Sweet Spoils for getting our asses kicked in the most fun way possible.
When we were looking at available obstacle/mud races for the season and weighing the pros and cons on each, this one beat out Spartan Race on the “Dude….that looks like SO MUCH FUN” scale by a MILE. Spartan looked like a long, mostly boring run with gym equipment and burpee stations. I can do that at home, thanks. Savage Race, on the other hand had fire, rope walls, crawls, swims, mud, hay stacks, slides, sawtooth monkey bars, a deliciously green looking turf course and all the smile inducing fun we love about obstacle races, just maybe a bit more challenging than we’ve seen thus far. Also it’s much closer than Spartan so we could do it in an out and back day rather than having to get a hotel. YUP. SIGNED UP.
SAVAGE COURSE! More or less. Obstacle order was shuffled a bit.
This race is absolutely everything an obstacle race event should be. Definitely showed us just how well it could be done and how much the races we’d been to previously have yet to learn (aside from RFYL, they put on a rockin’ event as well). Despite the fact that this was the longest obstacle race we’d done to date at 6.75 miles, it didn’t FEEL like it at all. They spaced the obstacles perfectly so there were no long uninterrupted stretches of just running. Add to that the venue and course itself being GORGEOUS and you have a recipe for a very enjoyable day. And yes, a lot of the photos here are from their facebook page and advertisements since you can’t really carry a camera on course and the GoPro had mud on it a lot of the time.
We have a habit of being notoriously nonchalant about training for these and this was no exception. This week I went back and looked at the obstacles again…and realized these guys aren’t messing around. Some of these look HARD (sawtooth monkey bars! COLLOSUS!). We thought the course was like Superhero Scramble, in the 4-5 mile range, but when we got there and were wandering around the park getting ready we heard someone say the course was 6.75 miles long. We looked at each other with an “Oh, shit….did he say 6.75?”, then shrugged and went “Welp, I guess we’re runnin’ 7 miles today!” and lined our asses up.
pretty pretty places to run.
I know I have said past race venues were pretty….but they have NOTHING on this place. The course was green, lush and wooded with rolling hills, lakes and was covered in springy wonderful turf and packed dirt roads to run on. They provided plenty of water stations and port-o-potties at multiple points, didn’t pull the dick move of backloading the obstacles or calling stupid little stuff on par with cattle-guards an obstacle and the course was marked clearly and often. Overall course design was top notch
Start and track curling away to the right. Who wouldn’t want to run on that grass?
The race started right on the steeplechase track. Wide, groomed, springy turf with big sprinklers spraying us down. I wanted to kick off my shoes and run on the grass barefoot SO bad. It was SO inviting with it’s soft, springy green siren call, but my timing chip was tied into my shoe and I’d trip people if I dropped to roll around in it, so I just ran like an idgit. Left the track and went through a field before we came to the first obstacle: The Shriveled Richard.
Can you see me shivering in this photo?
Previous races had an “ice” obstacle, but it was mostly just chilly water and a barbed wire low crawl scenario so you could keep some of you out of it, not that you felt you needed to. This one went all the way. As we approach we see 3 huge wooden box tanks with a Reddy Ice semi-truck sitting next to each and a crew of guys dumping ice into said tanks in a steady supply. As we got closer and started to climb the ladder up, I noticed that the wooden plank with barbed wire above it sitting in the middle of the tank was sitting at the waterline. You HAVE TO dunk your whole self under the icy water and swim to get to the other side. No half-assing allowed. Deep breath and we jumped in. OMGLOB HOLY SHITSNACKS THAT IS COLD.
In his words “AHHHHH. That is the coldest thing in the history of ever.”
I had never been in water so cold it made my muscles instantly seize up. Now I can check that off the list of life experiences. As soon as I hit the water, my body went “AHH!! NOOO!”. And I still had yet to dunk my head and swim out. I was in the water for all of 10-15 seconds and had a bit of trouble making my limbs climb me out. All of my skin was tingly for the next couple minutes. Whoa. I now understand how people drown so quickly in icy water.
Bunch of over/under fence type deals, some swinging tires, etc and then the next obstacle that made me go “huh, these guys are for real. No being prissy about this.” It looked much like other mud/water crawls we’ve seen except once again, they’d placed the wooden “stay low” boards sitting slightly below the waterline, so in order to get past, you had to completely submerge yourself in the mud water. I like it.
The race designed to kick your ass.
