I attempted obstacle course racing… and it made me pretty sure I'd fail Ninja Warrior
By Sam Downing|
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I'm in Tasmania, in the middle of winter, and facing down eight "lily pads" — a string of floating drums roped together across a freezing pond. Can I step across them fast enough, light enough, to avoid tumbling into the water?
I'm in Tasmania, in a sprawling farmland with stunning views out over Marion Bay not far from Hobart. In summer, this is the site of the famed Falls Festival. Today I'm undertaking Raw Challenge Tasmania with the team from Bulk Nutrients as well as a handful of Australia's fittest (and bravest) people.
Australian Ninja Warrior's gauntlet is off-limits to mere mortals, so the Raw Challenge is the closest I'll get to some of those feared obstacles — and it gave me new appreciation for how tough they actually are.
The Raw course is 7km and dotted with tests: not just the lily pads to dart across, but walls to mount, ropes to climb, tyres to lug, hills to ascend and tight tunnels to clamber through.
On a full-fledged event day, the course also includes mud pits and ice baths. They're more mud puddles when my group takes a crack, and the ice baths are nowhere to be seen — thankfully.
By far the hardest obstacle is one dubbed "Livin' on a Prayer": a long, hairy rope tied across that freezing pond, which we must hang upside-down from and haul ourselves across — hand over hand, foot over foot.
It hurts.
Raw Challenge Tasmania is gruelling, but don't be turned off by these kinds of obstacle races if you don't think you strength or fitness is good enough.
"It is definitely not about being fit or first," says Kirri Brazendale, Raw Challenge Tasmania's top chick (her title per her email signature).
Every obstacle on this course scales to your level, whatever that may be — "lower options and higher options, smaller and bigger, deeper and shallower, and longer and shorter," Brazendale tells Coach. Your fellow racers will help you up and over, or you can skip anything you deem beyond your reach.
"Our catchphrase is that Raw Challenge Tasmania is for any age, any ability," Brazendale says. "As long as you're over five and under 105, we will let you have a good old crack".
She hopes the event will inspire Tasmanians to become "fitter, healthier and happier", and for families to have a blast together. (Before the course, she informed us even her young daughter had finished it — dramatically increasing the pressure on me, a grown man.)
Of all Raw's obstacles, Brazendale says those lily pads are the most popular.
"'This is by far the most fun," she says, though her definition of fun might differ to yours: "On event day we put two trainers out on big blow-up swans, as lifeguards, and we fill up water pistols and water bombs and we throw dodge balls."
So did I fall in when I dared the lily pads? Almost every other racer in my group wound up in the drink — but I'm proud to say I got across dry. (Tip: pay close attention to those crossing in front of you, to avoid repeating their mistakes.)
But despite my brief success, I'm still pretty sure I'd fall in the water on the first real Ninja Warrior obstacle.
The next Raw Challenge Tasmania is scheduled for January 21, 2019. Stay tuned to the Raw Challenge official site for more details.
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