Carolinas Superhero Scramble

On June 29th, I participated in the first Carolinas Superhero Scramble. It was at Carolinas Adventure World in Winnsboro, SC, which was the same location as the Carolinas Spartan Beast. But, honestly, there was little comparison between the two races. At the Spartan Beast, there was a nice combination of running and obstacles. The terrain was challenging but doable for most people. The Superhero Scramble, on the other hand...it was a trail run with a couple of obstacles thrown in. Not being a runner, I found that disappointing, to say the least.

So, let's break it down, shall we?

Length: Ended up being somewhere around 10-10.5 miles. The race was advertised as an 8+ miler, so that was about right. There were three water stations and GU Chomps were provided. I wish I had stuck with my Shot Blox rather than switching to the Gu - the last couple of miles were strictly walking as my calves and I hate to strike a truce that they would continue to work as long as I didn't attempt to run. I was glad I heeded the advice in the race director's notes to bring my own hydration and nutrition. There were a lot of hungry and dehydrated people towards the end of the race - and lots of DNFs.

Terrain: Brutal. Really brutal. There was one "hill" everybody was talking about - it was so steep you had to take it on your hands and knees/feet. The  route was hill after hill after hill.

Afterparty: The DJ apparently ran out of money for iTunes, because the music looped after 45 minutes. The free beer (which I was going to actually get this time) was canned, not on draft. I've become way too much of a beer snob thanks to my husband). One nice touch was that there was large open-air tent/pavillion to chill out under - wonderful to get out of the sun.

Registration/Parking/Set-up: Very good

Obstacles: My biggest complaint - there were not enough. We were promised 25+ obstacles, and I doubt there were more than 12 (unless one added in all the hills). The obstacles that were in place were fun, I will say. I was extremely proud of the fact that I successfully completed every single obstacle. The first obstacle was the dreaded rope climb - they had several ropes with knots and several without knots. There was a long line for the knotted ropes (and plenty of people opting to skip the attempt and go straight for the burpees and spins - yes, penalty was 20 burpees and 10 forehead-on-a-baseball-bat spins). I prefer unknotted rope for climbs, so I went ahead and grabbed onto one of the regular lengths and rope and started climbing. And climbed. And climbed. And when I reached 3/4 of the way up, people started cheering for me. And when I reached the top - Epic. At least in my head. I was dubbed Super Rope Girl by several other racers, which made me feel pretty good. The other two obstacles I was really proud of finishing were RingWorm and the Steep Slippery Wall. RingWorm was a similar to monkey bars, but instead of bars, you had to swing from ring to ring.

It was a great feeling to beat that obstacle. Especially when the big muscley guys were dropping halfway through...

Giant Slide at the End

Finish Line

While I was proud of my performance, I can't say the race was very fun. Like I said, there simply were not enough obstacles. I was also concerned by the lack of volunteers - especially safety/medical volunteers - on the course. There were good mile+ stretches without readily available help. I passed a number of people who needed aid, and they were waiting while someone in their group ran to find someone. It was with little surprise that my group of racers agreed that we were not likely to do another Superhero Scramble.

Oh well. Back to training for the my next OCR: Spartan Super in Virginia. I while need to start doing more hill training in preparation - it' a Wintergreen Ski Resort. 

My calves are considering taking out a restraining order against me.