Part 2 - True Grit Enduro Obstacles

I hope that I have got these in the correct order and surprisingly it can get quite difficult to remember what came next even after completing the course 4 times.  I think I got the cargo nets a little confused, there seemed to be a few of them and they started to blur into one by the end of the course. 

The course was estimated 10.6kms in length with 30 obstacles on varying terrain from soft marsh lands to rocky interfaces.

The obstacles were:
1. The Vaults
2. Commando Crawl
3. A Frame Cargo Net
4. Cliff Assault
5. Tyre Tread
6. Casualty Drag
7. Incline Walls
8. Sandstone Climb
9. The Tunnels
10. Balance Beams

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11. Cargo Wall
12. Jungle Vines
13. Low Wire Entanglement
14. The Gap
15. Individual Carry - Ammo
16. Cargo Crawl
17. Swimmer Scout
18. Ring The Bell
19. The Boulder
20. Rope Ladders

21. Goat Track
22. The Crevasse
23. Muddy Mile
24. Individual Carry - Sandbags
25. Rope Burn
26. Pontoon Bridge
27. Monkey Bars
28. Great Walls
29. Traverse Ropes
30. The Ramp

Obstacle 1 - The Vaults

These were easy enough to jump over, although I would have liked to have played around with running and jumping over, but this would not have been wise when you are trying to preserve your energy.  They were probably just a metre in height and as a set of three.

Obstacle 2 - Commando Crawl

Next up was the commando crawl, you navigated your way around some mounds with barbed wire above you.  The sand/mud was soft on your knees.  The ground seemed to get wetter throughout the night.

Obstacle 3 - A Frame Cargo Net

After the Commando Crawl, came the A Frame Cargo net, if you had the right technique getting up, you could do this obstacle quite quickly.  The hardest and often most painful path was getting over the bar at the top and more than once, I cracked between my legs as I tried to swing my legs over the top, trying to get my footing on the other side. If you had the confidence you could do a commando roll over the top (again probably not the best place to start practicing these things).

Obstacle 4 - Cliff Assault

Choosing a rope, you had to navigate your way to the top of the cliff.  Luckily we had no rain, so it was quite grippy in terms of getting to the top.

Obstacle 5 - Tyre Tread

Simple enough, just navigating your way around a tyre path, some of the tyres were double layered.  I found it easier to run on top rather than trying to get your feet in the middle (I seemed to get caught up in the tyres if I tried to do this).

Obstacle 6 - Casulty Drag

This was probably the lightest of the strength obstacles, as you dragged two connected tyres around a centre point.  Estimated drag would have been 50 metres.

Obstacle 7 - Incline Wall

I seemed to have got lucky at this one,  as every time I got to it, someone was around to give me an extra boost.  Dave had already mastered jumping and flipping over the top, but as with most of the obstacles I am still building up the confidence to do this.  Plus if there was an opportunity to have some extra help, you would be silly to turn it down, especially as you get tired.  You also seemed to slide down the other side.

Obstacle 8 - Sandstone Climb

The best way to overcome this one which was a net over a sandstone wall, was to treat it lie a rope and not use the cargo nets foot holds, as you spent more time concentrating on where your feet where going rather then getting to the top.

Obstacle 9 - The Tunnels

This one is great when your small, as soon as you get on your hands and knees you just crawl through both the tunnels. 

Obstacle 10 - Balance Beams

There was a little bit of confusion the first time round, only crossing over one and then having to go and do it again.  You had to cross over all 3 beams and not just the one as initially thought.

Obstacle 11 - Cargo Wall

Another cargo net climb, using the same technique on the previous cargo climb. 

Obstacle 12 - Jungle Vines

The jungle vines were a mix match of lines (like a tangled spider web) that you had to make your way through.  Staying low seemed liked a good option although Dave told me that he just got on his hands and knees and went underneath,  When it started to get dark, the lines seemed more like laser beams, that went a little psychedelic during the night, its amazing what you see in the in the dark.  

Obstacle 13- Low Wire Entanglement

This was a combination of two obstacles, with low barbed wire and crawling over tyres.  Again, another one your happy to be small and scurry through quickly.

Obstacle 14 - The Gap

After some help from some fellow OCR peeps, it was of course another cargo net!!  I should have guessed and no wonder I couldn't remember it.  This time the cargo net was stretched over the gap between the rock on the bottom and top of the rock face (Seems very similar to the Sandstone Climb Obstacle 8.

