5K Foam Fest

As many of you know, I like to do races. I ran a half-marathon when I was 30 weeks pregnant with Avonlea (well, walked). I've been doing 5Ks since I was 9 years old, so the "traditional" 5K doesn't do it for me anymore.  Right after I found out I was pregnant with Avonlea, I did the Color Me Rad run in San Diego, where you get splashed with color throughout the race, and after that one, I decided that I really never wanted to do a "regular" 5K again. I wanted to do as many themed races as possible!

When I saw an ad on Facebook for the 5K Foam Fest, I knew I had to sign up!  I'm not *too* much into just running through mud, so this one with the foam appealed to me. The great thing is that I had 4 women from church sign up with me! I love recruiting others to run. :)

The race took place at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona. It was about an hour drive, which on a Saturday morning didn't take very long.

My favorite cheerleader:

Lisa and Anastasia braved the foam with me.

The fairgrounds were a great place for this kind of race. Lots of space in the infield for the pre- and post-race booths, room to stretch out, and places to change. Plus--grass!

We started the race by running through foam.

After the foam, we circled around the stable and barn areas of the fairgrounds, going through a few mud obstacles--two just running through mud, and one where we had to crawl under wires through it!  As you can see, I was coated with mud (I just kind of went for it!):

If you notice, I was wearing capri pants. It was a warm day, but I remembered reading someone's review that they were really glad they wore knee pads for the race. So, since I don't have any knee pads, I went for some bare bones knee protection. I was glad I did. I didn't get any cuts or scrapes from any of the obstacles (unlike my friend Lisa, who cut up her knee on one of the ropes obstacles, and my friend Tara who scraped up her leg pretty badly). Plus, I didn't get too hot because we were in and out of the water.

We came back by the fairgrounds infield to do a big net climb. I was excited about this obstacle, because it was one of my favorite things to do in elementary school. :)

One tip--don't wrap your hands between the rope and the metal posts--the rope gets stretched and pulled, and you could easily get your fingers seriously pinched (I didn't, thankfully)!

After the mud and ropes, we snaked around the rest of the fairgrounds, doing several foam and water obstacles. My favorite obstacle took place in a fountain on the grounds, with a bunch of inner-tubes tied together. You had to crawl across them, trying not to fall in the water. It was actually kind of fun to fall in!  I did great--not falling in the water at all--until the very end. My feet and my arms got caught up on the last inner-tube, and I fell off the tube into the water, which was very shallow, so my butt/hip slammed into the ground!  Owie.  I loved that obstacle, though.  We also went through some ropes course-type obstacles.

At the finish line, we did a foam slip-n-slide. My only complaint about the foam obstacles is that you really didn't want to get the foam in your eyes. OUCH!! It was basically soap, and you know how it feels when you get soap in your eyes.  In another part of the course was a long, downhill slip-n-slide, and there was thankfully a hose at the end so you could wash off your face and hands. But at the one at the finish line, there wasn't a hose, so a bunch of people were coming out of the foam, not being able to see (me being one of them)!!

One other complaint: I'm not sure how it is at other venues, but there was a really poor excuse for a first-aid station. I already mentioned that 2 of my friends got scraped up. On top of that, Lisa had sunscreen in her eyes the whole race. At the end, she really wanted at least a paper towel to be able to wipe her face off, and get a band-aid for her knees, but all that was at the First Aid tent was a rubbermaid container with some ziplock bags in it. Seriously. No ice, no water, no paper towels, no bandages of any kind. In a race like this, with so many opportunities for cuts, scrapes, and falls, you would think their first aid station would be a little more equipped.  There weren't even any race volunteers at the tent. It was being used by racers to get out of the sun.

Even with the few negatives, it was a really fun race, one I will definitely do again.  I have some incentive to do it again next year, because one of the main obstacles (the Death Drop--the 30-ft slide they feature in their ads on Facebook) we didn't get to do because someone in a previous race had punctured it with cleats (which irritates me, because it says ALL OVER the registration and race info NOT to wear cleats) and so they didn't bring it to the race. Because of that, they gave everyone their photos from the race for free, plus $10 off next year. I will be back!

One of my favorite race shirts. Only problem--mine was an XXL. Seriously?? I'm not the smallest girl in the room, but I certainly don't wear an XXL.

To see if there's a Foam Fest race near you, visit their website: www.5kfoamfest.com