Nudity is Only Skin-Deep

Pro
- Course was solid, over all. Challenging hills, and a good length.
- Australian back crawl was a great obstacle. The hill leading to it was an obstacle itself. Though I have good, strong legs, I had to work them hard to make it through this one. Challenging, and the risk factor was not too high for those who had to really struggle to do it.
- The long, uphill tubes were another challenge. I imagined I was Bishop in Alien as I crept/slid my way through them. Lots of upper body strength necessary to make it through this one. Definitely not for the claustrophobic or those with great big butts. I could see a large person getting good and wedged. I found it a tight squeeze.
- The long, twisting, uneven trail through the forest. This was my favourite part. The downside is the trail is narrow and it was a bottleneck point because there were few places where people could squeeze to the side to allow faster runners to pass. That being said, I found my way and sprinted through the woods, while the vast majority appeared to take it at a snail's pace.
- There was a fire pit close to the finish line where racers could get warmed up.

Cons
- We arrived in plenty of time for my 11 am heat, but the parking lot was full. We were told by the attendant to drive all the way back to Best Buy and park in that parking lot. Shuttles were leaving from there regularly. I thought this was weird. The parking lot at Best Buy is not huge, so overflow from Bad Ass Dash would surely take all their customer parking spaces. Still, we drove back and parked there. There were about ten of us waiting, in all. A couple of the guys had been there at least 15 minutes and had seen no shuttles. We waited at least a half hour and no shuttles came. Finally, one of the women drove us back to the site, because she didn't want her kids to miss their run or to see their Dad run. When we got back to the site, parking was available, but at $20. Emails told us parking was $10. Not cool. And no, shuttles were not being sent to Best Buy, but to a parking lot somewhere a few blocks behind Best Buy. We'd all been given incorrect information.
- The registration line was horrendously long, and being shunted into a building through a narrow doorway. We waited well over an hour to get my racing kit. They needed a LOT more people processing contestants.
- Several obstacles were removed by the time I ran. Some had no one there, and no explanation of what to do, so no one did them. One of the water stations had no water by the time I got there. Good thing it wasn't a hot day.
- I saw no places where people could shower or get hosed off.
- Post-race snacks included a giant tray of loose crackers. Uhh, everyone is COVERED in mud. No one wants to reach into crackers when covered in mud. This was a strange and bad choice for food.

DANGER
I realize there's an element of danger in these races, but this is the first time I felt so paranoid of injury at an event. For this, I give this set of cons its own section.
- Pontoon bridge obstacle. This was problematic for a couple of reasons. First of all, it was the absolute worst bottleneck point in the entire race. I'm fairly sure I was stuck in line for this obstacle for a solid half hour. The reason there was such a bottleneck is because it was extremely unlikely anyone could do this obstacle quickly, and only two people could go at one time. Floating plastic cubes were tethered together in a very unstable bridge across a stream of unknown depth. I'm not sure even one person made it across on their feet. The chances of smashing your head off a pontoon while falling were high. The water appeared to be deep, and was so muddy that the bottom could not be seen. If anyone went under, no one would be able to see where they were. As I came up on my turn, I turned to a couple of the volunteers and asked, "How deep is the water?" They laughed and said, "Oh, 6 feet. No, thirty feet!" I said, "I ask because my asthma is bothering me, I cannot float, and water pressure on my chest often makes my asthma flare up suddenly."

That's when they realized I was asking for a damned good reason. But they still didn't know how deep it was.

I looked at it again, and figured I could probably belly creep my way across, and if I fell, I had to fall to the left where I could see a rope I could pull myself with if necessary. Even belly creeping was difficult. I made it. Just.

I don't think there was a life guard posted at this obstacle where there was a serious risk of drowning if someone fell off and bumped their head.
- Scaling wall with a rope. This sort of obstacle is normally one of my favourites. A rope hangs from the top of a tall wall. You grab the rope and walk up the side of the wall. The other side can be descended in a similar fashion. So I thought, "I've got this," and I walked on up the wall, piece of cake. On the other side, I slid my body down a bit, got a firm grab on the rope, and ... THE ROPE WAS NOT ATTACHED TO THE TOP. There was a lot of slack on that rope. I went into a straight fall down the wall, scraping the shit out of my elbow and giving my first-ever scream of terror at an obstacle race. Fortunately, I'm tall and hit the ground before the rope caught up suddenly. I kept my knees soft and landed ok. However, I heard someone else dislocated their shoulder on this obstacle. I'm not surprised. Someone shorter than me would've been caught up suddenly on that rope. Jebus.
- Mixed grouping of adults with children. For some bizarre reason, the 7-13 year old contestants had a shared course with the competitive adults. This was terribly dangerous, in my opinion. On some of the obstacles, a 200-lb adult falling, losing their grip, or losing control could result in pretty devastating injuries to another adult, let alone a 50-lb kid. The absolute worst was at the...
- Slip and Slide. When I saw kids were going down the same high speed slip and slide obstacle event as adults, I stopped and said, "ARE YOU SHITTING ME?" Of course, people weren't exactly taking turns and making sure the area was clear before jumping on. I moved to the side furthest away from the most kids and sat on my ass. At first, I didn't slide too well, but then the speed came from nowhere. It was like I'd been shot from a cannon. When I realized I'd lost all control, I immediately laid down on my back, arched my back up, and raised my head in an attempt to slow my speed, increase stability, and minimize damage to myself. I shot past the end of the tarps and kept going full speed for a good 30' or so. This was the second time I've screamed at an obstacle. There were people whizzing past me at high velocity. It was like a firing range where the guns are shooting out bullets made of soft muscle and breakable bones. knightky had been watching this obstacle. He saw numerous injuries, some from people wiping out, but even more terrifying, some from people hitting big rocks at the end of the tarp.

