Tags
5k, kidrobot, labbit, minion, race recap, race review, ridiculous obstacle challenge, roc race, running costumes, sparkle athletic, star trek, team sparkle, teamsparkle, washington dc
Ahh, The Ridiculous Obstacle Challenge 5k, aka ROC Race. I first saw this in the summer of 2013, and I wanted to do it, and I wanted to do it NOW! But, by the time I learned about it, it was basically sold out anywhere within driving distance, so I resolved to do it in 2014. The big balls, the glorious giant slides, that huge moon bounce, I just had to do it.
I believe it was January when registration opened, and I rounded up my friends to sign up ASAP. I signed up myself, my sister and Tim. I convinced Amanda and her sister to register, and also my co-worker Tricia. Patty and Chard were going to register, but their lives were pretty busy with their new baby, so they never did.
I was so excited as this race approached, and I was trying to talk everyone into costumes. Tim decided he wanted to be Captain Luke Picard from Star Trek. Tricia wanted to be Loki, I decided my sister was being a Minion from Despicable Me. I hadn’t decided on my costume yet, as I was busy with my ODDyssey Half Marathon costume planning (which was one week before). Amanda and her sister decided they wouldn’t be attending the race about a week before.
After I wrapped up the ODDyssey half marathon, I got to work on Tim’s costume. I got him a pair of black shorts from Old Navy and a red Champion shirt from Target. Tim picked up a black collared shirt from Wal-Mart which I cut up and sewed to the top of the red shirt. It wasn’t my best work, but it got the point across. I sewed a felt Star Trek emblem to the shirt, and installed four brass colored paper fasteners for his ranking pips, which I randomly remembered I had tucked away in my old gym bag from my Dad’s 60th birthday party two years prior.
I helped Tricia make her tutu the week before as well, and then got to work on my sister’s minion shirt. I used a yellow Champion shirt from Target and then sewed on the minion features with felt. I let her borrow my royal blue sparkle athletic skirt to complete the look.
Finally it was the night before the race and I still didn’t even know what I was going to be. I finally decided I wanted to be a labbit. For those that don’t know, labbits are a toy from KidRobot that I am mildly obsessed with. I looked through all of my running clothes to see what color I could pull off. Since I had a black Champion shirt, black Old Navy compression capris and a black sparkle athletic skirt, black seemed to be the best choice.
I decided I would sew a tail and a butthole (yes Labbit’s are notorious for their buttholes, I’m sorry) to the skirt, and then the rest of the costume would be all in the hat. I got a plain black hat from Target, which I sewed felt eyes to. I hot glued on a moustache to the rim of the hat which I cut out of felt. Then for the trickiest part, the ears. I quickly sewed two ears out of black fleece and then filled them each with a piece of cut up pool noodle. I sewed these to the sides of the hat, and the Labbit costume was born.
My sister spent the night at our apartment, and in the morning we picked up Tricia and drove down to DC. I made us get there super early, because last year when I ran Run or Dye with Patty and Chard at RFK Stadium, parking was a nightmare. This year, we basically pulled right in, which was a relief. But it was a good thing we got there early, because there were lots of lines to wait in!
We waited on line to pick up our packets. Then we walked back to the car to drop off our t-shirts and pin on our bibs. Then we had to wait in line for our wave, while the wave before us was slowly going off. Finally our wave started to go off. Every few minutes they’d let a few more people through. Then it was our turn, and we trotted off slowly, to the first line at an obstacle. There was basically a short line at every single one.
On the second obstacle, the big balls, I barely made an attempt. It was pretty high of a jump, and I wasn’t about to injure myself two days before New York City Marathon training was to start. My sister followed suit. Tim however, went all out and lept too high. He hit the top, and then slammed down real hard on his shoulder. He looked like he was in a lot of pain, but he tried to play it off, and we went off to complete the rest of the obstacles. Nothing really stood out in my mind as super exciting. I certainly don’t think this race was actually a 5k, because between doing all the obstacles and waiting in line for them, and not really putting much hustle into getting from one to another, we finished too fast for it to be a 5k.
The slides were fun, but other then that, meh. We didn’t see any photographers anywhere which was disappointing, but later on this picture of me at the Wrecking Ball surfaced, so I guess there was at least one. We couldn’t find any other photographs of our group anywhere.
It was a pretty chilly day, so getting wet wasn’t much fun, and when we unceromoniously finished, we went back to the car, cold, damp and sleepy. We made the drive back from DC to northern Maryland and that was that. Tricia and my sister were falling asleep in the backseat and Tim looked like he was in a lot of pain still. We would later find out that he had dislocated his shoulder and torn his cartlidge.
Overall I would say this race is over-priced and over-rated. Maybe I had just hyped it up too much in my mind, but I was disappointed with it. Over a month later, and Tim is still recovering from his injury, though he is feeling better every day, it probably wasn’t worth it and we won’t be doing it again.