Running Amok is exactly what I did Saturday

By Marie Berberea, Fort Sill CannoneerOctober 6, 2011

usa image
1 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
Writer runs amok
2 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

Fort Sill, Okla.--My plans of taking on the obstacle course also ran amok, as I fell over a wall of hay and fell out of my kayak into the lake. What can you do? Clumsiness should always be accounted for.

The first Run Amok event took place at Lake Elmer Thomas Recreation Area and with a healthy turnout of participants I was more than excited to find out what was in store. I should have known by the smile on event coordinator Cara Bell's face that it would be interesting, to say the least.

My team of five was in the first heat. We traipsed the course straight into the first obstacle: tires. I put on my best "I've watched ESPN training day" face and performed some quality high knee maneuvers.

So far, so good.

We took a curve and continued on to the second obstacle: hay jumps. With different levels of hay stacked on itself, I clumsily climbed over the first two mounts. The third was a much higher stack, about chin level, and my neighbor and I tried to attack at the same time. I was on top of the hay when it came crashing down and my hip bore the brunt of the fall. (That's what bones are for.) I picked myself up, along with my pride and continued on.

Our team stealthily made it over some rocks, across a bridge rested on treacherous gooey lake remnants and up ladders. Then came my arch-nemeses: The one-man kayak.

We were warned about a boat portion, and Bell said the life vest was a must. So when we came upon single-person kayaks we were a little wary. Nevertheless we each hopped in and started to paddle out to our point in the lake. I paddled to the left. Good. I paddled to the right. Not so good.

Now I've been called a bad driver (mainly by my husband), but when I maneuvered the right end of my oar, my kayak took an extreme turn to the right. I was a little dumbfounded as my straight path was more of a zipper.

I eventually made it past the second buoy to turn back to shore when it happened. I daftly maneuvered into an oncoming kayaker, apologized, and tried to turn around. It was then that I took a pleasant swim (on purpose, of course).

My kayak was still at my side when James Holliver put into principle the Run Amok code of teamwork.

He held my kayak while I pulled myself and an onslaught of water inside. As I was slowly taking in more water, I pulled a Titanic and went down with my ship. My neighbor, Dan, also aided in bringing me back to shore but I felt like too much of a burden. So, I put some lap training into use as I slowly … made it back to the rest of my team.

I believed that I helped boost the morale for everyone including my friend Tasha who I'm sure was saying 'bless her heart' so I considered the kayak obstacle a success as we went to the mud pit.

The guys jumped right in as the ladies got in a little less enthusiastically. We low crawled to our hearts content and ran straight for a tunnel and some over, under table obstacles.

United as one, my team jogged to the not-so-tight ropes and made our way to the home stretch. Let me just say that I've always wanted to put mall-walking into good use as we turned the corners of what can only be described as a check out line. We were told we were not allowed to run through it but as soon as we got out we were supposed to sprint. That's exactly what we did.

I'm not sure exactly how we would place in the event if there were such things as ranking in Run Amok, but I'm positive we would do it again.