Tough Bloke

On Friday, Shauny made the decision not to run the Tough Bloke Challenge this weekend and offered me his spot. So, at 6:30am this morning Annabel & I headed down to Appin to check it out. All I knew was that it was 6km of running with some military-style obstacles thrown in. I know now that it was basically just 35mins of awesome fun!

The Elite category started in waves of 3 people every minute from 9am. I set off at 9:05, with a crossfit-trainer lady and a track-runner guy with toothpick legs who looked like he COULD run. Ahead of us were 11 guys and another lady, all of whom looked like they took themselves pretty seriously and were wearing shirts with slogans like "I'm a personal trainer, I'm awesome" (or something to that effect). Turns out they were nowhere near as tough as they either looked or thought they were. I caught 6 of them by the first obstacle and only missed catching 2 of them by the finish. Essentially the Tough Bloke is a trail runner's race, but in order to effectively navigate the obstacles you need to be able to lift your own bodyweight. It therefore played pretty well into my combo of running and crossfit training.

The first obstacles involved hurdles (over one / under the next) and climbing over cargo nets and things. The monkey bars were also fun and I managed to gap everyone but the track-runner. I took him in the first of the tunnels and consolidated the lead in the next 2km running stretch, parts of which were uphill. I didn't mind the mud, although I was a bit concerned that my bloody hand (which had ripped open on the monkey bars after a blister formed wielding the sledghammer yesterday) would get infected. Ah well.

Then came my two least favourite obstacles; the water pipe and the balance beam. The water pipe because it was basically submerged and I had to hold my breath and duck my head to get through. I hadn't realised this going in and swallowed some water so was left coughing and spluttering 10m into a submerged pipe!! The balance beam was terrible - I fell off after about 30m (almost at the finish) and had to restart. I reckon I lost a 30s - 60s right there. I made up time on the wall and the remaining climbing / swing / flying fox obstacles. By that time I was neck and neck with some personal trainer bloke I had caught up to, so legged it for the last km to the final obstacle, "Hell's Gate". It was just a rope which you had to shimmy along while being cheered on by the crowd. It was awesome! My skins came in handy to protect the calves from rope-burn.

I ended up finishing in 34:24, the second fastest time of the day. The guy who beat me is a firefighter who worked a shift last night (although he assures me he got more sleep than the night before the Six Foot Track this year!). What a machine - full respect to him. Apparently there were 3 times faster than mine yesterday, but the track may have been muddier today. I don't care - I had a great time and am stoked with how I went. I even won some compression gear and supplements!

Photos to come.