Several weeks ago I ran in the Austin 10k+ Adventure race. This was a 10k run that also included an obstacle course. I was intrigued by the idea of some obstacles on the race course as a mid run distraction. The race sounded fun and I like to do races on different courses to take in different scenery and get a change from the same old routes.
For the pictures of prior races I knew there were some beams that you had to climb over and there was a wall that you had to climb over using a rope. I did not know if that was all or if there were obstacles. I was a little worried that it would involve running or crawling through mud.
Seems like there were a little over 200 runners for this event. Some were running as a team, some were relays and some were individuals. We were about 2 miles into the race when the obstacles started. The first obstacle was a rope web that was attached to the back of some bleachers. You had to climb up the web and over the back of the bleachers. This was not too difficult and made it over the bleachers easily. Right after this was one of the most challenging obstacles. You had to climb over 2X6's that were about 4 1/2 feet tall. There were six of these in a row. To climb over each one you had to hoist yourself up and get you leg up on the beam and jump on the other side. This was more difficult because the beam and the structure were wobbly and there were other runners climbing over the beams at the same time.
Next were some easy ones. You had to run through tires and walk across three balance beams then jump onto a platform at the end and crawl ender some ropes. It was about this time that I had the thought that this was very similar to the challenges in the reality TV shows like Survivor or the Biggest Loser.
The next obstacle had three thigh high barricades that you had to get over followed by a tunnel that you crawled through and then three more barricades. The last obstacle was the wall. This was the toughest one for me - in fact I had to get the race officials to help me over the wall. By this point I was very tired and really hot. I think that I had the strength to make it over the wall on my own, but was I was lacking was the technique. I ended up getting too far up the wall with my feet and not moving up far enough with my arms.
The finish line was right after the wall. I was happy to finish. My time was 1:02. I will be looking to run these types of "adventure races in the future.
May the Force Be with You.
Chad
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
2009 Marathon Training Begins
Training for the 2009 San Antonio Rock and Roll Marathon has begun. This year I have joined a training group that is hosted by Run Gear Run (RGR). I had been debating whether to join the RGR training group or the Fleet Feet training group, but after my negative experience on Facebook with Fleet Feet I am boycotting their store and will make referrals only to RGR.
My negative experience with Fleet Feet has to do with posting on their facebook page and having the posts deleted. Earlier this month REI.com had an awesome deal on the Garmin 405 HR monitor. With tax and shipping it was $291 and with a $50 rebate being offered by Garmin the price was $241. This is over $100 less that the normal price of $350, which is not including tax (add another $28) I was very excited about this and posted on all of the running related sites I could. Fleet Feet took the delete approach, which left a bad taste in my mouth. Not that I can blame them for not wanting competitor advertising on their site, but they should have handled this in a much different way. The first choice would have been to contact me and ask me to remove it siting the above reason. I probably would have complied as this is a reasonable request, but I would have challenged them to meet this price or leave the post up on their Facebook page as it should be a site for runners. They should want what is best for runners, and if the runner chooses to buy from the cheaper online store then they would have at least built the goodwill for the store. I contend that most that are making the purchase, because it was $241 would not purchase this in their store as the $350 price point it too high. So what have they really lost by leaving the post on their page???
By deleting my posts they have ticked me off and have missed out at least on my membership in their training group and I will definitely point people away from Fleet Feet in the future.
I will make it a point to begin making regular posts again as I progress through training.
May the Force Be with You!
Chad
My negative experience with Fleet Feet has to do with posting on their facebook page and having the posts deleted. Earlier this month REI.com had an awesome deal on the Garmin 405 HR monitor. With tax and shipping it was $291 and with a $50 rebate being offered by Garmin the price was $241. This is over $100 less that the normal price of $350, which is not including tax (add another $28) I was very excited about this and posted on all of the running related sites I could. Fleet Feet took the delete approach, which left a bad taste in my mouth. Not that I can blame them for not wanting competitor advertising on their site, but they should have handled this in a much different way. The first choice would have been to contact me and ask me to remove it siting the above reason. I probably would have complied as this is a reasonable request, but I would have challenged them to meet this price or leave the post up on their Facebook page as it should be a site for runners. They should want what is best for runners, and if the runner chooses to buy from the cheaper online store then they would have at least built the goodwill for the store. I contend that most that are making the purchase, because it was $241 would not purchase this in their store as the $350 price point it too high. So what have they really lost by leaving the post on their page???
