Having done Warrior Dash and Makahiki Challenge last year, I was not too impressed with the obstacles. They were both fun, but not that challenging. I heard the Spartan Race was different and tougher. When Chris put out the call to join his team for the Spartan race, I decided to see if the course lived up to its hype.

We are Spartans!

Kreyz Oshiro, radio personality from Island 98.5, exhorting everybody to be Spartans. Let’s do this!

Stairs

Running and walking on the stadium stairs. Down. Up. Repeat.

No stairs!

Heading towards the spiral walkways.

Bear crawl up

Crawling and ducking underneath the strings.

Stairs again

Up in the nose bleed section.

Walls

Climbing over walls. At least no stairs. For now.

Aloha Stadium

Making our way around the stadium.

Tire pull

Pulling up tires. Drop it slowly, otherwise get a nasty rope burn.

Bear crawl down

It was easier crawling down than up. Something to do with gravity.

Jerry cans

Carrying buckets filled with sloshing water as we went down, across and up the stairs. Some folks carried two buckets. I was fine with my one bucket.

Traverse wall

Scooting on small blocks across a wall and ringing a bell. Running around in a man-made maze in the stadium. Why does this sound Pavlovian?

Hercules hoist

Hoisting up a bucket filled with sand and rocks. They had lighter ones for women. Hope I picked the correct gender assigned bucket.

Monkey bars

Swinging on the bars. Failure to be met with 30 burpees. Failure is not an option.

Football toss

Playing Monday Morning QB. Yes, I’m using it out of context. Had nothing else. Literally. Drop and give me 15 burpees.

Spear throw

Trying to stick it. Nope. Drop and give me 15 burpees.

Walls

Let’s climb more walls.

Musical chairs

Sitting on each chair in the row without using your hands. Pays to have a heavy bottom for this one.

Movie seats

Remember doing this in the movie theaters when you wanted to change seats without having to go back in the aisle? Finally paid off.

Trio of walls

Over, under and through. Let’s try to follow instructions.

Box jumps

Start hopping and give me 15.

Burpees!?!

Drop and give me 15 burpees. Just because.

Rope climb

Climbing on either the knotted or un-knotted ropes. Ring the bell at the top. So close, yet so far.

Release push-ups

Give me 15 release push ups! You don’t know what they are? Let me demonstrate!

Cargo net

Clambering up and down. Watch your feet, that’s my face.

Hurdle

“You’re almost at the finish line!” Get outta my way then.

Pugil sticks

Running straight down the middle to the finish line.

Grab your medals and T-shirts

Group photo at the finish line, standing left to right: Albert, Sheldon and myself. Kneeling left to right: Chris and James.

It’s not free?

Looking at a finisher riding the zip line. You had to pay $35 one way or $50 round trip. I paid enough already.

GPS Tracks

The course was a little over 4 miles, round and round through the stadium, which lived up to its hype. This was only the entry level course in the Spartan “Family” – the others being Spartan Super and Beast. Great fun with a great team. Next time, if there’s a next time, I will train and not just wing it.

When I heard that the bungee jump was coming to Hawaii at the 50th State Fair, I was ready to take the plunge, even after working a double shift. I figured I would do the jump quickly and then head back home and crash before my next shift, wrong! I got there and the wait was over two hours long, mostly military guys ahead of me. I plunked down my $70, got matched with a rope for my weight class and wandered the fair grounds until it was my turn.

Riding to the top

When my turn finally came, the bungee rope was secured around both my ankles and I got into the little cage that would take me to the top of the 140′ arch.

Jump!

The cage slowly moved up the arch until we reached the top, where they opened the door and told me to look straight ahead and just walk the plank, so to speak.

Bouncing on the Bungee

As I fell out the cage, my free fall was quickly arrested by the bungee cord. It then proceeded to bounce me up and down and around a couple times, until all the energy was expended. And believe me, it was over in the blink of an eye.

Going down

Once the fun was over, they lowered me back down to the platform.

That's it?

I collected my additional $20 video and went straight home as I was dead tired, but glad to have done the bungee jump.

UPDATE: When the bungee jump moved over to the McKinley Farm Fair a couple months later, the price was discounted in half! Obviously, not many folks were ready to cough up $70 to bounce like a yo-yo for only a couple of seconds.

UPDATE: I recently read about the world’s highest bungee jump at 764′. Only problem is that it’s located in Macau. Time to break out the passport!