The Encounter with the Red Balls

This past weekend I engaged in The WipeOut Run. The 5K run was interspersed with around 11 obstacles of various levels of craziness. While they weren't as intense as those in the actual TV show, I still managed to accomplish my fair share of damage. I don't know how I get myself into these things. The event lasted a couple of hours with wait time and lines for obstacles. Yet, I managed to encounter the following:

1) On the first obstacle, I wiped out. I ran on a large padded rod while the spinning sweeper arm spun after me, trying to knock me off the rod. I outran the arm, tripped, fell, and skidded about ten feet, stopping myself just in time before flying head first down the blow up slide at the end. Once I reached the ground and hauled myself up, I discovered that I had torn my knee up underneath my running capris. I heard I was lucky. A woman in front of me had to be carted off with a bloody face. Glad I didn't see that before my turn!

2) On the second obstacle, I wiped out. It was a rope swing. I have no upper body strength. I grabbed on, did a proper swing out, touched the other side with the toe of my foot but couldn't stand. Instead of letting go, however, I held on. Big mistake. I ended up sliding down the rope. Ouch. I landed on my side, felt my back snap weirdly, and ended up on the feet of the poor guy trying to supervise the obstacle. Two for two. This was going to be a LONG race.

3) I attempted to cross the big red balls. They were much smaller than the ones on TV. From the ground, they looked so easy. No problem. However, once I was on the platform and looking down on the next step I would have to take, i.e. jumping on top of a large sphere, I realized I had reservations. I leap-frogged onto the first of the three balls, then tipped gracefully (not at all) right on off.

4) One of the last obstacles I crossed was another where I had to run across a rod, this time over a pool, while large balls swung around and tried to knock me off. I ended up in a split on the rod, then fell over head first, legs straight up into the air, hitting the bottom of the pool with my back, despite the large life preserver on my torso. The pictures should be truly sensational.

5) Once I slid, floundered, climbed, fell, ran and cracked for the duration of the race, I devoured a Guiness with extreme enjoyment. Perhaps a drink beforehand would have been the answer. One of the ladies in my group had a Bloody Mary right before the race and she didn't wipe out once. 

Here's the thing. Despite all the injury and anxiety, it was a total blast. I'm ready for next year.