Obstacle 15 - Individual Carry - Ammo

Carrying two estimated 10kg ammo carry boxes doesn't sound too bad, but when your having to carry them up a steep slope, just trying to keep your balance and footing was hard enough, never mind that both your hands were occupied.  There was a risk of rolling your ankles especially going down hill.  Of course it seemed to have gotten harder as the night wore on, the slope got really slippery and the gravel a lot more loose.  Which is strange as you would think more foot holds would have taken shape during the course of the day and night.

Obstacle 16 - Cargo Crawl

What more can I say, apart from the fact that your crawling under a cargo net.  When it got dark, the cargo net seemed to be never ending as your crawling your way through, you start to wonder where the end is.  It should have been renamed the infinity net since you could not see the end.  Annoyingly my head torch kept getting caught in the net, so you needed to make sure you kept your head down as well as your back (as my strobe light on my back also got caught in the net).  This is probably why it took so long to get through.

Heading off to obstacle 17, is where I went off track as I was following the foot path and bobbing lights instead of cutting across towards the swimmer scout.  I eventually worked out that I was heading in the wrong direction and got back on track.

Obstacle 17 - Swimmer Scout

From the stories told on Going Long - this is where everyone took the opportunity to go to the toilet.  Luckily your head wasn't going under the water so there was no chance of swallowing.  It was so bloody cold, so wearing a wetsuit helped during this obstacle the most.  The fun part was trying to keep your hands out of the water to minimise my hands getting cold and wet. Basically you were wading through a lake that was neck deep about 25m long.

Obstacle 18 - Ring the Bell

After trudging through the water, there was a small jog around to the rope climb.  Due to health and safety the rope was next to a cliff, so you had a choice which rope to climb, there were a variety of difficulties set.  I have to admit I actually had a sense of relief when there was no actual rope climb.

After Ring the Bell is where the terrain starts getting interesting with the rocks and boulders, and it was at this point when my torch ran out of battery on lap 3.

Obstacle 19 - The Boulder

Climbing up the rock face of the boulder.  This is the last one with the cargo net to climb up and over.

Obstacle 20 - The Rope Ladder

As the gradient increases it was only fitting to have a rope ladder, you really had to brace your core and stop the rope from swinging to get to the top of the ladder.

Obstacle 21 - Goat Track

The obstacle name pretty much describes this one, this is the trek up towards the crevasse.  Its a rocky face that you can't exactly run up and climb up instead, until you reached the next obstacle in the same section.

Obstacle 22 - The Crevasse

Trying to squeeze through the gaps, makes you realise that your backside may need to lose a couple more inchs to easily squeeze through the gap.  I would have thought after the fourth time, that I would have smoothed the rock surfaces down to make it easier to get through.

This is probably where I freaked myself out the most as it was most dangerous with the gaps in the ground, the risk of rolling, falling, tripping where high especially having no torch.  So when Marty helped, there was a massive sense of relief that I could actually see where I was going.  Being that extra bit conscious of where I was going, I was using my hand and knees to have a better feel for the ground, or using my backside to jump down or crawl.  Once it was safe again I was left alone again.

After making your way across the rocky surfaces, jumping over the gaps and squeezing into the tights of spaces.  The terrain turned from the rocks and crevasses to find yourself at the next and one of the most grueling obstacles.  Actually the next two obstacles were my least favourite, there was no way outs, no easy options and after that first lap you knew exactly what was coming and how hard it was going to be.  As soon as you started to hurt the obstacles got worse.

Obstacle 23 - Muddy Mile

Trawling through obstacle 23 - muddy mile.  I don't even know how to describe this one, there was no easy route to get it done apart from just putting one foot in front of the other.  It seemed to just go on and on and on (a mile at least).  

During lap 3, as I had no torch and had the magic of the moonlight, wading through the mud and weeds, your imagination really takes its toll.  Here the weeds start moving and becoming something other than weeds, with the frogs croaking in the background.  Your trying to keep your hands above water, to try and keep dry and warm, as soon as they got wet, they got cold. The depth varied along the way from ankle deep to waist deep, mostly though being a strength sapping thigh deep.

As you approach the end of the muddy mile, and after trying to stay dry, slipping and falling down the invisible embankments that you had no way of knowing they were there, trying not to think about what else is in the murky water with you was the dreaded barbed wire dip under. If you timed things well you could just get under without getting your head wet but often you would slip or trip and get a dunking!  This obstacle was the longest on the whole course, I swear it just kept going and the more it went on the more painful parts of your body became.  It also didn't heap as you slowly approached obstacle 24.

