Savage Race Charlotte 2019 Recap

Let me preface this with saying I have been bad about posting.  I haven’t even been looking at my own blog.  The funny thing is, other people are.  I used to be so good about just posting every day stuff.  Not sponsored content, but real stuff.  I vow to be better.

Here we go.  Savage Race 2019.  I did the Blitz (or short course race) in 2018.  After teaching a Flywheel class and running a few miles with friends after class, my husband and I headed up to the course.  We jogged and “monkeyed” around finishing in the top three in both of our age groups.  I suppose it was time for us to move to the competitive wave and hit the long course.

Day of race, our back door knob broke making it impossible for us to shut the door.  With three kids and a babysitter in 90 degree heat it made it difficult for us to leave for over four house to make the trek up to the race and back.  That said, my husband opted to head to Lowes, replace the door knob and take his chances on being late.  I took my own car and gave myself plenty of time to warm up.  Just typing that makes me sound super selfish.  Sorry Jeff.

Race launched at 9 AM sharp.  Men and women competitive athletes start at the same time. I truly don’t like that.  While some men should be at the start line ahead of me, most men need an ego check with how fast some of the women are.  Fellas, let the ladies move to the front.

The course was all trail running, as evidenced by my Garmin map above.  Disregard the temperature.  That cannot be right.  Little to no shade the first four miles.  We ran quite a bit before we hit the first obstacle.  This was good as it gave people room to make space.  Bear with me.  Some of the obstacle names are inappropriate.  I will do my best to explain and post pictures.

• Obstacle 1 – Barn Doors – An 8 foot wall with gaps to assist you climbing up and over.  Picture a ladder of two by fours.  No problems here.  At this point everyone is so fresh, obstacles like this can be done by almost anyone without assistance.
• Obstacle 2 – Low Crawl – Picture a muddy pit with barb wire.  You have to crawl on your knees and elbows under the barb wire in the mud.  Pretty standard obstacle in these types of races.  Easy, but dirty.
• Obstacle 3 – Squeeze Play –  Sorry – no pictures of this – they had these barrels that were on the ground attached to a pole.  You had to lift the barrels up and crawl underneath them. Easy once you got the hang of it.

By the time we got through obstacle three we had hit mile 1.  Whoop whoop!  I can’t tell by looking at the map where the water stations were, but I can tell you there were a lot of them.  While I am here let me talk about them.

1. The water was in bottles.  Weird.  I have never seen this.  So whatever you didn’t drink was wasted.  But at least you knew it was clean.  Was it costly?  Probably.
2. I stopped at EVERY water station.  Trust me when I say you should get water whenever you can in a race longer than one hour.
3. I drank water, and I also dumped water on my body.  The heat was intense.  Drink 8 ounces, dump 8 ounces over the top of your head or your chest.  Bring core temperature down.

Back to the race.

• Obstacle 4 – Mud N Guts  – more crawling around in mud on your hands and knees.  I hate getting muddy.  No lie.  I will swim, run, jump off a cliff, but I hate being covered in mud.  Easy for anyone.
• Obstacle 5 – Back Scratcher – Four alternating five foot walls.  Some you jumped over, some you climbed under.  Again, at this point in the race with or without assistance this should not be an obstacle people struggle with.
• Obstacle 6 – Big Cheese – Another wall with places to put your hands and feet as you climbed over it.  Again, with basic core strength and little to no assistance this is easy for most.
• Obstacle 7 – Swamp Donkey – I don’t remember what this is. Can’t really find it. I think it was us running through a bunch of muddy water.  My biggest tip anytime you have to do this:  Run on the outside, not right down the middle.  It’s shallower and you can keep your hands out of the water.  The last thing you want to do is get your hands wet unless you have to – especially muddy.

We are now at mile 2.  I ran the first two miles around a 7:30 min/mile on trails.  That is fast.  With little to no shade, my legs were already starting to feel toast.  We must move on though.  I had my husband within eyesight the first 1-2 miles before I got slowed down on some on the tall people exercises.

• Obstacle 8 – The Great Wall – I broke my finger on this obstacle the year before.  This year, I cleared it no problem.  96 inches tall. What’s that? 8 feet?  I got this on my first try as this another standard obstacle I have seen in other races.
• Obstacle 9 – Venus Guy Trap – Inverted walls.  Jumping over straight walls is one thing. Try them at a slant.  It’s a different kind of control.  Again, this was no problem.
• Obstacle 10 – Teeter Tuber – I was cruising y’all.  I had no doubt I was going to crush this course.  Until the Teeter Tuber.  I wish I had a picture.  I had to shimmy up a slippery tube that would at some point teeter totter over and leave me on the other side.  My biggest advice on this obstacle is to try one tube.  If you can’t catch your feet and hands, move on quickly.  I used SO much energy on my first tube and actually lost a lot of confidence.  The second I moved to another tub, I made it through very quickly.  That was not after I had lost several MINUTES of time though!

At we are at mile 3.  Lots of running to get to obstacle number 11 and 12.

• Obstacle 11 – Battering Ram – I actually love this obstacle.  See below.  This was a picture from last year.  You have to heave these metal sliders across a pole.  Switching to a different set half way through.  Grip intensive, yet not a problem for me.

• Obstacle 12 – Big Ass Cargo – It is what the name implies.  Climb up a cargo ladder suspended in a tall A-frame and back down the other side.  Stay tight to places the ladder is attached to the frame.  It is easier to move up and down the tighter parts o the net rather than the sagging middle parts.
•  Obstacle 13 – Chopsticks – NEW! – by this obstacle we had looped back around to the “spectator zone”.  It’s always more fun when people are watching. I did not find this obstacle hard, yet a good test of core strength and the ability to slow down enough to get through on try number 1.

