2015 Gladiator Rock N Run Recap

Saturday, September 26th I ran my second Gladiator Rock'N Run obstacle race. Like last year it was held in Export, Pa. at the Steel City Raceway.

Swag: T-shirt and finishers medal

The course: The course is a 5k course with roughly 16-20 obstacles. Some are designed to test your strength while some are designed to just get you a muddy mess.

Post Race: Beer, music, and food.... what else do you need!!! Oh ya, showers and a changing area.

My Race: I was registered for the competitive wave which started at 8:00 am. I arrived about twenty minutes early and did some stretching. Once in the shoot we were divided into 2 groups, this was done to make sure there would be no waiting at obstacles and your time would not be effected due to someone else. The first wave went and I stood waiting for Nitro (former American Gladiator) to send my wave.

From the start you headed down a hill made a turn and headed up the hill to the first obstacle. Burpees with a cinder block. The competitive wave had to do 30 while open waves did 10. My arms were already sore and the race had just begun. Once finished with the burpees you headed down the hill and back up and was handed a sand bag. You took your bag and continued up the hill and then turned back down the hill before handing it off. You then headed back up the hill to 2 huge inflatable
blobs is what I am going to call them. We were told it is possible to get over without help, but I didn't see anyone do it. Even in the video of them doing in online they are running down hill and jumping onto the 6 foot high blob. We were running up hill. What is nice about these types of races is most participants understand you may need help or may need to help someone. We took turns boosting each other over and then once up on the blob we would help pull others up. After helping a few people I headed across the top of the hill to the next obstacle, rope climb.  I had no worries about this obstacle and like last year I crushed it. After the rope climb you made your way across the field to a cargo net about a foot off the ground and had to climb under it on your back. It was a muddy mess and you really had to use your arms to pull you up the hill. I remember thinking I am not sure how much more my arms are going to be able to handle. There was a nice little break until the next obstacle except you still had to go up and down the hill. Once at the bottom of the hill you went over and under walls, and of course the under was in a muddy mess. Next you headed over to and empty dumpster and had to pull yourself up and in then up and out. You then head too 2 ten foot walls that you had to climb over. There was foot hills so it was pretty easy. Next you made it to the tire carry. You took a tire and had to do lunges up and down the hill. Not real hard but it killed your leg, and of course you had to run up the hill to the next obstacle, The slide. A huge water slide that was the length of hill and had you land in a pool of water. It was refreshing for me and I needed it for what was to come. The next obstacle was 50 squats with the cinder block and then carry the block up and back down the hill. This was the hardest thing I did. It took me so long and I had to take breaks going up the hill.

 Once finished with the blocks you ran back up the hill and had to crawl under a cargo net. Normally wouldn't be hard, but your legs were already beat. You then ran back down the hill and headed to 2 cargo nets.

After the nets you knew you were close to the finish. You just had to run up the hill toward the start. If you did the open waves and were on a team you had to lift a telephone pole and carry it, but since I was in competitive we skipped that and headed to barb wire mud crawl.

 

 If you were clean at this point you were a mess. My shirt kept getting snagged on the barb wire but I managed to make it through without any cuts. After the mud crawl you made your way to a slanted wall with a rope. This obstacle was very hard but could be done alone. However most of us once again were helping each other up and over. I took my turn helping others and then made my way to the final obstacle. Fire jump, A small fire you had to jump over before crossing the finish line.  After I finished I headed to the showers and then changed and watched some other runners make their way to the finish. I finished the course in 1 hour and 4 minutes. Not to shabby since it took me almost 2 hours last year.

If you ever want to try an obstacle race this is a good one to start out on. It's not to long and there isn't to many obstacles that will really beat you down. 

 



Moving on too another race

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

 

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there.

 

I will go back to doing my regular weekly Sunday training update next week. This week I thought I would share some of the races I plan on running throughout the season. Hopefully I will see some of you at a race or two.

 

May 30th- Whitehall Borough 5K

 

June 4th- Gateway Track Mile: I do this race every year. It's a one mile race at the Gateway Middle School. The race is put on by the Tuesday Night Run group and cost nothing. They usually run about 4 heats and the competition is always good. Winners of each heat win homemade chocolates from Tammy Slusser. She is one of the main people who put on the race and is a former Marathon winner.  Details can be found on runhigh.com

 

June 20th-Wilkins Township 5K: This is a small local race in Wilkins Township. I will have more details later in the week on it. I run this race because I live in the area, so it is always nice to do the home town race.

