“Hooyah!” they cried. Moore took off in the lead, running toward the first obstacle, the parallel bars. He hoisted himself up and used his hands to walk across the steel, his shoulders and triceps on fire by the time he hit the sand on the other side. Already out of breath, he made a quick right turn, lifted his arms over his head, and hopped his way through the truck tires (about five wide, ten deep) and toward the low wall. There were two ascending stumps he used — right foot, left foot — then with a groan he launched himself onto the top of the wooden wall and swung himself over the side, hitting the sand much harder than he’d thought he would. With his ankle stinging, he jogged over to the high wall, maybe twelve feet, but it could have been fifty at this point. He seized one of the ropes and began to haul himself up, the rope digging sharply into his palms.
At the course’s start, Killian was barking orders and/or corrections, but it was hard to hear him. Moore’s breath and drumming heart led him over to the concertina wire lying across a series of logs, beneath which were two long furrows. He plunged into the first ditch on his left and crawled on his hands and knees beneath the wire. For just a second he thought his shirt had caught on one of the barbs, but it was just hung up on the wood. With a sigh of relief, he finished breaching the obstacle, got to his feet, and muttered an Oh, shit.
The cargo net was fastened between two poles that rose to at least forty feet. Moore immediately determined that the net would be more stable near the pole, as opposed to in the middle, so he mounted it near the pole and began his rapid ascent.
“You got it, buddy,” Carmichael said, coming up just behind him.
Looking down was a mistake, as he realized there were no safety measures, and as he came over the top, he began to grow dizzy. He couldn’t wait to get to the bottom, and he began to rush down the net. And that’s when he missed a rung, slipped, and plunged a half-dozen feet until he miraculously caught hold and broke his descent. The entire class had gasped at that, then hooyahed as he recovered and reached the bottom.
He and Carmichael charged doggedly toward the next bit of fun, the balance logs. The name said it all. If they fell off, Killian would make them work off the mistake in push-ups. Moore tensed and glided across the first log, made a short left turn, then headed back on a straight course down the next one, dumbfounded that he didn’t actually fall. Carmichael was right on his heels as they hit the hooyah logs, an obstacle made of six logs stacked and bound in a pyramid. With palms clasped behind their heads, they ran up and over the pyramid, then crossed over to the transfer rope. At this point, Moore’s cardio endurance was still holding up strong, but Carmichael’s breath was nearly gone, his heart rate clearly in the red zone.
“We got this; come on,” he urged his buddy, then took up the first rope, climbed about six feet, then swung over, caught a metal rung with one hand, released the first rope, and then swung himself again to transfer to the second rope. Down he went. Carmichael took an extra swing to reach the rung, but he made it nonetheless.
The next challenge was referred to by the sign as the Dirty Name, and one look at it told Moore why: It comprised three n-shaped structures made of logs, two shorter n’s sitting side by side so that two lines of candidates could tackle the obstacle at the same time. The longer, taller n-shaped barrier stood in the back. Moore ran to the log seated before the n, leapt onto the first log, and pulled himself up. Then he stood on that one and leapt across to the taller one to repeat the process, swinging around by hooking his legs over the log. The impact on the second log made him utter the notorious dirty name, as did the impact as he hit the dirt.
Another pyramid of hooyah logs waited for him, this one built with ten logs instead of six — steeper and taller. As he came over the top, his boot gave way, and he crashed face-first into the dirt. Before he knew what was happening, he was being hauled to his feet.
Carmichael, bug-eyed, screamed in his face, “Let’s go!” Then turned and ran.
Moore set off after him.
What resembled a pair of giant ladders lying at forty-five-degree angles stood in their way. Killian was shouting at them, “This is the Weaver! You weave in and out of the poles!” Moore clung to the first pole, hurled himself around, swung onto the next, and continued the process, like a needle and thread, sewing himself up and down through the poles, growing dizzy as he did so. Carmichael worked the obstacle beside him and was down the forty-five-degree backside a few seconds before he was.
The rope bridge, better known as the Burma Bridge, was a single piece of thick rope on the bottom, with support lines attached to form a v-shape. Carmichael had already climbed to the top of the bridge and was out on the rope. Moore took his first step on the single piece of braided line and realized the best place to step was on the sections where the support lines were tied. He moved from knot to knot, the bridge swinging as Carmichael finished his crossing and Moore came up behind him. By the time he reached the end, he’d felt a sense of rhythm that he vowed not to forget for the next time he hit the obstacle.
He and Carmichael ascended one more ten-log pyramid of hooyah logs, then approached the towering platform of the Slide for Life, a four-story affair that had them swinging up onto each platform (no ropes or use of the ladder) until they reached the top. There were two ways to take the obstacle: go to the top and then work your way down the ropes strung at about forty-five-degree angles from there, or simply go to the first platform and work the low ropes, which Killian was saying would burn the forearms but was less dangerous. First time around, though, he wanted them to go to the very top. Once there, Carmichael grabbed the left rope and Moore grasped the right. He leaned forward, hooked his right leg back over the line, and then, with the rope between his legs, he slid down face-forward, using both hands to draw himself across the line. He wasn’t even halfway down when all points making contact with the rope began to burn. He beat Carmichael to the bottom, hit the ground, gaining about two seconds on his buddy, then launched himself toward the rope swing that would take him to a log cross, a set of monkey bars, and then one more beam. He seized the rope, hauled himself forward, and missed the log. Carmichael, on the other hand, ran past the rope, grabbed it, then pendulumed himself easily onto the log. Moore did likewise on his second attempt, but now Carmichael was back in the lead.
After navigating a second bed of tires, they reached a five-foot-tall incline wall they hit from the back side and slid down the front. That led them to the Spider Wall, which was about eighteen feet high, with pieces of wood bolted onto its side in two stair-step patterns to form a very narrow ladder. It was all fingertips and toes moving along the stairs to reach the top; then Moore had to shift down sideways, all the while clinging closely to the wall like a spider. With hands still burning from the rope slide, Moore lost his grip on the very last step but hopped off the wall before he fell.
Meanwhile, Carmichael’s boot caught one of the wooden steps at a bad angle. He fell and had to start over, losing precious time.
With only a single obstacle and sprint left, Moore dashed on toward the set of five logs lying on their sides and suspended to about hip height. The logs were spaced about six feet apart, and the entire contraption was called the Vault.
“Don’t let your legs touch!” Killian warned them. “Only hands!”
Well, that drew a few inward curses as he slapped his palms on the first log and hauled his leg over. Again. And again. Carmichael was just behind him. Moore slipped on the very last log and banged his knee hard. He went down, groaning in pain. Carmichael arrived, dragged him back to his feet, grabbed Moore’s arm, and threw it over his shoulder. Together, they finished the sprint (more a fast limping march) to the end.