kettlebellguy

Amazing Race 6-26-2010

Note: This is my personal recollection of what occurred today. If your recollection is different then….get your own blog.

The day of “The Amazing Race” had arrived and I was off to SPC Crossfit early in the morning, arriving about 8:30AM. The parking lot was already starting to fill up with cars. I suspected at that point that the response to “The Amazing Race” might be more than expected.

When the final count was in I understood there were 22 teams of 4 people which means 88 CrossFitters were getting ready face whatever would come with “The Amazing Race”.

There were no prizes, no awards, just the opportunity to try something new, work hard, meet other CrossFitters and face the unknown. Also, it was an opportunity to donate to a popular CrossFit cause, “The Wounded Warriors Project”.

The first WOD happened in the parking lot. 7 snatches, 20 push ups, 30 squats, 3 rounds. 3 team members work, one rests as you rotate through the movements.

Once we finished the WOD we were able to get a clue for the next location. Then is where the real work started.

CLUE 1 : You have just started your DAY down the TRAIL of HAPP(Y)NESS. We figured out that we needed to go to the Happy Day Lodge area in the Cleveland Regional Park System. We figured all that out and actually made it to the venue.

Side note: Somewhere along the way in our travels Brandon said “That looks like Brian’s van!”. I looked and agreed that the distinct markings on the van made it a sure thing that it was Brian’s. But why was it setting along the road with no one in it? That mystery would be solved later.

When we arrived at the venue we were pointed down a path and told to “Run Forest, Run”. Big fail on my part because at this point I did not see the handout provided about the run.

I have to give it to my team members because Aaron was concerned enough to asked if the pace was OK with me. Hell yea!. Of course at that point we had only gone 10 feet. Like most of my other running experiences I got to watch them get farther and farther into the distance, soon out of sight. I figured this was OK. Let them go at their pace and then they would have plenty of time to rest and be fresh for the next WOD. I was able to meet a lot of nice people along the way, as they passed me.

As the run progressed (and I was moving as fast as I could) I started to get an every increasing feeling of doom. The first problem was no one else was passing me. Could I already be dead last? Then there was some confusion and a fork in the road. As I have statistically proven throughout my life the probability is that without clear direction I will pick the wrong way. Nothing has changed with that.

I was sure that I had made a loop and was just headed back on the trail I had been on. That was OK with me because at least there might be an end to this. Then all of a succeed a figure in black starts to bound through the forest. It was “Too Much”. As Charlie passed me he said “You’re going the wrong way”. This did cause me to wonder why he was running through the woods, the same direction I was, telling me I was going the wrong way. Of course, there was no way in hell I was going to turn around and go the other way. I had already been that way and that did not work.

At that point I just dug my feet in and decided that I was going to continue that way because at least I believed in my heart that it would actually take me out of woods.

Charlie was the last human I saw on the trail. Could I really be that slow that everyone is done, everyone is ahead of me. I just could not believe that.

Eventually I was able to hear traffic and then actually see a road to the left of me. That had to be Route 303. I just set my mind to keep going and where ever I popped out of those freaking woods I would just set down and wait for someone to find me. I knew I had the keys to my truck. The truck was the only way to move the equipment and the scorecard was in the truck so my teammates would have to find me to move on.

The thought did pass through my mind that now would be a prefect time to have my cell phone actually with me to call one of my teammates (note for next event).

With a possible plan for survival in placed I then started to worry about my teammates reaction to my big screw up. They could not move on without me and here I had got myself lost in the woods. I was already rehearing my apology.

Then I could here the sounds of human voices. Maybe I would actually get out of this alive.

There were my teammates, all safe but exhausted because they had just recently popped out of the woods ahead of me. Apparently that happens when they also went the wrong way. I canceled the apology routine and shifted to my “why the hell did you leave me behind to die” speech. “What happened to no man left behind?” As so often happens in life I was saved total shame and embarrassment, not by my actions, but by the actions of others.

I came to learn later that getting lost in the woods was one of the most popular part of that WOD and that my team and I were not alone in not being able to find their way down a path in the woods.

Recovering what little dignity we had we now earned the right to see Clue 3:

1st things 1st, the MAIN reason for this event is community. I was able to come up with “It has to be at 1st and Main”. But what city? Aaron and Josh took the lead and somehow we ended up in a little community park at 1st and Main St, Anytown, Ohio.

