On Saturday 19th November, I took part in the inaugural Valley Stampede at Glenworth Valley – a 5km obstacle course run in the theme of the Tough Bloke Challenge or the Warrior Dash.
After doing my Saturday morning High Tide outdoor fitness class, I made my way down the F3 and off at Calga before decending down into the floor of Glenworth Valley. I’d been here once before when the Mud Run was still held here, and was amazed at the number of cars that were already parked at 9am. My scheduled run time was for 10am so I lined up for registration immediately, and although I’m sure the rego gang were working their hardest it took over half an hour to get to the front of the line. Even then, it was only because as 10am got closer and closer they started yelling out for any 10am runners to push their way up to the start of the line. Nevertheless, I managed to make it to the start with a whole 20 seconds to spare to put my timing chip on my Vibrams, and I tied up my bandana headband after the hooter had gone off and I was walking up at the very back of the 500 strong pack to cross the start line.
As usual, being up the back does present itself with one major drawback and one major advantage. The drawback is that you are behind hundreds and hundreds of people, many of whom are walking. The advantage is that you can dodge and zoom past these back-of-packers and feel like a big hero, rather than having other people passing you as is usually the case in my many triathlons.
So off we went, many people trudging and no doubt pacing themselves, many jogging along as best they could in their fancy dress outfits. I felt a bit left out as I wasn’t dressed up but was just wearing my usual obstacle course attire, but I just figured if anyone called me on it I would tell them that I was dressed up as a homocidal maniac – cause they look just the same as everyone else!
After a couple of hundred metres, we hit the first bunch of obstacles – big horizontal logs which one was required to go over, then under, then over and under again and again. They were serious about people not slithering over the under logs, with a nice strand of barbed wire guaranteed to ruin the day of anyone that tried. On my first under I did a sideways roll, but then realised that I was clogging up the path by taking up 5′ of space, so for the rest I just leopard crawled under.
After a short jog we came to a bus covered in a cargo net which required a clamber up and over. Two nets side by side were joined, and as the join in the middle is the section that sags and wobbles the least, that’s where I went as I had enough sag and wobble to contend with already (my gut and butt).
Next was a latticework of tyres laid out on the ground which we had to scamper through as we went up a slight incline to a road. Some went for the holes, but I felt light enough of my feet to clamber across the top of the radials.
A bit of a jog along a dirt road with a slight detour into a bit of a rainforest kind of trail, we came to three trenches filled with ice water which we had to jump into, wade across and clamber out. I really don’t know how penguins and seals do it, as I suffered a decent amount of shrinkage here.
Next were the funbags – two large inflated bags around six feet in height. I was a bit concerned that the Vibrams might slip a bit on the ascent, so I opened the throttle just prior and hit them at a sprint which got me over the first one no troubles, but fortunately the second wasn’t too slippery so I managed to conquer it with a touch less elan.
Around the corner and over a mountain of tyres we went. Instead of them being all nicely laid out as before, these were just a chaotic cacophony of rubber which required a bit of balance and planning for where the foot was going to land next to get through. There were some girls in front of me who were taking it very gingerly, but I managed to squeeze by and on to the next obstacle.
This was the haystack – a bunch of bales that required a bit of a clamber up and over. Only about eight feet high, no biggie here.
Oh, and it’s probably worth noting now that many of the running sections in between the obstacles were somewhat muddy. Creeks and runoffs and the like made for very interesting footing
After a bit of a run along a muddy road, we came to a thicket of tree in which cables like clothes line had been wrapped around and created an obstacle of wires going here and there. Some required stepping over, some required crawling under, and some required a bit of co-ordination with fellow competitors so that you didn’t lift one up just as she was stepping over it. To whoever the young lady in question here was, my sincerest apologies.
Next was a section of tidal creek bed which had the footsies sinking in up to mid-shin in parts. The muddiness was only exacerbated by the fireys spraying water on us as we squelched through, but to be honest the cool spray was a refreshing delight.
After a water station, there were a bunch of big cable reels in the paddock which required us to clamber over one after the other. As the radius of the central section was pretty large and around chest height and made of smooth metal, I just dived up, plonked my fat belly on the drum, and slid down headfirst until I hit the ground where I then executed a graceful commando style dive roll. At least, it looked graceful in my head, but as the marshal on this obstacle said “You alright mate?” perhaps I had all the grace and agility of a cross-eyed duck on smack.
Through another quagmire and under a wire fence where I wound up with quite a bit of grit in my eyes we came to the zip line. Now, this looked like oodles of fun as the zip only went halfway over a creek whereupon one would have to drop into the water and wade across, but as I sped up I saw that each of the four lines had a bit of a waiting line and I wanted to keep going. Fortunately, there was a zipless option and I just swam and waded across the creek rather than wait. I figure if I get too many people talking that bit up and saying how awesome it was I will just head out to Tree Tops Adventure Park and make up for it there.
Up out of the creek and along a paddock we came to an enclosure that had dozens of cows therein, and we had to scamper through. Now before anyone thinks that this was going to be dangerous to us runners or traumatic to the beasties, let me assure you that they were happy keeping to the left of the OK Corral and watching us in amusement as we scampered through the right. The only possible danger here was slipping in a pile of proverbial.
After the mooers, we clambered up a hill to another firetrail, then started heading down from the fire trail to the slip n slide. As a former physics student I remembered the Laws of Inertia and knew that if I hit that slide at top speed my velocity would remain constant unless acted upon by another force – in this case: gravity. I screamed down the hill as fast as I could get my legs under me, and just before leaping on to the slip n slide had a moment of indecision. Superman or on the back? I went with the latter, and as I hurled down the soapy slitheriness at an appreciable fraction of Mach 1, I crossed my legs and folded my arms across my chest and hit the water at the bottom with so much force I was surprised there was any water left. I’m not sure if the spectators at this obstacle cheered noticibly louder because I had kamikazed down it so gung-ho and manly like or whether they did that for everyone, but I like to think that I was awesome on this obstacle!
The end was in sight, and only three more obstacles to go. The first was a gauntless where we had to get past people swinging punching bags at us or hitting us with gladiator poles (nothing too brutal here)
The next was the bug zapper, a tunnel of underhanging wires that was hooked up to an electrified fence zapper. Note to self for next year – the zaps come at regular intervals, so the faster one goes through the zapper, the less times one gets zapped! Maybe next time I can wind up with only one or two jolts instead of the three I copped.
Onto the home straight and it was into a pool of mud which one had to crawl through. Again, the use of barbed wire made certain that one kept one’s head down. After doing several Tough Blokes and Mud Runs, I worked my way through this obstacle with no more trepidation than a ‘here we go again‘ attitude.
Up and out of the mud pit, over the finish line and straight over to the river for a dip and rinse to get the worst of the mud out of the worst places, but I am still picking grit and such out of crevasses over a day later.
All in all, an awesome event. So awesome I have already entered for 2012. I look forward to trying out the Warrior Dash in February to see how it compares, but I can certainly see why events such as this are gaining in popularity.
Full marks to Glenworth Valley, all the organisers and volunteers for putting on such a great event.
Race Summary
Time - 37:18
185th out of 4743 total finishers
165th out of 2201 males
23rd out of 219 40 – 49 year old males
average pace : 7.5min/km
average heart rate: 167BPM (90% of max)
8.44 Frogs burnt
Workout at Garmin Connect
