February 16-18, 2019
We will sum up the weekend of finals in one post. We were at the XL Center for three full days.
There were over 1550 competitors set to run. There were 6 “lanes” for each age group to run on independent of each other. This way competition from various age groups could run simultaneously. That can be good, in order to get a lot of people through in a shorter amount of time. This can be bad though if you have competitors running on different courses at the same time!!
They broke each group into waves. There were about 50-60 runners in each wave.
Donald ran in wave 2, Kyrah in wave 3, Jeremiah, Audrah and Jedidiah in wave 4. They all ran on Saturday.
Jeshuah was scheduled in wave 5 which ran on Sunday.
The courses were a bit disappointing. Most people failed either on the 1st or 3rd obstacle. Here is a link to a document showing the fail rates of the different age groups.
The venue did not have enough room for all the spectators that came to watch. It was very crowded and we had a very hard time even seeing the competitors on the course.
Donald failed on the first obstacle (this was the 2nd most failed obstacle and quite disappointing because most people came a long way, paid a lot of money for the weekend and were hoping to get further than the FIRST obstacle. Some even didn’t get past the first step of that obstacle). It was a set of 5 wobbly, spinney, slanted steps. No one in the Masters group completed the course which meant no one got to go on to stage 2.
Kyrah too, failed on the first obstacle; the wobbly, spinny, slanted steps.
Jed ran next. He came closest to completing his course but slipped on the final obstacle, the spider wall. He placed 20th overall.
He was a little nervous.
Audrah ran next (a few minutes after Jed ran). She placed 22nd overall.
She failed on the third obstacle. 2 nunchucks to another set of nunchucks (this was the most failed obstacle of the competition across all the age groups).
Jeremiah did the best of the family. He failed on the third obstacle but was fast enough to get there that he got 4th place overall. Only one kid in his age group completed the course and was able to go on to stage 2.
Jeshuah ran on Sunday morning. He made it past the spinning steps but went out on obstacle 3 like most of the others. Only 7 men out of 238 completed the course.
Jeshuah warming up in the warm-up area.
223 men out of 238 didn’t even get past the 3rd obstacle!!
Josiah didn’t compete as he is still healing from a shoulder injury. So, he volunteered and got a STAFF shirt. (0:
Donald, Jeremiah, Josiah and Jedidiah stayed all night at the gym on Sunday night/Monday morning, helping set up stage 2 for Monday. Jedidiah and Jeremiah got to do some course testing too (you’ll notice that the gym is rather empty….this was about 3-4 in the morning!).
Competitors were allowed to bring in only one snack and one drink in the arena. So we skillfully made a ham, cheese and banana sandwich to get the most out of our “one” snack.
One afternoon we walked to Subway. It was rather close but soooo cold outside.
Another evening we had friends come to our rental house for supper.
One good thing from the finals was getting to see lots of friends we have made along the way.
And getting to see some TV ninjas.
It was a long weekend with little sleep…unless of course you catch some Zzzzs on the seating. Jed said a lady sat down on him and squealed when he moved.
When stage 1 was complete, the competitors were allowed on the course to get “redemption”. Here are some shots of them playing.
Whoops!!
Celebrating at Red Robin.
