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It’s 5:45am. Sprad’s phone alarm continues to go off. It’s dark outside and raining. Sprad hits me a few time, murmiming something about “Time to go”. I immediately think to myself “why did I enter this race?”. Sprad and I stumble towards the Metro. We miss the first train that we were supposed to take. Whoops. We get on the second one. After arriving North of Central Park – both our first time in Central Park – we hurry through trying to find our way to the race. After a little warm up jog, we arrive at the starting line while they’re announcing “The race will start in a few minutes!” We looked for Baggio, but couldn’t find him. Probably should have gotten there a bit earlier..

There were about 300-400 racers there. They had a table full of drinks that a lot of people were around. Everyone was on the road herded together as they counted down the start of the race. When the race start, the crowd slowly moved forward. Sprad and I were near the back, and as we crossed the start our timer began.

We began at a solid pace – and started weaving through the crowd. It was really dense at first, and a bit challenging just to run. We ran by Baggio about 5 minutes into the race; we said hello, then ran past him. We ran in Central Park for several miles, weaving through people. Near the end of Central Park were about 7 or 8 construction barriers for everyone to jump over. Actually getting over them was easy – I didn’t even need to use my feet as I just handplanted and hopped over. But what made this challenging was the mass amount of people across them all. It was also raining, which made them slick – I guarentee at least one person had a nasty fall.

As we exited Central Park, we ran onto 72nd street. They had it entirely blocked off, and several New York residents and police offers were cheering us on. We ran a few blocks to the Hudson River, and proceeded to run on a trail south down the Hudson. Up to this point, we were probably averaging around a 7:30 mile pace and still passing people.

A little over 4 miles in we approached our first major obstacle. We ran onto the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum – which is located on an old battleship. We ran up some stairs, through the center, and up to the top of the battleship. The rain made the surface really slick, and I almost felt it was dangerous. At the end of the battleship were multiple “marine” hurdles. The hurdles were 5 feet tall and not much of a challenge. With the adrenaline rush, it was an easy jump and pullup. Again the most difficult part was avoiding the crowd and not slipping. After the hurdles we ran down to the ground and continued back to the trail on the Hudson.

The next leg was short – only about a mile and a half or so – and we went out onto a Pier. Here was the rock wall and the ranger weave. The rock wall was unbelievably easy – so easy I won’t even bother posting the picture. I was across the rock wall in maybe 10 seconds – it may have taken Sprad about 6. They had a small baseboard that was way too easy to walk across, you almost didn’t have to use the rocks. They’ll surely change this for next year… The ranger weave (or A frame) followed, and was much more of a challenge. I have never done anything like the A frame – and the closest thing I can really relate it to is playing on the monkey bars as a kid on the playground. You start by going under the first bar, and have to proceed to weave in and out without touching the ground. Two of the biggest problems were the lack of space – a lot of people were hanging on this (it was actually humorous), and the material hurt against my skin. I was a little slow on this one trying to figure it out, but after squeezing and dangling and crawling around, I finally made it out. Sprad managed this a bit better than me, and I had to catch up to him.

This next stretch was really difficult. The ranger weave took a lot out of me physically, and I definitely started to feel it. It was over 2 miles to the Stair climb – all on one trail. The rain and wind picked up as well. I’m sure mentally I was dreading the stairs so much that it made it seem even longer, but I began to struggle. I’d say we were around an 8 mile pace at this point.

We’re near the South end of Manhattan, and we cross over a walking bridge to 7 World Trade Center. A lot of people are centered around the entrace, and we get a surge of energy and adrenaline as we’re at the largest obstacle of the day. Sprad and I enter the stairs with a large pack and immediately start running up them. Every contestant begins walking up the stairs, and even as we run by them they cheer and egg us on. That was, until we hit the 5th floor, when the adrenaline ran out and we crashed and burned. We then proceeded to walk painfully slow up to the 52nd floor. This was by far one of the most painful, intense physical activities I’ve ever done. Everyone we passed on the way up was passing us now. We were gripping onto the handrail walking up like slugs. Every step I took my legs would burn – it was like I had 200 pound weights holding them down. I began to get hot and a bit claustrophobic. I had the spins bad, and even felt like I was going to pass out at once. But we made it – slowly, and painfully – to the 52nd floor. The short time we were up there, we had a great view. But then we began the descent down, which was not nearly as bad. I was able to get a level head back on, get some oxygen to the brain, and even jog down the second half of stairs.

As I made my way back to the walkway, I cringed at the thought of how long I had to run. It was only a little over a mile to the finish line. But the rain picked up, it was cold out, my muscles were cramping, and I was dead. Sprad was a bit behind from the stairs – but he caught up and was a major motivation. We ran as fast as we could – but I shouldn’t even use the word fast. We probably could have gotten beat by an 80 year old sprinting. But as we approached the rope wall and the finish line, we began to feel victorious and enjoy the home stretch.

We reached Pier 54. There were a lot of people around the finish path. Ashley and Hoelscher were right near the finish cheering for us. All that stood between us and the finish was the rope wall. We made it to the rope wall, and my legs were dead. Sprad gave me a little boost, and I pulled myself over. As I turned to help him, he was already crawling up. We only had about 15 more steps, and we finished.

Ecstatic, yet tired, we met Ashley and Hoelscher and celebrated. Men’s Health had unlimited Powerade Option – which by the way, is an unbelievable drink – and lots of food. After catching our breath and changing shirts, we walked around a bit and just relaxed. It was a neat feeling.

But how did we do? We finished the race in 1:56:53 (the best individual time was 1:26:14). We were 123 overall, but that’s not including the relay teams. Our stair climb time was 22:34, or ranked 175 (best individual stair time was 10:52 – AMAZING). We finished 33 out of 91 in our division, Male 20-24. While there’s definitely room to improve – had we not crashed on the stairs, being one of them – I was pleased with our results. We were running against veteraned runners, many of whom talked about marathons and such, and still finished respectably.

Overall, the race was great fun. I worried Men’s Health was going to be unorganized, but they pulled it off really well. The competitors were friendly and obstacles fun. While there’s definitely room for improvement, they did a great job the first time and I’m really looking forward to running in future races. They’re even talking of expanding past NYC, which would be awesome.

I’m going to continue working out and racing competitively. I’ve already entered an 8K in November, and looking for new races to enter.