn’t thick enough.  While Scott B. was able to help find rope, we weren’t able to find anyone to help tie proper knots mid-race, so we were without the harness for the race.

After setting up our Pit area (well, really just dropping things), we gathered with everyone for the mass start.  

For this race, almost all of the obstacles were closed for the first lap.  They opened on a rolling schedule, so if you ran fast enough, you could get two loops in before the early obstacles (i.e. LumberJacked / Sack Up) opened, and a third with minimal obstacles before the late course ones (i.e. Everest and Electric Eel) opened.  Since you received a “skip” bracelet for each loop starting at #3 (approximately 15 miles), you could time skipping your most challenging obstacle if you were fast.

This was not the case for me.  While I was able to get a decent first lap (Mudderhorn was the only true course obstacle I had to do), the second one was a challenge.  I believe that if I had had the harness, I might have gotten a third and fourth loop in.  But that was not to be…

On the second loop, the first obstacle we encountered was Lumberjacked.  These are wooden hurdles (maybe 8 – 10 feet high).  Scott and Anna helped with a boost up onto each, and I was able to get up/over both.

After a brief run, we made it to Sack Up.  This was a relatively easy obstacle for me.  The biggest challenge was getting through the path when I couldn’t see it.  But Scott and Anna helped with that aspect.

Next up was the Mud Mile.  This year, there seemed to be more pits and several of them seemed deeper.  Both Scott and Anna helped to ensure that I could safely get into and out of them.  Getting out involved using one of them for a boost, the installed ropes, and the pre-made hand/knee holes outside the rim of the pits.  Even still, I did fall back down into one of the pits because of the slippery mud around the edges.  But we did make it through safely.

After this, we made it down to the creek (with me going down between the guides) and across.  The creek crossing is always a great opportunity to get mud from Mud Mile off.  You’ll end up with plenty more before crossing back, it’s just about getting the first layer off…

Next up with Kiss of Mud, which was a bit better than last year.  I expected another gravely mess (which tore up my knees last year).  This time, it was more sand than anything else.  Both Scott and Anna helped to ensure that I kept myself low enough to avoid hitting the barbed wire.

After that, we headed to Block Ness Monster.  We did have to wait a few minutes until others showed up to help rotate the blocks.  But once we had enough people, it went fairly smoothly.

The obstacle after that was Well Swung.  For safety reasons, I skipped the actual obstacle and went to the penalty.  

Once the penalty was complete, we headed to Just the Tips.  While I tried this one (hanging and moving laterally) obstacle several times, I couldn’t get past getting off the platform.  I think I would have had more success with the harness.  But since I couldn’t complete it, I had to do the penalty.

Next up was Funky Monkey, which I again had to skip for safety reasons.  Once we made it through the water base, I completed the penalty.

Next up was Cage Crawl, which is a water based obstacle where you’re crawling under a cage.  Both Anna and Scott helped me throughout this, expecially as I got caught a couple times.

Next up was Berlin Walls, which was “skipped” for safety reasons.  I did complete an alternate obstacle instead.

After that was Pyramid Scheme, a climbing obstacle.  While I made it up the face of it just fine (using a rope that was on the obstacle), I had issues at the top.  Like last year’s “inverted log” climbing obstacle, I had my legs in the wrong position when I made it to the top.  This meant that I couldn’t easily turn around to climb down the A frame.  Scott and Anna tried to help coach me through it, and a couple of other competitors tried to help.  But I just couldn’t safely reposition myself.  So I ended up having to come down and complete the penalty.

After making it back across the creek and up the cargo net, we headed to Ladder to Hell.  While I was able to get up the first two steps, I just didn’t feel safe without the harness.  So we had to move on.

When we made it to Everest, we were about 4 hours in the loop.  That wasn’t bad given I couldn’t run as much in the dark/mud the second loop and I’d had to do several penalties.  And then it all fell apart…

While I have intentionally excluded what the penalties were for prior obstacles, I will talk about the one for Everest.  This is because others have already publicly commented on it and seen me doing it.