• Obstacle 14 – Shriveled Richard – I told you the names were inappropriate.  You are literally submerging yourself from head to toe in ice water to swim underneath floating walls.  I’ll let my facial expression do the talking.  The ice bath was a welcome relief to the flaming temperatures.

• Obstacle 15 – Slippery Incline – Now that they got us soaking wet, they asked us to scale a slippery inverted wall by using a rope to assist us up and over.  Much harder than it looks, yet doable.  No tips here other than walk your way up the wall allowing your weight to sit into your hips while trusting your grip strength.
• Obstacle 16 – Inversion Therapy – This was another new obstacle close to the spectator zone.  I wish I had pictures.  Friends, ADVICE – hook your feet around and let the legs slide.  I warped through this fast because I had high socks on and used my hands to let my legs slide.  You are hanging upside down on a tube shimmying backwards to the bell.

Introduce Mile 4.  We ran quite a bit again into the woods before we came across the next obstacle and mile.

• Obstacle 17 – Wheel World – I had made SPACE between myself and any other ladies and men at this point.  The photographer (who was suspended off the top of the rig) actually directed me down the best lane for photos.  Thank you!  I love this obstacle.  There aren’t enough obstacles like this in OCR.  Thank you Savage Race for this good one.

• Obstacle 18 – Lumberjack Lane – Remember this infamous photo? See below.  This log is a joke.  While I was coming around the bend to return my log, I heard a male in front of me scream and yell about a snake.  Um hell no.  I wasn’t about to run through that area by myself.  Y’all I legit stopped and waited for the next guy so I could follow him through the path.  We did not see a snake, but I know one was out there.
• Obstacle 19 – Davy Jones’ Locker – Here come the height obstacles – Just to get to the top of this structure was a challenge. As seen by the pictures below. By the time I made it to the top, I wasn’t sure how to proceed other than jump out and away from the structure.  My attempt to keep my hands by my side epically failed.  As did my attempt to keep a normal face.

• Obstacle 20 – Twirly Bird – I will be the first to admit, I “failed” two obstacles on first attempt.  The tube obstacle I talked about above and the Twirly Bird.  Note, I did get them on second attempt, which in Savage Race rules counts.  I saw another Spartan SGX coach, Sam, at this obstacle and asked for pointers.  The last time I had seen him was when I was pregnant at the Spartan Race obstacle specialist training.  His tip (which was the key to me passing) – hold as high as you can on the netting and hand holds.  I was trying to actually use the hand holds.  Don’t do that.  Use the rope that supports the handles.  I used a flexed arm grip all the way across in the event that I dropped.  Through all of my chatting and failing, another girl caught up with me!
• Obstacle 21 – Pedal for the Medal – Instead of trying to pass her, I used a new strategy.  I could hear her breathing hard.  I knew I had her beat on the run and we were matched on obstacle efficiency.  So, I followed her.  When I got to this obstacle I destroyed it.  That’s not me below, but that’s what I did.  Put both feet on one side. Not one foot on each side.  I don’t do deadlifts and hamstring curls for nothing.  I legit crushed this.

• Obstacle 22 – Twin Peaks – Matched warped walls to run up and over.  They have redone this obstacle and made it easier by placing footing in the ramps.
• Obstacle 23 – Sawtooth – The infamous Savage Race monkey bars.  Again, now that my upper body strength and grip strength are so solid, I love stuff like this.  Could I do it over and over without failing?  I would rerun the race all day to hit stuff like this.

• Obstacle 24 – Nuttsmasher – As the name implies, if you fall you would smash your nuts.  Maybe. If you have them.  Pictures are from last year. We ran through mile 5 by the time we got here.

• Obstacle 25 – Colossus – Lots of trail running to get us to the next mile and end of the race.  I kept running behind the same girl. It was kind of fun at that point.  We chatted.  I probably annoyed her.  We climbed up another structure to go down a big slide.  Again, you’ve got to love my facial expressions.

• Obstacle 26 – Kiss My Walls – the death obstacle to my husband and many others.  The girl that I had been following tried this obstacle first.  To which she fell.  I took my shot on one wall and completely crushed it.  At that point, I knew I had her.  This is where climbing is important as a component to obstacle training.  And BODY AWARENESS!  Slowing down long enough to move across.  The fastest girl on the course couldn’t get through this obstacle.  That’s money out of her pocket over a basic grip strength obstacle.
• Obstacle 27 – Piece of Queso – New!  I liked this.  I actually had caught up to 5th place at this point and had a shot at catching her as she worked her way through it and I started.

• Obstacle 28 – Blazed – Unfortunately I didn’t have enough time.  I jumped the fire as  she crossed the finish line.

My takeaways.  I had FUN.  Was I uncomfortable? YES.  Here’s the deal.  I am 3 months out from turning 35.  Moving into a new age group.  There were women from Colorado, Florida, South Carolina.  All over.  I do not focus significantly on my nutrition.  I drink beer and wine quite regularly.  I took an anniversary vacation two weeks before the race.  I walk 20K+ steps a day between doing workouts and taking care of three kids.  I guess what I’m trying to say is I did pretty bad ass for everything I have going on.  No matter how I finished, I am proud.  If you think that is my ego talking, you don’t know me.  I want nothing more than for the people I surround myself with to be proud of themselves.