Savage Race

“Every day I fight to be legendary” – Skillet – Legendary

My junior year of college in 2016, I saw an ad on Facebook for this obstacle course race, called Savage Race. I clicked on their profile and read more about it and what the obstacles were. I was hooked immediately. There are a ton of different obstacles to test you throughout a 5-7 mile/walk run. If you’re not up for the full version of the race, they offer a Blitz option that is shorter in length. They also have professional photographers scattered throughout the course to capture some cool pictures. There are locations all over the eastern side of the US. Check out the locations page to see if Savage Race will be near you!

I was always an active person, even when I was young. I was an animal on monkey bars. My dad taught me at a young age how to do monkey bars and they were always my favorite thing to do at the park. Growing up I played almost every sport. I was a competitive swimmer for sixteen years. I love to play all sports. I would rather play a sport than watch it any day of the week. I’m not a sit-still-look-pretty type of girl. I like to be active and push myself.

So, this race was right up my alley. I signed up and made my brothers sign up with me. We were on a team so we could run together and help each other on the obstacles and motivate each other.

Since then, I have done the Savage Race every summer. It is so much fun and I love pushing myself to the limits. The obstacles are challenging and really test your strength to support your own body weight. That was something I noticed from watching other competitors. I saw a lot of people who looked like they were strong and worked out every day but so many of those people couldn’t hold themselves up. So if i can give you any training advice to help prepare, do deadman hangs, pull ups, and push ups.

I’ll be honest, I don’t train for it. I just show up and see what happens. Granted, while I was in college I was still swimming everyday so I had some kind of exercise behind me, but after college I found it really hard to work out alone. I am motivated by other people who are doing the same exercise.

This past weekend I did the Savage Race alone. I was suppose to do it with a friend, but it didn’t work out. Every other time I’ve done the race I’ve always been with a team, someone else to run with and help on obstacles. Some of the obstacles are tough for short people like myself, so I was a little nervous I wouldn’t be able to complete them all.

Let me tell you, doing the race alone boosted my confidence times 100!! It was probably one of the best things that could have happened for me. Sure I was bummed I wasn’t doing the race with my friend, but I needed that confidence boost. At the end of the race I was so proud of myself. I completed every obstacle, even the high walls that I was nervous about.

The first set of walls on the course were about 5 feet tall (for reference I am 5’3″). I went over those no problem. The second wall was an 8-10 foot wall, that’s where I got nervous. When I got to that obstacle there was another guy already standing by the wall. He saw me trying to figure out the best approach to make it up and over and he came over to me and offered to boost me up. He boosted me up and I sat on top of the wall and offered to help him up if he wanted a hand up. He said no thank you and that he just wanted to help someone else make it over this obstacle and that he was going to walk around it.

(Shout out to you dude! If you ever read this, I know I thanked you a ton of times on the course, but you don’t know how much that meant to me.)

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The second wall was at an angle so it was a little easier to run up and grab the top. The wall after that was more of a ledge you have to pull yourself up and over. I was able to swing my leg up on that one. My favorite obstacle on the course was called Anchors Aweigh. There were hanging anchors like monkey bars, you had to hold a ring in each hand and hook the ring on the anchor and swing to the next one. It was super fun and I breezed through it.

My second favorite obstacle is Colossus. The first part is a giant ramp wall that has some ropes hanging down to help you make it up. The last part is a giant slide. The first few times I did the Savage Race I was terrified of the ramp. I was afraid to fall and slide back down. Some other obstacles I like but weren’t included this year were Davy Jones (a giant platform you climb to the top and jump off into water), Sawtooth over water (monkey bars that zigzag up and down), and Shriveled Richard (an ice bath you have to go under a wall and come out the other side).

Below are some photos from this year and previous years Savage Races I have done.

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If you notice the blue tape on my hands in the pictures from this years Savage Race it is to help prevent my hands from ripping/blistering. There was a stand at the race called Wodndone. They sold these hand protection grips and they even applied them for you if you wanted to wear them during the race. In previous years, I wore gloves on some of the obstacles to protect my hands and to help grip. I decided to give Wodndone a shot and test it out because once the gloves got wet it was hard to use them again. These hand protectors were amazing! I could barely tell I was wearing them. They stayed tight to my skin for the whole race and protected my palms from getting blisters. After the race I went back and bought some more to have for other activities and next years Savage Race.

I look forward to this race every year. I can’t wait for next year. If savage race isn’t in your area they just started doing Savage Anywhere. You can register/sign up and get a t-shirt and a medal at the end or you don’t have to register but can just do the workouts. All the info is on the Savage Race website! I plan on doing the Savage Anywhere at some point this year to earn my syndicate medal. The syndicate is if you do 2 races in the same year, and the Anywhere registration counts towards it! Although, at some point I would like to do 2 actual races in the same year.

If you’re into OCR (obstacle course racing) I recommend the Savage Race. If you’ve never done OCR before, this would be a good way to check it out since there are different options to choose from (for the length of your race). It’s a good time and a fun way to meet some new people.