This was another suck fest of a WOD. It was handstand push ups and burpees. I can’t remember the number or reps or how we broke everything up (left that to Aaron to figure out which could be a good or bad thing) but I was able to push out 15 things that resembled hand stand push ups with Brandon holding my legs up in the air. Somehow that is all the handstand push ups I had to do. Then we were doing rounds of burpees. Josh and Aaron did come to the rescue and did 15 at a time to the 10 at a time that Brandon and I were able to push out. As the big guys Brandon and I were at a real disadvantage on the burpees.

Once we finished that we had the next clue which almost did us in. We had a Policemen, a Marine, a Teacher and a Senior Technical Team Lead to figure out the following:

The key to unLOCK the workout is in the equation:
15 X 3=___+20=___-7=___X2=___/4_____

Although it seems impossible to believe all four of us were able to come up with 4 different answers, none of them correct. The actual answer was 29 so we finally figured out we had to get to Lock 29 on the Erie Canal.

We made it to Lock 29 along with the other CrossFitters and every fool in town with a bike, all in a parking lot that holds about 30 cars. Brandon and I were able to find a parking spot and took the equipment to the workout area. At that point Josh and Aaron joined us and we learned that we got to start this mess out with……a run. Straight up a mountain. Well, it seemed like a mountain. But to get to the mountain you had to cross the railroad tracks….where the Cuyahogo Valley Scenic Line had just decided to pull into the station to set and wait while bikers got on and off of the train.

Some of the teams had already completed the mountain run and the movements for the WOD and were ready to head onto the fifth and final WOD but were stuck in the parking lot because of the train.

Our team started walking along the train to get to the front of the train so we could go around to the other side. (some people were trying to crawl under the idling train but the conductor of the train seemed to have issue with that) Just as we got there and Josh, Aaron and Brandon made it to the other side the engineer yelled at me to STOP, do not cross the tracks because he was starting the fricking train up. So, I had to stand there while the train got going and wait for it to be gone to get back with the team.

That is when we learned that we would follow the incline up on a service road until we came to an orange cone and then come back down so we could start the movements for the WOD.

Lets get a mental picture of this. I needed to run….but straight up a hell hill.

I did not stop, I kept going and at that point I was having a real internal dialog with myself about this facing the unknown and unknowable crap.

Then I saw Josh, Aaron and Brandon all coming back toward me. At least there was a top…..somewhere.

I made it to the top and then started back down. Now, this is where maturity had to kick in. I could have taken advantage of the fact that going down would increase my speed but I knew that if I started to run the only way I would be able to stop would be to throw myself onto the ground. Because of that I had to just do a steady pace down the hill. I was not going to be stupid at this point, having already done that several time already. I was not going to get hurt.

I made it safety down to the bottom and, with my teammates about 300 feet in front of me (notice the theme here) , continued back to where our equipment and WOD awaited us.

Now, this is the part where I am suppose to get really pissed at the park system because by this point the park rangers had caught on to what was happening and kicked us all out. We had to collect our equipment and leave the park.

While I would have fought through and completed whatever it was we had to do (muscle ups or dips, about 1 millions power cleans and who knows what else), I have to admit that I took the news that we were shut down like a man and got the hell back to my truck as quick as I could.

At that point we were out of the event. The other thing that was working against us was time. It was now noon. We had been going for 3 hours and Aaron had to get to work by 2 so we would not have been able to complete everything anyway.

We made our way back to SPC CrossFit where a couple of teams had actually been able to get the previous WOD done before the wrath of the park rangers fell upon the event and completed the 5th WOD.

There was food and fun and pictures afterwords in the parking lot.

Brian and Josh were headed back to change the tire on Brian’s van. I always thought that I was the most unlucky person when it came to vehicles but I have learned over time that Brian is very vehicle challenged.

It was a fun event and went well for the first attempt. Indications are that we may try this again soon.

If you approach this event as something fun, that is what it can be. There are just too many things going on that can create roadblocks. Luck plays a huge part in what happens. Examples being flat tires, inability to add 2 plus 2 and trains.

We worked hard, had to think, got to spend time with good people and did our best with what we had to work with. That’s all good.

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