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2012 MCRD Boot Camp Challenge

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course_map02This weekend, for the second consecutive year and the third time overall, I ran in the Marine Corps Recruit Depot Boot Camp Challenge.  It’s a fun, but challenging, race that I look forward to. Sane people tend to avoid it, but I enjoy it. Both for the experience itself (it’s rare to be able to experience the same obstacle course as Marine recruits) and the bragging rights.

post_raceLast year I finished in 26:44. Going into this year’s race, I hoped to at least beat my time. Breaking 25 minutes would have been even better. My hopes were quickly dashed when the emcee announced that, because we the competitors had demanded a tougher challenge, twelve obstacles had been added to the race. Twelve! I’d call that a significant hit to a 5k time.

I felt good, but not great, during the first mile. Since I don’t much fancy running, I don’t do it very often. As such, I’m not a strong runner, and while I probably ran the first mile in around eight minutes, people were passing me. That first mile was fast, mainly because there was a distinct lack of hay bales this year. My training for this race is a combination of sprints, squats, and box jumps. I don’t care how strong a runner you are, scrambling over hay bales, leaping and crawling under logs, crawling through tunnels, and climbing over walls will tax your muscles to the point where running becomes quite difficult. In the back of my mind, I knew the missing hay bales was ominous, but I didn’t think much of it at the time. That is, until I reached the mid-point of the obstacle section.

I came up to a long line of people crawling in the sand. This wasn’t the kind of crawling babies do, but the kind of on-the-stomach crawling that Marines do. I was not at all ready for this added challenge and, as a result, my stamina was sapped by the end of the crawl. In fact, my shoulders are still sore as I write this, almost 36 hours later.

As I finished, I knew I was far from placing in the top three of my age division. Even so, I stuck around for a bit to enjoy the festivities and await the posting of the results. I ended up running into a friend from work, which was nice as this was the first time I ran the race without any compatriots (in 2004 I ran as part of a three man team, last year I ran with a friend). In any case, my final time was 31:53, which put me in 30th place in my division (a 17 place improvement over last year) and 372nd overall (a 32 place drop from last year). In retrospect, it’s difficult to compare my performance from one year to the next, as the obstacles are different. In particular, I’m sure I lost at least four minutes to the sand crawl.

Just in case the official race results vanish in the future, I’ve created a local copy, in which I’ve also highlighted my result.

souvenirIn addition to the traditional t-shirt given to each participant, last year I purchased a camouflage t-shirt for Kaylee. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything for me to purchase this year. Of course, that doesn’t mean I didn’t leave without any souvenirs. Over to the right is a picture of one of them.

Seeing the Tour of California

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We had a real treat today. We got to see the end of stage 6 of the Amgen Tour of California at Snow Summit. What’s interesting is that, not knowing about the race, we had originally intended to come up to Big Bear Lake on Friday night. At the last minute, we decided to drive up on Thursday night instead, which allowed us to take a stroll over to Summit Boulevard to see the race.

If I’d known about the race and the day’s events ahead of time, I may have brought my bike, to participate in the King of the Mountain Challenge:

The morning of the race, participants can ride on the same course as the professionals, just hours before the Pros make it to Big Bear. Start at the finish area at 10:00 a.m., ride to Snow Valley and then back through the finish line.

As a fan of the Tour de France, I’ve always wanted to see a race live. Watching a bicycle race live is not at all the same as watching a race on television, where you get to follow the riders for the length of the course. No, it’s all about the anticipation when viewing in person. The riders come up the road, pass you by, and are gone. Just like that.

I’ve included a copy of the spectator map from the Big Bear Climb and marked our location with a red dot. There were activities at the finish line that we didn’t partake of, and that’s where most of the crowd was. Only a few people were on the north side of Big Bear Boulevard, providing me an excellent view of the race.

The final stretch of stage six took the riders up Summit Boulevard, to the finish line at Snow Summit.