By deleting my posts they have ticked me off and have missed out at least on my membership in their training group and I will definitely point people away from Fleet Feet in the future.
I will make it a point to begin making regular posts again as I progress through training.
May the Force Be with You!
Chad
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Capitol 10k results
It has been almost a month since running this race. I suppose it is about time that I posted the race results.
This was a large 1ok race that I ran with my friends Tato and Steve. Tato and I drove up to the race early the morning of the race and met up with Steve who had picked up our race stuff for us. We got there fairly early as we had to deal with traffic and parking. We milled about for awhile till we met up with Steve. I started the race with Steve, but Tato started a few minutes behind us.
Right after the start I lost track of Steve so I had no idea where he was (in front or behind me. One of the most annoying things about the race was the slow people that started in a group that was a lot faster than they belonged. I remember going less than 1/2 mile ans there were already people walking. These people should be way to the back.
Anyway, I was running fairly well when I can upon he third hil in the race. This hill really zapped my energy. I had a hard time keeping up with my pace after that. This was also the best supported race that I have run. I seems like they had water stops about every mile and they had a misting system that you could run through. If it had been a little wamer that morning it would have very really awesome.
I finished the race around 54:11, which was a good result for me but was not a PR. Overall it was a good experience and may run the race again in the future.
Chad
This was a large 1ok race that I ran with my friends Tato and Steve. Tato and I drove up to the race early the morning of the race and met up with Steve who had picked up our race stuff for us. We got there fairly early as we had to deal with traffic and parking. We milled about for awhile till we met up with Steve. I started the race with Steve, but Tato started a few minutes behind us.
Right after the start I lost track of Steve so I had no idea where he was (in front or behind me. One of the most annoying things about the race was the slow people that started in a group that was a lot faster than they belonged. I remember going less than 1/2 mile ans there were already people walking. These people should be way to the back.
Anyway, I was running fairly well when I can upon he third hil in the race. This hill really zapped my energy. I had a hard time keeping up with my pace after that. This was also the best supported race that I have run. I seems like they had water stops about every mile and they had a misting system that you could run through. If it had been a little wamer that morning it would have very really awesome.
I finished the race around 54:11, which was a good result for me but was not a PR. Overall it was a good experience and may run the race again in the future.
Chad
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Update
I went for a very brief jog today to test out the knee to see if I would have any pain while running. I am happy to report that it did not hurt. YEAH!!!
Also, my friend Tato is going to be running the race with Steve and I. Should be fun!!!
My time to beat will be 54:01 as that is my PR time from the Bird Lover's run.
Chad
Also, my friend Tato is going to be running the race with Steve and I. Should be fun!!!
My time to beat will be 54:01 as that is my PR time from the Bird Lover's run.
Chad
Friday, March 27, 2009
Upcoming Race - Austin Capitol 10k
On Sunday March 29th I have signed up to run in the Austin Capitol 10k race. I am running this race with a friend that I used to work with. He has run this race several times in the past several years and said that it is a fun race. According to its website it is the 5th largest 10k race in the country.
Over the last three weeks it has been pretty difficult to find the time to get out there and run and have only run 1 day a week. This week I started back in with regular running. When I started back this week I could defintely tell that I had lost a little bit of my fitness. I ran on Sunday and the run felt pretty good, but did feel a little tightness on my right hamstring.
I made it out to run again on Monday. From the getgo I could tell that I was still feeling the effects of the run on Monday as my legs were pretty stiff and a little sore. So I took it easy and ran 6 miles.
I took a break from running on Tuesday and worked out on the bowflex. I went out for a six mile run on Wednesday and everything felt pretty good UNTIL I finished. Almost immediately I noticed some soreness in my left knee. UGH!!! This was definitely not what I needed right before a race.
I took the dog for a two mile walk while I cooled down and there wasn't any pain while walking , but it returned when I stopped. I iced it for a while and went to bed. The next morning there was just a little bit of soreness, but it was not bad and today it felt normal.
I am planning on going for an easy run tonight or tomorrow to see how the knee is holds up. I am hoping that the soreness was only temporary and I want have any issues on Sunday.
