{"id":186,"date":"2023-05-22T01:58:43","date_gmt":"2023-05-22T01:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/excel4life.com\/?p=186"},"modified":"2023-05-22T02:49:50","modified_gmt":"2023-05-22T02:49:50","slug":"gladiator-assault-challenge-iowa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/excel4life.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/22\/gladiator-assault-challenge-iowa\/","title":{"rendered":"Gladiator Assault Challenge – IOWA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“Iowa has some hills!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Iowa and Nebraska are notoriously thought of as flat states by those from outside the borders. But, when the Gladiator Assault Challenge (GAC) crew found a location with a “hill”, in this case, the Seven Oaks Recreation Area ski hill about five minutes’ drive outside of Boone, Iowa, they utilized pretty much all of it. As my first venture into the GAC format is memorable as up until this point, only one other OCR event started with a downhill for me. That was the Colorado Springs Spartan at Fort Carson, Colorado. The difference here was you had to hike up the hill to the start line from under the ski lifts.<\/p>\n\n\n

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There was some huffing and puffing at the start line after the climb up the right side to the start line!<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The “Gladiator Charge” down the hill in the winding mowed area terminated in rolling mud and 55 degree water. But, there was no guarantee of getting there without some comical wipe outs as the steep decline led to some out of control “bushwhackers” ending up face-planted in the wet grass!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That decline-incline coupling would come together four or five times over the 6-mile course from all sides of the ski hill, scaring out deer along the way, and testing the mettle and will power of many who suddenly found themselves dealing with “technical” mud not suited for cross-trainers or every day sneakers. Slipping and sliding ensued, as the stream crossings and 50-meter mud pit, with some shoe-sucking stickiness at the bottom made for very greasy ropes, nets, and boards at the 30 obstacles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A missed step here or there could lead to an obstacle “kiss” as I found out along the way, though not completely sure at what point. The pictures below were taken shortly after the race…they got a little more noticeable by Sunday night!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The overall experience of the GAC was pleasantly surprising compared to my previous Spartan Race experiences. This particular race did not have many overhead obstacles (monkey bars, vertical rope climb or multi-rigs) and had one strength element carrying concrete blocks, but for the runners, the various obstacles, mud, and hills were challenging enough. But for the scant few obstacle races available to us in the fly-over states, this was one of the better ones I’ve personally experienced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kudos to GAC and here’s to hoping Central\/Western Nebraska is someday on the list of race destinations!<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Iowa has some hills!” Iowa and Nebraska are notoriously thought of as flat states by those from outside the borders. But, when the Gladiator Assault Challenge (GAC) crew found a location with a “hill”, in this case, the Seven Oaks Recreation Area ski hill about five minutes’ drive outside of Boone, Iowa, they utilized pretty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[28,24,27,23,26,25],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/excel4life.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/excel4life.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/excel4life.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/excel4life.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/excel4life.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/excel4life.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191,"href":"https:\/\/excel4life.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions\/191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/excel4life.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/excel4life.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/excel4life.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}