Very few people were on the north side of Big Bear Boulevard, leaving me ample space to observe the race and take pictures.

Perhaps a dozen or so escorts from the California Highway Patrol passed us, making sure the road was clear ahead of the riders.

Here comes the stage winner, Sylvain Georges of AG2R La Mondiale.

About a minute and a half later, the peloton rounded the last turn.

Bringing up the rear for this mountain finish is the polka dot jersey. According to the race web site, Sébastian Salas kept the jersey, so he must have fallen back near the end of the stage.

2011 Boot Camp Challenge

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A little over a week ago, on Saturday, 24 September 2011, I participated in the MCRD San Diego 2011 Boot Camp Challenge. This is a short, three mile race that, according to the website, has over 40 obstacles, including hay jumps, tunnel crawls, log hurdles, a six foot wall, trenches, cargo net crawls, and push-up stations. In addition, United States Marine Corps drill instructors are positioned at each station to make sure each obstacle is properly completed.

It’s a fun course, as depicted by the map over on the left. The numbers on the map represent: (1) hay stacks; (2) hay stacks; (3) hay stacks; (4–19) jump over logs, crawl under logs, wall; (20) tunnels; (21) push-ups; (22) wall; (23) bayonet; (24) trenches; (25) tunnels; (26) low crawl; (27) planks; (28) push-ups; (29–43) jump over logs, crawl under logs, wall; (44) hay stacks; (45) hay stacks.

There are a lot of hay stacks on the course, and for good reason. Nothing breaks up your pace and depletes your muscles of glycogen quite like explosively leaping over hay stacks. Then come the obstacles. My group, the individual men, started the race early enough that I never had to stand in line to wait for an obstacle (I saw several lines in the photos of later groups). This is good for time, but exhausting as you sprint from one obstacle to the next only to do something that is very much not running.

If you’re anything like me, you saw number 23 and thought, “Bayonets?! Awesome!” At least, that’s what I thought when I first looked at the map. Yeah, not so much. We were allowed to run past the bayonet targets, and that’s it.

I had done this race once before, in 2004, but it has taken me seven years to finally do it again. That year I raced in a team of three with a couple of my friends. I don’t remember how we placed and the results are nowhere to be found, so I’ll just assume we didn’t do very well. Probably a good assumption, as the race was a week after my honeymoon and I recall being some 40 or so pounds heavier at the time.

I entered the race this year mostly as a test of my fitness. Was this paleo lifestyle thing really working out for me? Doing nothing more than three weeks of eating well, twice weekly body weight workouts, and once weekly sprints, I ran the race. I haven’t run more than a quarter mile since, well, since probably the last time I ran this race.

The results are here. Just in case that page vanishes, as most of the past results seem to have done, I’ve mirrored the page on my website, highlighting my result. I came in 47 out of 91 in my division and 340 out of 1,117 overall. Interestingly, my time of 26:44 would have put me 36 out of 48 in the mens elite division. Although, given the under 20 minute time of the first 10 people in that division, I don’t think I’ll ever race in it.

I’m sure I could have done better with more training, but my time was lower than I expected it to be. On the rare occasion that I do use a treadmill, it tells me that I run a 12 minute mile. So an average mile time of 8:55 for the race surprised me a bit. Back in high school, I could run a six minute mile, so I’ll consider that my new goal.

When I chose to wear shorts for the race, my wife asked me if I was worried about injuring myself on the obstacle course. Of course, I told her I wasn’t. I took the picture over on the right shortly after I got home from the race. I would call that relatively uninjured. Worst by far were my calves, which were sore for days, having run the race in my Vibram FiveFingers KSOs.

Overall, it was an incredibly fun race, and I can’t wait to do it again next year. I already have my calendar marked for Saturday, 6 October 2012. That’s over two months before the world ends, so I’m confident things will go off without a hitch. Next year I’ll try to get my time down to around 20 minutes.