Extreme Field Day – June 2013

* From: Jeanine Peirce

* Event Details
Parking: Excellent & no fee.
Bathrooms on site.
Signage could have been better, but the location was easy to find.
Vendors: Orange Leaf had an frozen yogurt make your own sundae set up (they did run out, but were able to replenish within an hour), Vibram toe shoes gave out a 55% off coupon, H20 and Proactive.
Schwag: The all important BLING medal and an all cotton t-shirt. Sure, as parents we’d love to see tech shirts even at the kids level.
Photographs: I do not see anything on their FB page, so I do not know if they had anyone on site.

* Race Details
This race was for kids only. I interviewed Jake, 10, and Kayden, 8, as well as their chaperone Carrie McLean Higgins to get the run down.

Obstacles: (as recalled by Jake & Kayden) bleachers, tunnel, tires, bridge, climbing rocks, 1 wall, slosh pipe, 1 lb sandbag carry, ball in the bucket, sack hop, balance beams, belly crawl under the rope, run through the ladder, platform jump ups x5 and running on field & through woods (for older kids only). Level of difficulty: “Nothing was hard, but it was FUN!”

Jake & Kayden’s opinion: The wall was the best obstacle, but there should be more of them. There wasn’t enough mud. They were disappointed that there were no monkey bars, ropes, cargo nets or any water obstacles. They said there was no waiting so they got to fly through the course. The course was 1.5 miles long for the 10-12 age group. They both said it could be longer. Carrie says this is true for Jake, but Kayden (who ran 1.5 instead of his age group’s .5 miler) was definitely at a good place when he finished. Had Kayden run the .5 mile course he would have been disappointed as it would not have been a challenge at all.

Carrie’s opinion: The boys had a blast. All the kids were playing on the obstacles before and between races. The volunteers did spend too much time trying to explain the obstacles to the youngest group of children. Those kids couldn’t retain that much detail. Each race had a volunteer leading the group around the race course. The oldest group needed an additional volunteer to prevent them from taking a wrong turn & repeating a section of the course that was unnecessary. There was a portion of the race that spectators could not see where all but the youngest kids ran through the woods.

I did see on Extreme Field Day’s FB page that the later races ran out of medals & they would be in the mail as soon as they received them. This would have been a huge disappointment to any kid. Hopefully, these kids were told their medal would be mailed when they signed up & didn’t find out at the finish line.

Jake & Kayden fully back the Extreme Field Day and have their entries for September’s race in Amesbury. Time to get a Spahtkins Team Tent!

* Rating
Above Average