Men's Health Urbanathlon - 9/29/07

In my new quest to try and run some fun races outside of Central Park, I participated in the Men's Health Urbanathlon on 9/29/07 with BH and potential new Flyer AC. Initially, I was not planning on participating in the event, but BH's interest in participating convinced me to give it a try. I work at the same company as Men's Health (Rodale publishing) so I've been seeing my fellow colleagues preparing for the event for several months now and it looked like a lot fun. So I figured why not. Below is the course description:
http://menshealthurbanathlon.com/downloads/MH_Urb_MapsNY_07.pdf

You can either run the event solo or as part of a three person team (male, female, or co-ed). BH and I had a lot of trouble finding a third member for our team, but we finally found someone off of the Men's Health website on the Tuesday before the event. She was a great teammate and had a bundle of energy and enthusiasm. She was willing and excited to run even with a pretty badly injured knee - hats off to her. The event itself is approximately 9 miles of running distance with each leg consisting of two "urban" obstacles. They ranged from hurdling stone barricades, hoisting yourself over 5 foot tall planks, crawling through stone columns, running up 7 World Trade, balancing over steel beams, sliding over taxis, and getting yourself over an 8 foot wall by any means necessary. Needless to say, it wasn't like any race any of us have ever done before.

I ran the second leg which started at Pier 84 on 44th street and 12th avenue. Not knowing how long it was going to take to get there, I left my apartment at 6AM and was able to get there at approximately 6:45. So I had a lot of time to spare to stretch a little, survey the course, and talk to some fellow racers. The race started at around 7AM so all of us were waiting in anticipation for the first runners to come by. The transition area was just like any of the other relays - everyone wore a chip on their ankle and then you had to transfer it from one member to another. The first runners came at about 7:15 so I started to get myself ready. The transition area was a little crowded so I made sure to keep my eye out for AC. At around 7:25 I see someone with the number 2058 coming towards me and I realize - oh my god, that's my number. I waved her down and we had a successful transition. Then I was off cruising down the west side bike trail.

I was feeling good (since this was only my first leg) and I was passing a lot of people along the way. I felt a little bad since most of the people I was passing were those who were running the entire race by themselves. There was no way of knowing who was solo and who was part of a team. I was feeling great with every person I passed, but it was probably somewhat deflating for those solo runners. After approximately 2 miles, I arrived at my obstacle station. The first obstacle was the "maze" which consisted of steel beams that you had to balance and navigate across. There was a huge bottleneck at this area. People were coming into the station 10 and 20 at a time and had to wait a few minutes to even start the obstacle. Once I successfully navigated the maze, I got to the "marine hurdles" - five 5' tall wooden planks in a row that I had to climb and hurl myself over. I didn't realize how big a drop 5' feet is - my knees and ankles didn't appreciate having to do it 5 times in a row. Once that was finished, I continued on the west side trail toward the World Financial Center - approximately 1.9 miles more. Since this would be my remaining run for the day, I figured I would go all out for the rest of the way. The views were great since the sun was barely rising over the Hudson River. Before I knew it I was on the World Trade Center crossing bridge handing off the chip to BH right before he began his adventure up 52 flights stairs up and down 7 WTC. I hung around the transition area a little while to cheer on BH once he completed his stair climb and then I walked on over to the South Street Seaport where the "after" festival took place.

There were about 1000 total participants of which 783 went solo and there were 76 teams that competed. We ranked #17 overall among the 76 teams and #2 among the co-ed teams.

If I thought our day was done, just because the race was over, I was sorely mistaken (pun intended). There was a bunch of booths at the festival with the usual free stuff. Our team was enjoying the festivities and then noticed that Crunch Fitness was having some sort of promotion and you were able to win a free one year membership. Without knowing what was entailed, all three of us signed up (I already have a membership to NYSC, so why did I need this in the first place - this was our first mistake). As part of the activity, you had to sign a medical waiver so I guess that was a sign that this was going to be pretty rigorous. We would soon find out just how rigorous it was. We found out that you had to participate in a exercise circuit -the Crunch Fitness Challenge. From the looks of the first few contestants in front of us, it looked harder than the race we just did! We all thought of wimping out, but unfortunately all of us decided against it. The challenge consisted of the following one after the other: running 3/4 mile as fast as you can on a treadmill, do 300 steps on a stepper machine, 100 jumps with a jump rope, 30 squat thrusts, 30 squat jumps, 30 sit ups, 30 push-up, 30 tricep reps, 30 deltoid reps and then climb up a rock wall! I got tired just watching other people do it and I was imagining how sore my upper body was going to be the next day. I felt OK through the first few stations since they were all using my lower body. However, things took a turn for the worse after that. I was halfway through the thing and realized that my upper body strength was lacking just a bit (as in not much at all). I wanted to pass out and roll over halfway through my push ups, but I figured that I went this far and I should finish with a little dignity. Not sure how much dignity I had, but I was able to finish it in one piece.

It was a great day all around and a lot of fun. I'd recommend to everyone to give it a try next year.

Good luck to all my friends and fellow Flyers competing in the Chicago Marathon next week.