I don't know what the injury tally would be at this event, but it had to have been high.

I saw a few people in slings. But worst of all, at the end of the race, I saw a pallid, dead-looking man being rushed to an ambulance on a gurney while paramedics administered CPR on the run. Someone else saw someone being rushed away on a gurney with an oxygen mask. I don't know what happened to them. Maybe a heart attack, which could happen at any time, really. But maybe they were lost in the mud water? I don't know.

I won't be doing this race again. The clusterfuck of the beginning was bad enough, but the unnecessarily dangerous obstacles are the clincher.

I sure hope those men are ok.

It seems silly for me to differentiate between my performance, dance, and athletic itineraries, so I'm consolidating them.

Here's what's coming up:

Regularly Scheduled
- teaching dance classes at the Downtown Community Centre, Breithaupt Community Centre, and Aradia Fitness Studio. As of January, I hope to be teaching four times per week.
- CrossFit training. I try to make it into the box three to five times per week, with a mix of WoDs (Workouts of the Day) and Open Gym times, where I play and work on rope skills and weight training.
- Rock climbing. I try to go in at least once a month.
- Pole dance. I take advanced/master classes at Aradia once a week

Once the weather is more amenable, I want to get back to regular running and parkour practice.

Workshops/Competitions/One-Offs
- March 9, 2014. Butoh/voice workshop with Denise Fujiwara and Gerry Trentham
- April 12, 2014. Goruck Light.
- June 14, 2014. Metcon Blue 10km mountain obstacle race
- July 19, 2014. Warrior Dash: mountain obstacle race
- September 13, 2014. Badass Dash: mountain obstacle race

More events will show up, of course. I intend on participating in the CrossFit Opens, whenever that should happen.

Here are my results for the Warrior Dash on the weekend: I ranked 262nd for my division (women 40-49) out of 792. I ranked 1331rd over all, out of 6689 participants. My time was 50:45.80.

I don't think that's too bad for a course that hard, steep, and brutally hot!

( Here I am, looking remarkably unmuddy considering how filthy most people got. I guess I'm just dainty. )

Oh, hectic month, you sure are hectic: as hectic as longcat is long!

I've ramped up my training, as I said I would before, and am running a minimum of twice a week. Mondays, I run between 8-12 km of hills, and Wednesdays, I do a variety of running drills (sometimes sprints, sometimes intervals, sometimes hills, sometimes distance, sometimes cross-country, etc.). And then I run around the neighbourhood when I feel like it on other days, and run, when it's called for, at my CrossFit workouts. I still do not consider myself a good runner. But I am no longer a bad runner. I'm slow, but steadily getting faster, and my endurance is much better. I think I will be up to competing at Tough Mudder next year and half marathons, at this rate.

I've been training harder and more frequently than ever before, and my recovery time has improved dramatically. For example, Wednesday is possibly my hardest training day of the week. I do a minimum of 30 km of cycling, two hours of kung fu practice (which often includes about 400 squats as conditioning), and an hour of running drills. Oh yes, and the usual pushups are thrown into that mix. When I first started this training regimen, I was absolutely destroyed come Thursday. This week, I felt perfectly fine the day after, and am sure I could have done another full workout. However, I'm ramping down to save myself for tomorrow's race.

Tomorrow, I run the Warrior Dash. It's a 5km obstacle race, and looks like this.

So instead of a giant workout, I did a leisurely one. Basically, I went to the gym to play. I climbed the cargo net upside down just to see if I could. I did handstands. I did pistol squats, weighted (10-lb) glute ham raises, and 10-lb one-legged squats off a 24" box. I played on the rings and ropes a bunch.



