Go Commando Adventure 5K Race Report: Mud, Fire, Water, Beer and FUN!!!

I posted on Friday about this fun 5K adventure race I was doing with friends this weekend and it didn't disappoint!  I and my friends had a blast!  Running IS fun, but add some obstacles, some mud, some fire, a waterslide, and beer for the finisher's and you got a fun race! It also coincided nicely with The Boring Runner's Sweat Your Thorns Off Virtual 5K so I decided to join in the fun. 

I decided to go redneck/WT for race as my costume (which were encouraged).  The family and I went to Good will where I dropped 10 bucks and got a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt, and added some shades and a bandanna and I got this look:



Sweet shorts!

 My friend Paul picked me up Sat. morning (and didn't laugh at my getup) and we met up with our friend, Teresa, from our Master's swim class, her brother Andrew, and her husband, Wade.  Shout out to Wade, who was just there as a spectator and with Paul's kickass camera got all of these photos!  Great Job Wade!  Anyways, we drove up to Stillwater High School where we parked and took a shuttle to the site of the race (that was the only negative that I can think of for the entire race, because once we where finished it took WAY too long to wait for a bus) Green Acres, a farm that has cross country skiing trails and tubing during the winter.  This was a 21+ event (sounds like a party at a club right?) so we had to show our ID and also sign a waiver stating that if we died or caught on fire we couldn't sue. Done.  My outlandish outfit was pretty tame in comparison to what some were wearing:

Mullet Brigade!



See? Jean shorts pretty popular!



HILARIOUS!

Once we got our wristband for our wave (gold for the 9:15 wave) we lined up and jammed out to some music blasting from the loudspeakers.  Every 15 minutes they had approx 200 leaving the corral onto the course.  Here's us as the whistle blew,  and off we went!

That red bandanna was like a flag.....

Yeah, maybe the flannel also made me stick out

 Our first obstacle was jumping bales of hay setup near the loop we did by the start line.  We had lost Andrew at this point, but the 3 of us were pretty much sticking together. The bales were fun!


Hayfever Ridge! Jumping some bales!



The Water Crossing was next...2.5 miles and I was soaked from the waist down...jeans aren't very comfy when wet...

Bam! Right after the hay bales was the pond...and the 3ft+ water we had to jump in and wade across.  .5 mile in and I was soaked up to my crotch in cold water and I squelched squelched them on as water poured freely from my shoes.  Oh yeah!  I did like the "alligators" that were there to greet us.

Soaked, we ran on to the next obstacle which was some wooden barrows tied together that you had to jump up and scale and clamber across.  I used some Ultimate Warrior moves I had seen on TV and hopped up there and got over.  Not too bad, and we ran on back past the pond and around the bend:

All Smiles!!!

 At the bottom of the hill was the next obstacle, a rope bridge stretched (loosely) across a wooden frame.  Of course I hopped up and tried to use my Spiderman skills.....pretty awkward!  Lots of laughs as everyone tried to cross at the same time and the ropes were weighted down, so it wasn't too bad.

Got bail?  Well we did jump over some bales of hay....

 Once we made it across we ran on past the shed where there was this "watering" station.  I think they were playing on the Muscle Milk (who was a sponsor) with these streams of water, like from an udder. Weird. But I got some water.


Water udders?

 At this point maybe 1.5 miles in, we were all feeling pretty good.  Paul had tweaked his knee a little on the hay bales, but was otherwise ok, Teresa and I were regretting our attire.  She got soaked as well, and was lamenting her choice of loose shorts, and I was regretting the jeans, b/c those suckers were wet and generating some friction....surprised my pants weren't smoking in the above photo!

Next was the Serpent Hill/Ridge...ok I don't mind hills, but this one was steep and uneven as heck!  Most of the trail was to begin with (it is a field) but this was pretty severe.  All 3 of us pretty much walked up this hill, and at the top caught our breath and ran across the balance logs, and vaulted over the hurdles setup at the next obstacle.  At the 2nd mile marker was a water station which was nice, I was hot in the flannel even with the sleeves cut off, and I unbuttoned it some more hoping for some ventilation.  After the water stop we rand down a steep hill and headed into the pine forest maze.  String was wound through the marked trail so you had to crawl and climb through the maze up and then down the forest.

