On April 26th, Miah and I participated in the Courage Challenge in Stuart, FL. To sum up the experience, Miah repeated these words the whole 5 miles, "This is awesome!"
The race was held at the Halpatiokee Park which provided great trails and water crossings. There were 20 obstacles over 5 miles. Many of those challenges were in groups of 2 or 3. The first two were tires and then balance beam. I find it interesting that the beam was so early as we had to stand in line for about 5-10 minutes. I usually put the balance challenge later in the AUTEC race because of the potential bottle neck. Anyway, there were lots of walls. Miah needed a boost on most of the walls but he did a great job getting up and over. Thankfully, the obstacle he fell off had 2 feet of water on the other side. I was impressed that he did almost all of the obstacles. He skipped the 15' wall, with mommy's insistence. I could have possibly helped him up, but he would have struggled to get back down. He also omitted the monkey bars because it was pretty high and he was pretty dehydrated at that point. I managed to complete all of the obstacles successfully, except for the monkey bars. They were made of rope which threw me off. I'm not sure if that made it harder or not but I made it about half way across before falling. I might have tried again but Miah was waiting and dying of thirst so I just went on.
The one complaint I had was the lack of water stations. I didn't bring my handheld because I didn't want to deal with it while navigating the obstacles, but man did I regret that decision! There was water at mile 1 but then no water until mile 4. There was a station at around 3 or 3.5 but there were only cups, no water. For a race in Florida, they needed to plan better. It was probably 90 degrees and sunny with no shade for most of the course. I'm glad we didn't over heat but Miah was suffering. Hopefully next time they have enough water.
At the end, we got our medals and shirts and then rinsed off under some hose showers. After drinking a bunch of juice and water, we stopped at the food trucks. I found a veggie burger and Miah and Miah split orders of ribs and chicken wings.
Thanks Kelly for my "awesome" birthday present!!!
The race was held at the Halpatiokee Park which provided great trails and water crossings. There were 20 obstacles over 5 miles. Many of those challenges were in groups of 2 or 3. The first two were tires and then balance beam. I find it interesting that the beam was so early as we had to stand in line for about 5-10 minutes. I usually put the balance challenge later in the AUTEC race because of the potential bottle neck. Anyway, there were lots of walls. Miah needed a boost on most of the walls but he did a great job getting up and over. Thankfully, the obstacle he fell off had 2 feet of water on the other side. I was impressed that he did almost all of the obstacles. He skipped the 15' wall, with mommy's insistence. I could have possibly helped him up, but he would have struggled to get back down. He also omitted the monkey bars because it was pretty high and he was pretty dehydrated at that point. I managed to complete all of the obstacles successfully, except for the monkey bars. They were made of rope which threw me off. I'm not sure if that made it harder or not but I made it about half way across before falling. I might have tried again but Miah was waiting and dying of thirst so I just went on.
The one complaint I had was the lack of water stations. I didn't bring my handheld because I didn't want to deal with it while navigating the obstacles, but man did I regret that decision! There was water at mile 1 but then no water until mile 4. There was a station at around 3 or 3.5 but there were only cups, no water. For a race in Florida, they needed to plan better. It was probably 90 degrees and sunny with no shade for most of the course. I'm glad we didn't over heat but Miah was suffering. Hopefully next time they have enough water.
At the end, we got our medals and shirts and then rinsed off under some hose showers. After drinking a bunch of juice and water, we stopped at the food trucks. I found a veggie burger and Miah and Miah split orders of ribs and chicken wings.
Thanks Kelly for my "awesome" birthday present!!!