 

June 27th- Oakmont 5K

 

June 28th- Yelllow Jacket 5K: If you were at the PGH Marathon expo you may have ran into this booth. This race is new to Pittsburgh but I would expect a good turnout after seeing the medal, every runner receives one. 

 

July 25th- Turtle Trot 5K: Another local race but this is a very flat and fast race. If you are looking for a race to PR this could be one. The competition is always good for a small race and you can expect the winner to have a blazing time.

 

July 31st- GNC Liberty Mile: This race is a must do just to come watch the elite runners. The field is always stacked with sub 4 min. mile runners and always come down to a close finish. The course is filled with people cheering you on and is right in the heart of downtown.

 

August 8th- BattleFrog : This is one of the best obstacle races in the game. It is held in Wampum Pa. at the mines and meadow grounds. .8 of the race is ran in the mine shaft. This race will bring in the best of the best for the elite field, but at the same time has a race for everyone and is very family friendly. Remember you can save a few dollars off any race by using my promo code BFByrne for a discount.

 

 

August 22nd- Run Around The Square: This is my favorite race of the season. It's a local 5K that is the biggest small town race in Pittsburgh. It sells out every year. The course is half on the road and half on the trails of Frick Park. The finish area is a big party with free beer and hotdogs from the sponsor D's Six Pack.

 

September 26th- Gladiator Rock N Run: This is the first obstacle race I ever ran and is a great one for people looking to run a shorter distance. It is a 5K course filled with many obstacles. You can also enter as a team so its a good one to run with some friends.

 

September 27th-Great Race



 

DATE TBD-EQT Ten Miler

 

This is just some of the races I will be doing. I am sure I will end up doing more once I find out what races SCRR will be doing. Also if you live in Pittsburgh and are not a member of Steel City Road Runners I would highly suggest you come to one the training runs. The people are awesome and if you decide to become a member you will get race discounts and other perks. 

Gladiator Rock'N Run Recap

When: Saturday September 20th
Where: Steel City Raceway
278 Story Road
Export, Pa. 15632


Swag: T-shirt, bib number with beer coupon attached for post-race party and timing chip
              Now I am very critical of the shirts you get with races, and I have to say this is the most comfortable shirt I have got from race. I highly recommend you take a look at Hylete brand clothing.

Finishers Medal:



Post-Race: Once you finished they had a table with water and banana’s for you to recharge. You were almost guaranteed to be a muddy mess so there was a nice area with hoses that you could clean off. If you brought a change of clothes you could use the changing tents to get into some dry clothing. Once all cleaned up you could watch the later heats take on the course and enjoy a beer and shop the vendors while listening to music provided from a local band.

My Experience:

       My alarm went off at 5:30 am and I quickly jumped out of bed with excitement. After picking out my outfit (I wanted to wear something that when wet wouldn’t get to heavy and hold me down) I grabbed a small nutrition bar for breakfast. As I sat around my house waiting for my friend Tom to come pick me up, the nerves set in. I started to question myself on what I would be able to do. Tom picked me up around 6:45 am and we headed out. It took about a half hour to get to the race sight. Parking was 10 dollars. After parking we walked into the area and started to check out some of the obstacles. There was about 5 obstacles that I could see and tell right away what they were and then there were some in the distance that I could see but didn’t know what we would be doing at them. We signed up for the 8:00 am competitive wave. I may have been a rookie to this type of race, but Tom recently did the Tough Mudder and had an idea of what to expect. Once we got a look at some of the others in our group we both realized we were fish out of water. I mean some of these guys are diesel, and you can tell this would be a walk in the park for them. The ladies look like they could have crush me with their bare hands. Tom suggested we stick together during the race in case there were obstacles in which you would need assistance. We made our way into the starting corral and Dan “Nitro” Clark from American Gladiators came out and made a few announcements and went over parts of the course. Then he sounded an air horn and just like that we were off and running. I will spare you the reading time of me going over every obstacle, but there were a few that were quite challenging. The second obstacle was cinder block burpees. No let’s not do a regular burpee let’s do 25 of them with a half of a cinder block in each hand, while the ladies use one block total. Needless to say I was beat down early in the race. Not much later in the race you come to a 16 foot rope climb. This was one obstacle I was aware of going in and it made me nervous since I had not climbed a rope since grade school. I went up that rope though like I was a monkey getting banana’s from the top of a tree. Besides the obstacles this whole course was on a hill. You are either running up or down, except for the part when you get to slide down a tarp that was about 40 yards long and you ended in a pool of water. I wanted to stay on that obstacle all day. Tom and I kept a steady pace for most of the race. We did walk a bit just to get our breathing back on track. The only obstacle I could not complete was the Monkey bars. Right before you have to do them you swim across a pond, so my hands were wet and slippery. I just couldn’t get my hands to stay on the thick bars. If you can’t do an obstacle you must do 10 burpees. (No cinder blocks) The only other obstacle that gave me any type of problem was what is known as the beast. A slanted wall in which you have to cross water to even get to. Once at the wall you use a rope and pull yourself up the slightly slanted wall. It was a muddy mess and people were falling left and right. I however made it up my first time even though my arms were struggling. When I crossed the finish line after completing all 17 obstacles I felt like had accomplished something. I haven’t had that feeling in a race since my first marathon years ago.



