placeholder: 2013

The Foam Fest was not on my to-do list this year, but my daughter had already registered and decided to opt out to do a l4 mile training run. Rather that let a good registration go to waste, I transferred the registration to me and committed to trashing an old pair of shoes in a mud pit.

The short report - this event was very casual and quite a bit of fun. A lot of runners and teams had creative costumes, there were more porta-potties than necessary (rare at any event), and they provided medals and decent t-shirts at the finish. I was covered in soapy slimy foam and mud by the end.

Now the longer report - this is not a race. I should write this up as a casual stroll through a state park with giant inflatable rides, a water obstacle and a broken 50 foot slide (more on that in a bit). The start was staggered in waves about every 20 minutes which was nice as it allowed the runners to spread out and there were minimal waits to attack an obstacle. I was a bit surprised that after the 3rd obstacle, half the runners just started to walk to the next obstacle. This thinned the field further, making it very easy to knock down the next obstacle and keep going.

The obstacles included 30 and 50 foot inflatable slip n slides, floating "lilly pads", the requisite electric shock mud crawl, foam room, 5 and 8 foot vertical walls and a cargo net climb. There were a few others, but they were pretty simple. Their flagship obstacle, the 50 foot giant slide of awesome, was not that at all. They had 2 of these giant slides, and they looked pretty cool. One deflated, so my wave was looking at a 1 hour wait in line to go down the one working slide. I opted out - they were cool, but not "let's stand around after being muddy and wet for an hour" cool. They did offer to take $10.00 off next years entry for those who did not want to wait. My answer to that was "You can guarantee both will work next year?" Blank stares were my response. Other than that, the event was well run. The staff were great, they had a lot of volunteers, and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun.

My favorite obstacles were the lilly pad and cargo net. Both were simple, but not as simple as they looked. I was able to jump off the lilly pads into the lake to rinse all the mud and foam from earlier obstacles which was nice. The inflatable slip n slides would follow. All in all, it was a lot of fun, but I won't be back. If I get the bug to do an obstacle event in the future I'll probably find something with fire to jump over.

Here are a few pics and video clip of the lilly pads.