The other night, I dreamed I could finally do kipping pull-ups with ease. Previously, I've only ever managed one. So I tried, and though they're certainly not pretty, I can do them singly now. It's a start.



Over the next week, I'll be teaching six fitness and kickboxing classes, and keeping up with my training schedule which goes as follows:

Sunday: push-ups
Monday: push-ups, 1 hour CrossFit, 90 minutes of running
Tuesday: push-ups, 2 hours of aerial silks
Wednesday: 2 hours of kung fu, 1 hour of running
Thursday: push-ups, light training for 1-2 hours
Friday: push-ups, light training

Cycling gets strewn about daily, because it's how I get around. I generally do a bare minimum of 10km a day. I'd do heavier training on Friday except that I'm competing again on Saturday in the Masters division of the UG Series.

I have another Masters competition in mid-August (Masters Mettle), a Strongman training seminar the week after, and then I'm off to hike the Inca Trail in Peru!

I'll be doing my push-ups all the while, except possibly while on the Peruvian trip, because I just don't know how feasible that will be. I'll continue where I left off upon my return, though.

Holy crap.

And yes, there are more competitions upon my return. I'm thinking of at least volunteering at a local zombie race. I'll be a zombie. Braaaains....

I still want to take up rock-climbing, but am not sure how to slot that in. There's only so much of me to go around, after all, and I still do other things, like teach, dance, sing, paint, write, cook, sleep, etc.

On Saturday I did my first-ever timed 5 km run. I'm not going to win any races. I was the slowest person who did the run by far. BUT, I am pleased. I didn't have to stop even once. I didn't even need to slow down. And at the end, I was fresh enough to put on a block-long sprint and finish in 35:51. I know now I was overly cautious in my cadence, but since it was my first time, I didn't really know how to pace myself. Lance, the CrossFit running coach, was impressed by my time, and says I should be able to shear it down to 30 minutes by October.

Here's our running group about five minutes after I finished the course. I pretty much crawled into position.

I was afraid I might run something like this camel, but apparently my form looks pretty solid.



( Behind this cut lie photos.... )

I wanted to go for a run yesterday, but my stupid arthritis was making my feet feel absolutely dreadful. However, this morning, my feet feel perfectly fine, and so off I went on my first run since the late spring, I think. I was afraid I'd have lost all my endurance, since I haven't been doing any running at all, but it seems all those jumping jacks I've been doing have put me in good stead. I did have to walk twice on the way, but not for very long. And I was able to do two good sprints on top of the steady jog, so I'm pretty pleased with myself.

I saw lots of ducks and geese on the way, and also two cranes standing stock still in the pond. I ran through low piles of damp autumn leaves, and then took a detour through a wooded area and jumped a couple of small deadfalls, all while listening to Prodigy and Manowar. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Now, post-shower, I need to get dressed up into something presentable to go and talk to a fitness club owner about teaching dance at his studio (*hope hope*). And then I'm off to the gym to lift heavy things before teaching dance tonight.

Spaced out betwixt all that is the usual housework, job search, and some reading. I just finished reading Dragon Keeper (Rain Wilds Chronicles, Vol. 1) by Robin Hobb, and have just started Antony and Cleopatra: A Novel (Masters of Rome) by Colleen McCullough. I used to read a lot of her historical novels about ten years or so ago, and it looks like she's written a few new ones in the interim.

I only have a couple of links for you, this time:

Vengeance of the Honeybees: Not the bees, NOT THE BEES!

Dancers Are Genetically Different Than The Rest Of Us: I don't know that I fit into this particular mould. I am about as nonspiritual a person as they come.

Prize-Winning Whole Wheat Bread: I think I'd like to try this out tomorrow. It's been too long since I last made bread, and if it works out, I want to start making all of my bread instead of buying it from the grocery store.

My biceps are returning, and I can do nice, slow, controlled chin-ups now.

Time to do a few errands downtown, and then attempt going for my first run of the year. It seems pretty nice out. Here's hoping my lungs don't freeze.

But first, have some links.

Bananas Exploding on Face: This fetish is new to me (thanks, balthcat).

Inside an Inflatable Whale: And this is ... almost romantic.

Butt Drugs: Umm (thanks, Jared).

He Who Casts the First Stone: Fundamentalist Christian army attacks people they disapprove of. Disgusting.

Coins of Ancient Rome: Oh, those naughty Romans. "Nude Figures and Erotic Images on Ancient Coins. These coins were made in Rome around the first century BC and they were paying for certain services, or they went as usual" (thanks, f00dave)?

Vulva Couch: I think I want one.

DJ granny Ruth Flowers takes Paris nightclubs by storm: Awesome (thanks, schwartzung)!

Just back from a run through the woods. The scenery was less than spectacular. Used condoms were tied to tree branches all along the path. Ick. Shower time.