Where's Waldo?

Then my favorite obstacle was up!  The waterslide!  They had 2 giant pipes that they had cold ass water running through with soap added to make it slick. The pipes ended on a plastic tarp which would then let you slide into....MUD! Wahoo!

Looking good, nice form.

This is where I lost the form...

and I landed in the mud legs up in the air!

Almost slid into the hay bales!

Two Words: MUD

BUTT...

WTF? How did Paul make it down without mud on that white shirt?

So I landed as the above pictures show legs up, and when I hit the mud I skidded across it splashing it everywhere, and my shirt rode up so I got mud all the way up to my neck!  I would give that an 8 out of 10!  Teresa and Paul came right after and miraculously he had no mud on the front of that white tux shirt, but a little on the back, and Teresa got an atomic wedgie!  Muddied but in good spirits we ran on, the sand dunes were up next!

MUD MUD MUD

 The Sand Dunes/Hills were awesome, there were 3 of them, each time you ran up and then down, you had that roller coaster sensation where your stomach drops and you almost feel weightless.  I chickened out on jumping at the apex of the hill, I break easily :)
Continuing on, we followed the path to the tire run, which I had a blast with, it's like those army movies where you run through the tires, except some were a little dangerous b/c of the mud, I saw someone sleep in fall, ouch! We were in the home stretch now, finish line was in sight!  We had to jump over the fire and then run through the swamp/mud and we were done!

I am no Michael Jordan, but I got some air going!

Mid-flight!

And I'm earthbound again

 Together we ran on to the last obstacle, the swamp! 

The end is nigh!

 We slowed down approaching the water, and took stock of what lay in store for us:

I decided to try to carefully walk in...not a good idea, as I almost slipped and fell in head first:

Smooth move!

Not very graceful, but I managed to catch myself before I took a nice stanky bath.  We all got going and went thru the water and hit the mud.  I thought I was going to lose a shoe!

Almost there!

 I decided to plow through the mud and picked up my feet and charged to the finish line! Wahoo!  I did it!  Wasn't very fast, a little over 45 min, but I had so much fun!

Muddy and loving it!

As we finished we got our race medals: a set of dog tags that said Go Commando, pretty sweet!  Andrew had finished before us and was at the finish line so we got a group photo in our mud-spattered awesomeness:

We went Commando!

My shoes were white at some point...and my shades stayed on the entire time!

The last member of our Team, Ethan, came through the finish about 6 minutes after we did, he missed the 9:15 wave and went at 9:30 instead.  We grabbed another photo op with him at the official finisher's station:

Our official finisher photo

 Then it was time to get cleaned up!  The Lake Elmo Fire Dept was there hosing down the people covered in mud.  It was cold!!!!!! But it was a great way to get clean of all that mud.

Whew! Glad it wasn't on full blast!

While I was waiting in line some people in front of me where having a good time with the water. Especially these girls in front of us, there was music blasting in the finisher's area, and I swore there was some Pour Some Sugar on Me playing b/c they started dancing and gyrating as the water hit....maybe there was another reason the event was 21+????  Hmmmmm....you be the judge...I will say the fireman was having way too much fun with those three.




Dirty girls getting clean?



Or clean girls getting dirty?

Anyways, we grabbed our checked gearbags and went to the changing tent and got cleaned up, and headed over to the food tent and got a hot dog and a pint of Finnegans Irish Amber Ale!  We toasted our 5K finish and watched others going down the waterslide. Here are some post-race drinking/happy photos:

Beer!

Fun times!

1, 2, 3, Drink! Ok, Paul didnt get that one...

Thanks to Wade (pictured to Teresa's left) who took all the photos!

 After scoring some free Muscle Milk (I love the Light version) we headed back to the shuttle area (which took about 20 minutes).  Again, the only negative I had with this race.  Otherwise it was a blast!  I enjoyed the haybales, waterslide, fire, mud,....well everything except the serpent ridge/hill.  I would definitely do it again! Thanks to Teresa for inviting us to join her Team!

So that was my adventure 5K and also my 5K for The Boring Runner's Sweat Your Thorn's Off Virtual 5K.  A great fun weekend!

Anyone else do something crazy fun over the weekend?