Obstacle 24 - Individual Carry - Sandbags

You came to this obstacle literally as soon as you left the muddy mile, your wet and sore and you have to attempt to lift and carry a 25kg sandbag.  It wouldn't be so bad if you were walking on a flat surface, however that would have been way too easy, so it was up the side of another embankment that got slippery during the night.  As the night went on the embankment got even more slippery and the bags got heavier and heavier.  The only way around this one, was to grin and bear it.  As soon as you found a hole in the sandbag, it was a blessing as the sand slowly leaked out the bag.

The worst thing you could do was to drop it as it took so much energy to get it back up (and yes I did this on lap 2, never again).  I was not going to make that mistake twice,  you knew the top will be here at some point and it won't last forever.  Unfortunately going day was also hard especially on your back and knees   This is where I felt it most, trying to deal with the pain that came, you could really feel the additional weight all over your body.  

This is one of those obstacles that I did think that there should be a different weight for males and females.  As it got heavier, the wetter the sand got, the harder it became. 

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Obstacle 25 - Rope Burn

Another rope climb obstacle, by this stage I would have thoughts ropes would have become my new best friend.  This one was on an inclined ramp, using the rope to pull yourself up to the top.  It was easier to keep using the rope until you got your feet to the top of the obstacle.

The end of the course is near with technically only another 5 obstacles to go.  The last obstacles was a collaboration of the first and last, as technically obstacle 30 is the first obstacle you get to when you went over the timing chip.

After the rope it was trying to find your way around the boggy marshes, that sort of reminded me of Dartmoor, apart from you were on your own a lot more, until you reached obstacle 26.

Obstacle 26 - Pontoon Bridge

This is all about balance and being quick, so the first time it was easy enough.  The second and third time not so much and were a massive fail.  I did actually complete it on the last lap, especially as getting wet, doing some penalty burpees was going through my head at the time.  Annoying after failing the second time and getting wet and doing the burpee penalty, I found out the pontoon was broken and needed to be fixed.  Nevermind, not much I could have done about it. The third time it would have been nice to see the pontoon, but without a torch I guess doing it blind, Im not surprised I ended up in the boggy pontoon mess.

Obstacle 27 - Monkey Bars

Next up after getting wet are the monkey bars, my age old nemesis.  No surprise when I didn't make it all the way across.  On the second time, they said that you could go over the top.  Probably harder work, but definitely beating getting even more wet or doing more burpees.  The monkey bars were located quite close to the pit area, so you are led to believe that your really close to the finish line, how wrong you are.

As it was so close to the pit area, this is where the women saved me on lap 3 and lending me her torch.  I still hope that she got it back and I wish I could have thanked her in person.  I will never forget this random act of kindness especially in my state of hysteria.

Then it was up and around the course track which  felt like miles (probably only about 1km but quite a long climb up a ridge) and it was only during the daylight hours that you realised if I went off course how easy it would have been for it all to fall apart.  On my last lap, going down the slopes towards the final obstacles is where it showed everyone's ITB issues as they tried to make their way down the hill.  There was a passing moment when you knew what the other person is going through as they struggled.  Down the slope and across the grounds to Obstacle 28 - The Great Wall.

Obstacle 28 - The Great Walls

This ended up turning into a burpee obstacle on the second and third lap.  A 3 metre high wall, is actually really hard to get over on your own. I had a helping boost on the first and last lap to get over. 

When I got there on the second lap, someone was doing burpees and I asked for some help only to get ignored, then I realised it was the same guy I was trying to talk to earlier and they had their headphones in.  On the third lap, I asked another guy (this after my issues with the head torch), he said as long as I was quick and then proceeded to go on his hands and knees for me to jump on his back.  For the life of me, this was not going to happen, so I told him so, tried it on my own, face planted like usual and opted for the 10 burpee penalty. You really can tell who regularly helps fellow racers out on course as there is just as much technique involved helping others over obstacles as there is in doing it yourself! Dave can testify to this having spent 6 hours getting people over the 3.5m wall at Operation Blackhawk recently!

Obstacle 29 - The Rope Traverse

Straight after the great wall was the rope traverse (somewhere I usually accumulate the most bruises).  Everything that I had been taught at The Compound went out the window as I tried to get across the rope as quickly as possible.  This worked for the first 3 laps, not so much on the last lap as I tried to quickly move through it and fell at the last point.  Having to do my 10 burpee penalty and then it was across the finish line.

Technically the last obstacle on the map is the Enduro's first obstacle as you cross the starting chip

Obstacle 30 or 1 - The Ramp

Running up a ramp and then down the cargo net through to the finish line, only to start all over again. 

This obstacle actually saw quite  a few injuries where people tripped or fell getting down the cargo net and tumbling.  I just took my time to get up and over and start it all over again.