       I will be honest I was one of those people that always put regular road races above the other races. I would laugh when people said they did an obstacle race. Well after running my first I can say I was wrong. It takes a different type of athlete to do these and be good at them. I am still a diehard runner and road races will always be my passion, but I now have a new respect for these races and the people that do them. I can say this, the Gladiator tested me like I have never been tested in a race and it was a real gut check. I look forward to doing it again next year and training for it the right way.



     If you have never ran an obstacle race and want to do one I would say this is a good one. It’s not too long and most of the obstacles are doable even if you didn’t train the proper way. I would not recommend doing that though, train if you can. If anything you will meet some really cool people and I promise you will have yourself a fun time doing the race.

Taper Time!!!!

    With the Columbus Marathon being now 4 weeks away I have started to taper.  I do my taper different than most people. At five weeks out I will start a 2 week taper.  I cut back almost to no running or very little running at all then I will use my next 2 weeks of doing medium range runs with one more long run thrown in. My last week is mostly short runs with a lot of cross training and stretching.  This may not be normal way to most people, but this is what I have come accustomed to and I feel it works best for me.  The only hard part is the 2 weeks in which I do very little running.  My mind says get out and run Shaun but I know I have to give my body some rest.  I am very cranky these 2 weeks.

So this is how training went this week.

MONDAY:  Since I was just coming off of a half marathon, I decided to rest this day.  Normally a long run has very little effect on me the following day, but I had not ran as fast as I did last Sunday in my half for a while.  Needless to say I was a little sore, but for the most part felt really good for having just ran a half marathon.

TUESDAY: I did a short 4 mile run at 8:30 pace.  I felt really good and my body showed no signs of fatigue from the half on Sunday.

WEDNESDAY: I had Pirate tickets so this was also a rest day.  This is where the cranky comes out.  I was happy to be going to the Pirate game, but I feel like I should of some how figured out a way to run even though I am tapering.  I need to work on telling myself it's okay not to run during the taper weeks.

THURSDAY: I ran 7 miles at 8:20 pace. When I returned home I did an arm and Ab workout.  Overall felt really good for the day.

FRIDAY: After work I went to Dave N' Busters to pick up my race packet for the Gladiator Run I was doing on Saturday.  I also was going out to dinner that night so this was another rest day. 

SATURDAY:  GLADIATOR RUN- I ran my first obstacle race ever.  It was a 5K with 17 obstacles. I ran it with my friend Tom @tmcjr412 who has already ran the tough mudder. It was good because he was able to tell me what to expect.  It was a great experience and I had a blast. I will be writing a recap of the race later this week.     Let me just say a 5K with obstacles is hard and I know this did nothing but benefit my training. I used muscles I never knew I had.  

SUNDAY:  Today I will be doing a cross training day.  I plan on doing a mix of workouts to work out a few body parts. It will be hard since I am very sore from yesterday.

Next week I plan on doing a few more runs in the week.  Nothing to crazy or high until Saturday when I take on the Battle Frog Race.  A 15K obstacle race.  I was nervous at first, but now I am actually excited and looking forward to doing it.  

Until next time friends, run strong!!!!

6 Weeks Till Columbus

This week is the start of my fall "big" races.  On Sunday the 14th I will be up in Erie Pa. to run a half marathon.  I am going into this race with 2 goals: 1. Run about 90 percent of my marathon pace and see where my body is.  I have done the long runs and I feel good after my long runs, but as a lot of us know when you get into a race your adrenaline will take over and you go faster than you practiced for.  2. I am going to work on the hydration aspect of the race.  I am going to act like I am running a full marathon and make sure I take water more often than not.  I have no set time I am looking to get, I am just focusing on running a smart, good race.