The first wall we came to also impressed me in the differences that upped the difficulty dramatically. First, it was about 1-2 feet taller than walls in Superhero Scramble. Stood at I’d guess 8-9 feet. I couldn’t grab the top without a solid jump. Second, no boards attached to the front for a toehold boost at all. Or gaps in the boards. Nothing. Just a solid 9 foot face wall for you to hoist yourself up and over. There were guys standing at the base of each acting as assistance for those who needed it giving a leg up and over. I refuse. Got myself up with a jump and a good hold on the top, but by the time I got that high I lost my momentum for hoisting over. Had to wait for the guy next to me to clear so I could swing my hips around and hike my leg up over. Made it without too much trouble, but definitely took a bit more doing than the big walls at SS that basically just took a good vault.
I will say that the angled rope wall is WAAAYYY easier when it’s not greased down and crazy slippery. Like no problemo at all. We were both up over that thing in a couple seconds.
The “Colon Blow 5000” was fun and different. Drainage pipes, first up, then down. The up was harder than I anticipated since there’s not much room to maneuver and it’s slippery in there, making it hard to scoot up. Got a sideways shimmy going that was effective and made it through fine.
There were a lot of people in the water
The sawtooth monkeybars were definitely a challenge. I did much better than I anticipated and made it through the long up and the down bit, but when I got to the sharp “up” of the tooth, I couldn’t quite get enough oomph to grab the bar. I got my hand on it. I was SO close, but after the other climbing I’d already done on course, not enough to grip properly and I went down in the water. A few more days of pull ups and I SO would have had that. That’ll teach me to take mandatory rest.
WHEEEEEE
Lots of slippery slimy mud, Davy Jones Locker: always fun to jump off tall things into water (cap did a flip as you can see in the video. I did not…still worry about landing on someone), no sweat and haystacks, no sweat. Got to the top and helped another girl with a hand up.
taken on the walk in
The Colossus was intimidating and challenging, but I’m slightly disappointed in that I think I would have had it without assistance, but as soon as I got close to the top, the event staff dudes grabbed my arms and hauled me up. I know they’re trying to get people through there as quick as possible since there was a huge line and make sure none of the girls fall and hurt themselves, but still, I wanted a chance to try myself and felt a tiny bit cheated since I really felt like I had that one. Cap, of course, almost didn’t even need the rope and scrambled up that sucker like a monkey in less than 5 seconds. Show-off.
My Savage Souvenirs. Quite a few more bruises developed in the course of the week. Worth it.
After the race I realized that quite a few of the obstacles had pretty substantial lines…that partly being our fault for running the 11:00 wave behind the backlog of earlier waves and in the midst of the “slow” fun runners, but for some reason it didn’t bother me or make me impatient like I usually get. The scenery was great and the people were generally pleasant to talk to.
Best moments on course that weren’t caught on tape/edited out for time:
Wave before us as we were walking in started and one guy snatched up a smoke grenade off the ground and carried it like a torch for 100 yards or so down the track leading the charge.
We passed a team chugging Miller Lites they’d stashed in hydration packs on the side of the course in the woods about a mile and a half in.
When the Swedish (sounding) guy wearing a kids Superman costume (shirt was TIGHT with a big midriff and tights were ripping around his legs) with underpants over the top came running up from behind and yelled “Captain America! We have to team up! You get inmate 1, I take inmate 2! (there were 2 runners ahead of us in orange shirts with inmate 1 and 2 printed on the back) We put them back in jail! Let’s go!” and then as he ran by “High 5!”
Cap laughing hysterically and maniacally at me when I sank hip deep in a mud puddle in one of the obstacles while he made it through basically clean above the ankles. I decided to use my mud hands to put war paint on my face after that.
Also the part where he accused me of cheating by grabbing the top of the bouldering wall, but he totally did it too and you can see it on the video, so either we’re both cheaters or he can stuff it. Or both.
Somewhat cleaned off and finished.
There was also a whole set of walls and barbed wire X’s we didn’t film in the interest of saving the battery for the big obstacles at the end since they were the typical 4-5 foot high wall series you see at most of these. Cap tore his boardshorts on one of the barbed wire obstacles in that section because he tried to put his big booty through the small end of the X, but otherwise, we kicked its ass and moved onwards.
With that, here is a small amount of our video footage. I edited it down as best I could, but I get ADD with video editing…so…yea. We are getting better with the GoPro. It was all charged and no fogging this time, but I think whatever we cleaned the lens/housing with left some smears and so it’s a teeny bit cloudy. We’re getting better….maybe by next weekend we’ll actually have this shit straight for Run For Your Lives.
Here is us running Savage Race, headcam courtesy of Cap:
Now get SERIOUSLY HYPED. This weekend is Run for Your Lives!!
All Your Race Are Belong To Us 