Champion Dash and Torrential Downpour

As I wrote a few days ago, Saturday was the day of the Champion Dash! I arrived bright and early in my Champion Dash t-shirt and a pair of athletic shorts, not really knowing what I was about to get myself into. Though the event as a whole was enjoyable, it was rather disjointed. As the name suggests, the course was set up like a run with a defined start and finish and (theoretical) rounds of racers. I would describe every obstacle but there were about 20 so I'll try and give a summary and a list of the most memorable ones.

The first memorable obstacle was called "Walking On Water". This obstacle consisted of empty water jugs connected by nets and strung across the river. It was the fifth obstacle (I think) and when The Anh and I reached it we had caught up with the previous round of competitors. The wait took nearly 40 minutes and the event organizers were even letting people swim across the river to lessen the line but The Anh and I waited and did the obstacle as was intended. After we crossed the river we ran a little ways before reaching a

stream of excessively mud-based obstacles. The last of them was called "Prison Break" and it was my personal favorite, even though we had to wait another 20 minutes to have our turn. They had created a pool of muddy water and strung 4 ropes above from one side of the pool to the other. We had to shimmy on the rope over the pool and though many people fell in, I made it across! I think I surprised many of the other contestants when I completed it but it was actually one of the few obstacles I knew I would be able to do without trouble. After I made it across and The Anh tried, we ran off to the next set of obstacles that included "Balance Beams", "Monkey Bars", "Broken Straws", "Heaven Bells", "Under Enemy Lines", then finally, "Inclined Walls". All of these obstacles except the last two were placed over pools of water so if you failed the obstacle, you would end up soaked. I made it over the balance beams but the monkey bars were set up high and sloped upwards. I made it halfway, lost my grip, and fell in. I made it through "Broken Straws" with no issues - you essentially just had to crawl through a tube that emptied into a pool then back up another tube. "Heaven Bells" was the hardest obstacle in my opinion because you had to climb up a 20 foot rope and ring a bell at the top. As I was already soaking wet, they had suspended the ropes over water, and you had to start in the water, I couldn't make it up the rope to ring the bell. After The Anh and I had both tried it out, we climbed out of the pool and moved on to "Under Enemy Lines" where we had to crawl for about 30 feet under barbed wire. This obstacle was followed by the inclined walls which were overhung wooden walls. The Anh and I both got boosts over and headed off to the next obstacle which turned out to be nearly a kilometer away. We had to run a ways then cross the river again (this time on a bridge); we ran on a road that led back into the Ecopark and met the next obstacle, the "Rope Wall Escape". This was just like the inclined walls only taller and with a rope for assistance because you could no longer boost people over. The hardest part of the obstacle was trying to get traction on the slippery wood but I made it over and onto the final obstacle. By this point it was nearly 12:30. We had started the race at 8:20 and it had taken, yes, about 4 hours! Honestly, the time we took to do the obstacles couldn't have been more than 2 hours but because we had to wait so long at some of them, it took nearly twice the time it should have. We were just climbing up the "Pyramid Climb" when it began to rain. I was still wet from the previous obstacles so I couldn't even feel the rain when it started but it quickly turned into a thunderstorm and soon everyone was running for cover. The Anh and I crossed the finish line and found some garbage bags for our backpacks to go into. At this point, it was raining so hard that the volunteers at the bag checks had to move the bags 10 feet from the edge of the tent to keep them from getting wet; The Anh and I got our backpacks put into garbage bags and we just stood in the rain.

After finally finishing a race that had started more than 4 hours before, having already been soaked and having been put through the wringer, we happily welcomed the rain. Never have I ever been happier to be caught in an absolute downpour. I walked back to the apartment relishing the powerful thunder and insane rain that was beating down and flooding the pathways. I had planned on washing my shoes after they had gotten so muddy but I didn't even need to -

the rain did if for me! I got into the elevator and headed up to the apartment when I realized that I was truly soaked to the bone. Anh's mother greeted me at the door and didn't even mind that I was dripping wet; I still had Anna get my towel so I wouldn't drip so much but I headed straight for the shower and got in with all my clothes on. When I got out, I put on my sweatpants for the first time I've been in Vietnam. It was then that I realized how hungry I was so I sat down and had some leftover spaghetti that Anh's mom had made for lunch. I spent the rest of the day resting, submitting college applications, and doing homework until dinner time. I had gotten a pretty nasty cut that was definitely infected so Dung helped me clean it up a little before bed.

Sunday was a pretty lazy day; I'm was sore all day from the craziness of Saturday and I needed some time to rest. The weather was actually very cool and windy which was nice and though it was cloudy, there was no smog - I think the huge storm cleared things up. For lunch, Dung made cellophane noodles with crab and broth and we ate with Anh's parents who had stayed overnight while Dung's parents were in the city. Dinner was hectic with all four grandparents in the apartment - that's 8 people altogether - but we made it work and had a good dinner. It's getting late now and I'm still very tired so I'll be going to sleep soon. I hope everyone had a fun Halloween (and birthday), and enjoy your extra hour of sleep tonight! Hanoi doesn't

do Daylight Savings so my clocks won't be changing and it's just occurred to me that if Seattle time moves back an hour, the time difference will be 15 hours.. Anyway, have a good Sunday and thanks for reading!