MONDAY:  I ran 10 miles with a break at about mile 4.  I ran my first 4 miles to a near by park and once I was there I did some obstacle training. Monkey bars, climbing a rope, and pull ups.  Then I ran another 6 miles to finish up the run.  I have to say I am overly excited for these obstacle races coming up in the next 3 weeks. I still need to do as much upper body training as I can though.  I can see this is going to be harder than I thought.

TUESDAY:  Went to the gym and did a 4 mile tempo run... I ran my first mile at 8:30 pace on the treadmill then dropped to a 8:00 pace for mile 2 and 3. I finished the fourth mile with a 8:30 pace.  I felt really good for running a treadmill which normally gives my shins problems.  I ended the gym with a back and shoulder workout that beat the shit out of me.

WEDNESDAY:  I planned on a 8 mile run at race pace.  Everything was going great until I got to mile 3 when I ran by a friends house and she saw me. She stopped me and asked if I would look at her lawn mower for her. "Sure why not, it's not like I am doing anything at this moment." So I spent about a half hour fixing a mower mid run. Once I get out of my mind set for running it is hard to get back in it, so I came home and went to the gym and lifted for about an hour.

THURSDAY:  I was super excited because football season finally started this day.  I came home from work and quickly got changed and headed out for a 7 mile run. I ran probably one of my fastest 7 mile training runs all year.  I honestly think it was because I wanted to get home and be showered before the start of kickoff.  I felt great though after the run and I am starting to get more confidence in myself.

FRIDAY: I used this day as a rest day and just did some stretching. Even if I am going to take a rest day I still want to stay loose for all these races coming up.  Plus at the ripe age of 35 I know my body isn't what it use to be and doing obstacles are going to be a challenge if I am not in some type of shape.

SATURDAY: LONG SLOW RUN:  That is exactly what it was a nice long slow run.  I finished just short of 20 miles. My legs were sore a bit, but for the most part I felt good.  I didn't want to push it to hard since I have that half this week, but I wanted to still log some miles.  I dropped my pace down to around 10 minutes to make sure I didn't overwork myself.

SUNDAY: TODAY:  I plan on watching the Steeler game. So if your a Browns fan today, I dislike you.  Once the game is over I am taking the dog to the park that has one of those old style obstacle courses.  You know that ones that are numbered and you are supposed to run to each one and then do the workout.  I figure anyway that will help me gain some strength is a good thing.

This week I plan on doing most of my runs early in the week then tapering off a few days before the race. I also plan on hitting the gym hard again this week.

Have you ever had someone stop you mid run to talk or ask you something?  Does it annoy you as much as it does for me?

Gladiator Run Pittsburgh

Former American Gladiator Dan "Nitro" Clark has organized an obstacle course race fit for only the most daring competitors- The Gladiator Rock' N Run. This extreme, 15-obstacle challenge will be returning to the Steel City Raceway, 290 Story Road In Export, Pa, on September 20.
The course challenges all participants to conquer extreme obstacles and harsh terrain, then to celebrate their conquests with the post race party filled with music, beer, and food.  Entry fee is $65 until Sep. 12th. Late entry is $75 until Sep. 19th and Late Late Entry is $90 the day of the event, if spots are available.

YOU CAN USE MY DISCOUNT CODE FOR $15 OFF REGISTRATION: GRRPIT15

During the 3.5 mile course, participants will race through flames in the Gladiator BBQ, blast through a waist-deep icy pool of water in the Polar Bear Plunge and slither along on the bellies through a trough of mud in the Mud Madness Challenge.  There are also two nightmare mystery obstacles, and many other thrilling feats.  Those too skeptical to participate are still invited to come check it out.
-the course was built to accommodate spectators.

Gladiator Rock' N Run organizer, Dan "Nitro" Clark, says the while the course might sound intimidating, he created the run to keep people healthy and fit, and encourages people with varying fitness levels to come out and give it a try.

A Portion of this year's proceeds from the Gladiator Rock' N Run with benefit Talk About Curing Autism (TACA)

for more information and registration, please visit www.GladiatorRocknRun.com.

I have already registered and I hope a few of you will take this course on with me.  Even if we have a bad race at least we can cheers a beer after it.