Last Saturday, 12 Nov 2011, was the first SUPERHERO Scramble at Quiet Waters Park in Deerfield Beach, FL. I finished in 1:04:02, placing 84th in my age group and 205th overall. It was my first obstacle race, the first of many I have lined up. First of all, I want to say it was crazy fun. It was a roughly 3.5 mile course with 18 obstacles that really put me through the ringer, especially the first two obstacles which were water-based obstacles. I say roughly because somehow I hit the STOP button my new Timex Run Trainer and so 12 minutes of the course were not recorded and I do not have an exact distance. I have no idea how I stopped recording but I suspect it was done around the same time as the sandbag carry. This is another minor annoyance with this watch that I have: those super squishy buttons are apparently easy to press on accident and there’s no way to lock the display (which there is on the Timex Global Trainer).

Over the months, I have heard these obstacle course races were tough and truth be told, they are what spurred me on to start running, I just wanted to participate in something really fun but challenging but not necessarily sadistically grueling (triathlon, anybody?). And that is exactly what I experienced at the SUPERHERO Scramble. The run was cake, it was not the tough part — except for all those damned switchbacks we ran, there must have been 12 of them. But the obstacles whipped my butt and they were totally fun! Skipping the first two water obstacles which killed me, the rest were not terribly troubling. There were wall jumps and climbs, ammo can shoulder presses, tire runs/jumps, and even a childhood favorite: sack race! And the organizers through in some slimy goop on two obstacles for extra grossness and/or fun. I have no idea what that junk was but it felt completely hydrophobic and felt so gross against my skin that was covered in dirt, mud, and gobs of sweat. It reminded me of the gelled fat in a can of Spam, if that gives you any idea. As for the course itself at Quiet Waters Park, it was pretty nice. The dreaded switchbacks were the existing mountain bike trails and ran along the rim of much of the park’s lakes, which was awesome. That always gave me a good view to keep me moving forward. It was covered in loose chunky coral rock which sucked, I saw a few people roll their ankles pretty hard and I even did once. I finally got to use my Merrell Trail Gloves on their intended trail terrain and for the most part, they worked pretty well. There were some times where the traction did not hold but that was probably due to the loose dirt and not a total failure of the Vibram rubber. When I got home after the race, I immediately washed them, they were absolutely gross.

After I plowed through the final obstacle — a giant slip-n-slide — and I finally showered off, I noticed that I had lost one of my earrings (how?!) and I ended up losing my RoadID bracelet too. The bracelet popped off on the 3rd water obstacle, probably after latching onto a rope. That sucked but it happens. The best news of the day was the fact that my TRT held up excellently except for the accidental problem with stopping the track recording. I was more worried about the slime penetrating the internals but I have seen no such evidence so far, it had no issues with the water of course. My race data is missing most of the heart rate data since the ANT+ straps aren’t exactly waterproof and they are not exactly meant to be used in water. From what I could tell and observe, I stayed in the 150s for the most part. I will try to replicate this next month at the Warrior Dash which is also at Quiet Waters Park but is a shorter race so hopefully, I can bump my time to sub-1 hour (there’s no swimming!).

The most important part of the race for me was that my ITB issues were mostly not to be found. There were times later in the race where my form was suffering and I could feel my hip starting to hurt but on the whole, I walked out of the race with no ITB pain at all, no pain on Sunday either. I did hurt my right shoulder on some obstacle, that still hurts. I heard one guy actually separated his shoulder in the middle of the race. I have absolutely no idea what obstacle that could have happened on unless it was the cargo net climb. I could not imagine how the guy would have even done this at all unless he was in the special Scramble Gamble wave at the end of the day that was a wave competition for money. If I knew there was probably $500+ on the line, I would go HAM too. I wonder if it was one of the juiceheads I saw getting hyped up before the wave who looked like they were prepping for an MMA match and not a 3 mile run. One dude was even warming up for his wave (2PM) when I got there at 10AM, which is just absolutely bonkers.

Overall, I am pretty sure this was a success for the company behind the SUPERHERO Scramble and I know they are already planning the next race on March 24, 2012. I have already registered but I am also trying to get some friends to run with me, it would be much more fun with a team. In fact, the next three or four races I have on my schedule are all obstacle course races and they should all be a blast!