When we got to Everest, there was a rope, and I was able to get about halfway up.  But without the harness, I just didn’t feel safe enough to make that stretch/grab between the sets of knots, so I headed to the penalty (crab walk).  It was a 200 yard penalty, which in the dark took me almost two hours.  I’ll admit that crab walk has never been my strength.  I’m sure that I also lost time/distance by unintentionally going at angles since I couldn’t see anything.  Scott and Anna helped throughout that ordeal, and helped to reposition me and ensure I wasn’t hitting posts.  There were a couple of points in the first 100 yards that it almost broke me.  But I was able to draw strength from what I had been able to work through in Vermont.  

After almost two hours of a very choppy, very tiring crab walk, my legs were spent and I was exhausted.  So I limped over to the next obstacle.

Arctic Enema was up next, and it actually felt really, really good.  If there hadn’t been a sizable crowd at the obstacle, I would have tried to stay in for a little longer to get more feeling back in my legs.  Scott and Anna helped me to get under the barricades, and we made it out.

As we went from Arctic Enema to Mudderhorn, I remember saying to Scott that I didn’t know how I was going to do it.  My legs were so spent that I was afraid of falling off.  As this was a mandatory completion obstacle, Scott/Anna were able to find others to help.  It was a very slow trip up and over, but we made it through safely.

As we were standing before Electric Eel, I had a discussion with my guides similar to the one I had with Scott last year.  While it was Electroshock Therapy instead of Electric Eel last year, the conversation was still about which would hurt the least.  

While the penalty option would have been the best, I wasn’t confident that my legs would hold out for it.  Also knowing that there was water knocked out the running through it option.  So I went with the crawling option, with a volunteer helping to be our eyes from above.  Even with all that help, I did get hit by the wires a couple times.  And yes, they hurt a whole hell of a lot worse in the water…

After completing this lap we were done.  The crab walk had killed my legs, and the opportunity to try another loop.  At that point, it was 4:30 AM and the race ended at 8:00.  In a best case scenario, it would have been 5-5:30 before I would have been “ready”.  But my legs would not have supported a third lap, and there wasn’t time to get through it in a best case scenario.  Crab walk had killed things.  So we spent the time trying to walk out the cramps in the Pit and meeting people.

While it was a challenge and painful at times, it was also a lot of fun.  Thanks to Scott B. for all of his help, Scott and Anna for their help and guiding me, and all of the others on course who assisted (especially during Murderhorn and Electric Eel on the second loop).

And there was a silver lining to the painful crab walk.  More on that in the next blog…

This race had been on my list for a solid year.  I tried to make it work in 2023, but the timing just didn’t work out.  I also tried to make one of their July 2024 races work, but the logistics just didn’t.  

Prior to going into the race, the RD (Marc) had worked with us so that this race could potentially count as a Nationals Qualifying race.  I really appreciated him / them (FSService) doing that.  It did mean that like Glenview, we would be the last ones into the pool.

Once we were in the pool, it seemed to be a solid swim.  I believe we were out about ninety seconds behind where I wanted to be.  But I was OK with that since I couldn’t see anything in the dark pool area.

After making it through a little bit of a gauntlet to get to transition, I had a very solid and extremely fast T1.  I believe it’s the fastest I’ve ever gotten through T1.

On the bike, we had lots and lots of hills to deal with.  I would guess that they were 6-7% grade.  Not as bad as they were in Knoxville, and even on the worst of them (those with false flats), I still managed to make it up.

Even though it’s been more than two years since the crash in Texas, I am still working through comfort issues on ths bike.  This reared its head as we were going 30+ downhill.  Having Paul as the pilot and guide at that point helped tremendously.  Not only did I know that he’d keep us safe in that moment.  But I also knew from experience that we had done 22 into and through curves (prior to the TX crash) without any issues.  Therefore, instead of panicking, I was able to just curse out my anxiety…

After a normal T2, we headed out on the run.  The run course was most of the first mile of the bike course.  This meant that all of those fun hills we had done on the bike came back again on the run…  Even still, I was able to put together a fairly solid walk/run through it and finished strong.

