Race Recap: Picnic Island Adventure Run

Last Friday I ran the Picnic Island Adventure Run here in Tampa. This race was definitely challenging as it was all so unfamiliar! I appreciated the change from a typical race (start, run, finish), but I wouldn't really call it a "race". It seemed like everyone was just working on getting to the finish line rather than beating the person in front of them. It was tough, dirty and fun- amazing! They are having the race again in June and then once more in July. I am going to try to make both :)

where the race began (but it was full of runners)

the water we went through was much darker.. and smelled like fish!

I swear it was more narrow this year!

To give you a good description of how it went down I included the email I sent to David:

The race began and ended on the beach with tons of really fit runners-
some even running in the water! It was so tough running on the sand
for the first 10 minutes. Huge trees were in the way so we had to
duck. Then we ran on a narrow path though the woods. It was tough with
lots of rocks and hills and ditches! Back on the sand we had to crawl
under a huge net and then get over a hurdle and then run through
tires! AND THEN we had to run through water. (We thought that was
bad...) Then we walked through this quick sand type of mud just a few
inches from the water. We went single file for this! When we thought
it couldn't get worse, we had to walk shin-deep in the muckiest,
smelliest, blackest muck. Ewww. You have got to see the photo they
took of me during that part. It was so gross! And my sneakers were
unrecognizable and so squeaky at this point. My legs were black, too.
Then we could finally run on the sand again. My feet felt SO heavy!
Just imagine the black muddy sneakers now covered in sand. Fun. We did
some more "trail" running- the trail at this point was only a few
inches wide.Toward the end they had set up zig-zags up and down this
big hill...with the heavy, gross sneakers. We went up and down this
hill about 8 times. Then we ran (well, walked, really) out into the
water almost waist-deep. Yes, really. Then we ran to the finish line.
My time was 44:48 which I actually think was pretty good. Crazy.

Here is a fun video about the race series: