I got up around 8 and put my clothes on. We watched some stuff about the college football game line up and I ate some Count Chocula and a banana. Fletcher watched me eat my food.
Willmarth got all of his stuff together and we left just after 8:30. We had to go get an orange shirt and pick up our registration packets. We drove down to the Mexican Walmart, this is what he and Shannon call it, and found ourselves cheap $4 orange T-shirts. For some reason it was really hard to find T-shirts, most of them were long sleeved. He found some cheap sunglasses, we paid and now we were on our way to our second Pirate Plunder race.
We gave the parking people our $5 parking fee and they ushered us to our spot. We gathered the stuff we needed and made our way into the festivities. We stood in the line to get our registration packet and our number, used the restroom and went over to the bag check tent. Then we waited for our 10:30 start time. Meanwhile, we had this really weird lady talk to us...we swear she was high. She asked us some really bizarre questions.
And then it was go time!
This time we ran the opposite way; following the freeway instead of the Greenway trail. We ran for a little while, Willmarth ran a little more this year, before we reached our first obstacle, Pieces of Eight. We ducked and crawled over and under a series of walls in our way. I got through this pretty quickly. This year they made the walls a little taller.
Right away we noticed that the obstacles are a little bit more further apart this year than they were last year.
We ran through the Mutineer's Misfortune, a hoard of hanging tires, as quick as we could. Neither of us fell or got hit in the face by a tire. We wrapped back around and headed to obstacle #3, The Scury Scurry. I could hear Willmarth behind me saying, "don't use the rope, just run over the top of it!" Challenge accepted. I sprinted up the incline and slid down the backside of it with no problem. I did the same thing to the other one. I turned around and watched him go up and over the obstacle.
The 4th obstacle, Gangplank Gallows, was a platform where you took a rope and you swung across a muddy pit to the other side, avoiding the mud as best as you could. This year the pit was deeper, muddier and a lot shorter to swing across. Last year they set you up to fail because no one could physically swing across the pit.
The Crow's Nest was a series of webs you had to duck under, step over and avoid being tangled up inside of it. When I got there, I didn't duck low enough and one of the strings grabbed my skull cap and pulled it off. I had to hurry through it so I could fix my cap and my hair.
Six was the new mystery obstacle called the Quartermaster Cargo Climb and it was a series of cargo nets we had to climb up and over. We got up and over that in no problem.
We had a long running gap ahead of us before we reached obstacle 7, Blackbeard's Blockade. On the way towards the blockade, the Kraken's Revenge obstacle, the one you climb up a cargo net and slide down a pole, well, there were a bunch of EMT's, event volunteers and other personnel on the pole side of the structure. We really couldn't see what was happening from where we were but we did notice signs saying that the poles were out of order basically. We did see the participants being funneled to a make shift slide to the left of the structure. Something really bad must have happened. Once we got to the blockade, it was a high wall that you had to use your own strength to get up and over with the ropes provided for you. We had to use our arms and legs to conquer it. The next day my arms and shoulders definitely felt that.
When we finally got to Kraken's Revenge, we climbed up the cargo net and got onto the platform. The event volunteers advised us not to look over the edge at the EMT's working on the woman that got hurt. Too late. I looked and I was totally grossed out. Willmarth also looked over the edge. Basically the woman's ankle was sticking out of her calf. I knew I had to tell Ben about this, he would think it was awesome! They shuffled us to the slide and down we went to the next obstacle.
Shiver Me Timbers was not my favorite. Last year they required you do go over the pipe, then under the pipe, which you had to dunk your entire head into the pool of water and mud...I did not like that. This year you just had to crawl over the eight or so pipes. I got through pretty quickly only getting the lower half of me soaked. Willmarth opted to not do this obstacle mostly because of his knee brace.
We made it to our tenth obstacle, Jacob's Ladder. This was the tallest structure of the event. We climbed up this giant wooden ladder over to the other side.
Walk the Plank was backed up a little bit. This year there was an extra part called The Wentch's Challenge. If you chose to walk the normal plank you didn't get a shirt but if you successfully walked the harder plank you got a shirt. Willmarth walked the normal plank because he wasn't wearing his normal glasses so his depth perception was off. I waited patiently for my turn for the challenge. Many of the people in front of me failed miserably. A lot of them fell into the muddy water down below. I noticed if you go across it slowly while you thought about it, you will fall in. If you hurried across it you had less time to think about it and not fall in. I basically hurried though it and had a small cheerleading section at the end rooting for me. I made it across and they handed me my medium white t-shirt. Why did they give them out knowingly our white shirts were going to be muddy by the end of the race? We'll never know.
From there, we ran over a huge pile of tires in the 12th obstacle, Hornswaggle Tire Hoard. That one was no big deal. I waited for Willmarth on the other side.
The Bilge Rat Crawl, obstacle 13, was one we will never forget. Last year I disappeared in the underwater trench. This year we knew better. We got across the first mud pit, through the pipes and though the other mud pit without falling.
My shirt made it though the first mud test.
We followed the course to our 14th obstacle, Jolly Roger Mud Scramble. We remember having a hard time last year walking though the muddy river. This year I had more tread on my shoes so it made it a little easier to make it through. Willmarth walked through part of it and walked next to it to avoid getting water and mud on his knee brace. We wrapped around and made our way to the water slide. My shirt beat the second mud test.
When we got to the Scallywag Slide, we entered the first pit and he stood there too long and the mud engulfed his foot. When he moved forward he fell on me, making me fall into the pit with my pretty white shirt. My shirt failed the third mud test. When we got to the top of the water slide we had to wait. There was a big back up of people waiting. They had to fix part of the plastic on the slide and grab some of the loose rocks down below. One at a time, we all made it down into the second mud pit.
We had one more obstacle to conquer, the Marauder's Mud Crawl. We battened down the hatches and had one last muddy crawl to victory! It was more muddier than last year but we made it through, sore elbows, knees and all. We made it through the finish line together, received our pirate's booty medal and bottles of water. We took our picture and got hosed off by the Yakima Fire Department.
We gathered our bags and went to the truck to change into dry clothes and shoes. We went over to the beer garden for our free beer.
We went back to the truck and he decided he wanted Miner's for lunch. I was starving so I totally agreed. We went though the drive through. He ordered a fish and chips for himself, a chicken dinner for Shannon and I got a cheese burger and fries.
Miner's-Yakima Valley's famous hamburger joint
When we got home, we were molested by dogs, I put on some extra clothes because I was still soaked and their house was kinda chilly, grabbed my food and took a seat at the dining room table. We ate our food and talked about the college football games on the menu. We watched part of the Stanford game, I took a quick shower and then passed out for a few hours. I was exhausted. I woke up to the sound of my phone...mom called to ask how the race went. I told her we won. Haha.
They didn't get the Pac-12 network so we found a website to stream the WSU-Cal game to the TV. That game just about killed me off. No defense, a lot of offense and we had a chance to win at the end of the game but our kicker missed the field goal. We could not believe it!! We stayed up for a little bit longer and we got hungry. He had a sandwich and I had some leftover chicken and rice. About 1:00 I started getting ready for bed, told everyone good night and went to bed. It felt good.
We survived another pirate plunder race!
Next Adventure: Sleeping in, Football, Honey Crisp Apples and the Drive Home