Thank you to Marc, Rob, and the rest of the FSService staff.  I cannot wait to do my next race with them.  Check out their race calendar at fsseries.com.  Thank you to Paul for all his help and guiding!

Since my initial race at Naperville, I have constantly tried to figure out the best way to handle the swim.  If I go in too early (clean water ahead), then I get swum over by the Elites.  If I go in at the end (clear water behind), I end up having people climb over us as we pass slower swimmers and catch people at the last turn or two.  Maybe someday I can crack the code on this…

After arriving and finding a very “quiet” and “subdued” Chris (that man needs a megaphone for 2025… :P), we headed in to set up the transition.  Because of how things ended up with setup, we were racked in with the kids section (but still in the same general area as usual).

As mentioned at the beginning, we had the “people climbing over us” issue in the last couple of turns.  Even still, it felt like a solid swim until that point.

After coming out of the water, we then made the long trek to where the bike was racked.  Things were going well in T1 until I couldn’t find my second bike glove.  After a mildly frantic search as the clock ran, I found it in the last place I expected.  I didn’t notice it was still in my helmet when I put it on…

After that was sorted out, we went out and had a fairly solid bike.  We did have a minor crash on the first U-turn, which led to us dismounting and manually turning the bike around during the second loop.

After a normal T2, we headed out on the run with a plan for the hills (especially the one up into the bridge).  While it became a run/walk at times because of both the hills and heat, the run was OK.  

Even though there were a few hiccups, the finish time was where it should have been.  Subtracting the time lost in T1 looking for the glove and for the crash would put me at about where 2023’s race was.

Thank you to all of the volunteers who helped to make this a great race!  Thank you to Joe, Dave, Bill, and everyone at 10X for all their help.  And thank you to Scott for all his help and guiding.

Earlier this year, I had two key races on my schedule for July.  However, one was postponed until 2025 and the other sold out before I could get a team together.  As I was looking for other options, I came across this race in Glenview.  Not only did it look like a great race, but it would also serve as a good “warm up” for Naperville the following weekend.

To make things work most smoothly for the pool swim, we were the last ones in.  As we were waiting, the rain came — mostly a drizzle, but a constant drizzle that would make the bike more interesting.

After a solid swim, we headed to T1.  Because of the rain and wet feet in general, T1 took a lot longer than normal.  And T1 wasn’t the only place where weather came into effect.

I have been using double sided clips for about seven years.  In all that time, I have never had so much trouble getting cleat in and getting them to stay in.  I believe the issue was partly the clips being wet and partially the cleats being wet.  

After several attempts, I was finally able to get them in, and we were off.  Because of the wet streets, we kept it at a much slower pace.  There was also one part of the open course where a motorist almost caused a real issue for us because of how they were driving.  Scott was able to keep us safe throughout both the inclement weather and the traffic.  

As we made it back to T2, the weather had changed.  So for the run, we had a lot of humidity instead of rain.  So after a reasonably normal T2, we headed out into the heat.

Before heading out, I had been told that there were only two hills.  While that statement was accurate, they did not count the inclines.  So there was a lot of up and down — both on the actual hills and on the incline.  What helped tremendously during the run were the ice station and full water bottles (instead of just cups).

While it was a challenging race, it was also a very FUN race.  I was surprised to see how well supported it was by their sponsors.  Usually, you’ll have a few giveaways post-race.  Their raffles kept going, and going….

Thank you to Kathleen and the rest of the staff for their help.  Thank you to Scott for all his help and guiding!

THANK YOU to Catapult for their continued support of my athletic endeavors! Their grant will enable me to continue working with swim coaches and improving there!

If you would like to support their missions — and ultimately help other athletes like me — please donate through teamcatapult.org!