Chad
Over the last three weeks it has been pretty difficult to find the time to get out there and run and have only run 1 day a week. This week I started back in with regular running. When I started back this week I could defintely tell that I had lost a little bit of my fitness. I ran on Sunday and the run felt pretty good, but did feel a little tightness on my right hamstring.
I made it out to run again on Monday. From the getgo I could tell that I was still feeling the effects of the run on Monday as my legs were pretty stiff and a little sore. So I took it easy and ran 6 miles.
I took a break from running on Tuesday and worked out on the bowflex. I went out for a six mile run on Wednesday and everything felt pretty good UNTIL I finished. Almost immediately I noticed some soreness in my left knee. UGH!!! This was definitely not what I needed right before a race.
I took the dog for a two mile walk while I cooled down and there wasn't any pain while walking , but it returned when I stopped. I iced it for a while and went to bed. The next morning there was just a little bit of soreness, but it was not bad and today it felt normal.
I am planning on going for an easy run tonight or tomorrow to see how the knee is holds up. I am hoping that the soreness was only temporary and I want have any issues on Sunday.
Chad
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Running at Tyler State Park
As I previously wrote I had mapped out a running route while we were camping at State Park. There was a really nice loop that went around the camping area and the distance was just over three miles. I figured I could run the loop twice and have a god six mile run.
As I had also mentioned before the park had a lot of hills!!! I ended up going on one run while camping and that was only one loop around the park. The hills were HORRIBLE!!! I had to take pictures of the hills as we were leaving the campground so that you could share my pain.
This is the first hill that I came upon shortly after starting the run. This hill is going up (the picture almost makes it look like it is going down) and it is much steeper than it looks (at least that is my story - this is the equivalent to the fish that got away story for runners!!!)
And yes where there are uphills there are usually down hills. At this park they were very steep downhills and on some of them I had to keep myself from flying down the hills (or rolling down them. These next two pictures show two of the steep down hills that were on the loop.
The next three pictures are more of the uphills and down hills on this route. I think there were about 8 hills on the three mile loop around the park.
I had planned on running the loop again going the opposite direction to see how that way went, but I put it off so that we could take the girls on a hike, but we ended up packing up camp and going to Jill's brothers in Dallas because the weather was supposed to turn cold and wet. I think it ended up being a good call as it was pretty cold the next morning and there was a drizzle.
Overall we had a great time camping and plan to go on a couple of more trips in April.
May the Force be with you!!!
As I had also mentioned before the park had a lot of hills!!! I ended up going on one run while camping and that was only one loop around the park. The hills were HORRIBLE!!! I had to take pictures of the hills as we were leaving the campground so that you could share my pain.
This is the first hill that I came upon shortly after starting the run. This hill is going up (the picture almost makes it look like it is going down) and it is much steeper than it looks (at least that is my story - this is the equivalent to the fish that got away story for runners!!!)
And yes where there are uphills there are usually down hills. At this park they were very steep downhills and on some of them I had to keep myself from flying down the hills (or rolling down them. These next two pictures show two of the steep down hills that were on the loop.
The next three pictures are more of the uphills and down hills on this route. I think there were about 8 hills on the three mile loop around the park.
I had planned on running the loop again going the opposite direction to see how that way went, but I put it off so that we could take the girls on a hike, but we ended up packing up camp and going to Jill's brothers in Dallas because the weather was supposed to turn cold and wet. I think it ended up being a good call as it was pretty cold the next morning and there was a drizzle.
Overall we had a great time camping and plan to go on a couple of more trips in April.
May the Force be with you!!!
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Spring Break Running
This week we are on Spring Break with the kids and are staying at Tyler State Park in northeast TX. I have not run for the last several days as Friday night I was packing to leave for camping on Saturday. On Saturday we drove all day (7 hours) and then had to set up camp. On Sunday, I scoped out the park to determine a running route and I that the park road is a three mile loop. The bad part is that there are massive massive hills. They have really really long hills and they have really really steep hills.
I think that I will try and run this three mile loop tomorrow morning. I am afarid that I will only be able to do it once.
May the Force be with me tomorrow.
Chad
I think that I will try and run this three mile loop tomorrow morning. I am afarid that I will only be able to do it once.
May the Force be with me tomorrow.
Chad
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