Nova Scotia’s 5K Foam Fest 2015

I’m finally getting around to writing about my time at 5K Foam Fest when it came to Nova Scotia on August 15th! You may remember me writing about it earlier in the summer, this was an event I had been both really looking forward to and dreading. I was dreading the long drive to and from the venue, and was a little worried it would end up being a rainy, rotten day.  It was held at Ski Wentworth, so a little over a two hour drive away from where I live. Fortunately I collected up a few of my friends and we went together which made it a lot more fun travelling than it would have been all by myself (and bonus – I didn’t have to drive!). And it turned out to be a beautiful (though hot) day so my second worry ended up being for nothing – gotta love it when that happens!

We had signed up for the 11 am wave so we didn’t have to leave quite so early, even so we were on the road at 7am, which gave us lots of time to get there, pick up our bibs and whatnot before our wave started. We also didn’t know what the parking situation would be like, and were hoping we wouldn’t have to take a shuttle to/from the race site – well we lucked out there too! We got in the main parking lot and got to watch people already on course taking the “Death Drop” which was only feet away from where we were parked.

And it was quite fun just watching the foam floating around in the sky. There were a few big bunches (?) of foam that were floating in the air on our way to pick up our bibs and I saw one girl (who had her back to the foam) get hit from behind by a big puff of floating foam. Hahaha

Getting our bibs went pretty quickly so back to the car we went to get ready for foaming! Face tattoo and all 😉

Once we were ready we went back over and it wasn’t long at all before we started the run. I gotta say, running through a wall of foam is pretty spectacular!

The race wasn’t timed, and none of us wore a watch or tracker of any kind so we don’t even know when we actually started. I assume it was right around 11 since that was our start time, and we were back at the car getting cleaned off at 1pm so it took us a little under 2 hours to do the 5k. Which might seem super slow, until you realize we had to climb 815 vertical feet, the entire way up Wentworth Ski Hill, in 30 degree weather, while completing obstacles, and occasionally standing in lines for said obstacles. This was a course that unless you were hoping for an injury you really would want to run much, or any of it. The up hills were really steep, and the down hills were steep and rocky. There was lots of rock and roots and whatnot, so it really is more of a “have fun with your friends” sort of race versus a, “Let me see how fast I can do it,” race.

A lot of the obstacles were typical mud/obstacle run things like climbing over a rope A-frame, crawling in mud, going over walls, rope/spider web type things, etc. And then there was the foam fun! Like Slip and Slides, this awesome inflatable called “The Body Washer” which was sort of like a car wash for people, The Death Drop, etc. Once we scaled the ski hill, everyone’s spirits were lifted and we had quite a bit of fun the rest of the way!

Once back down off the hill we headed toward the big slide!

The Death Drop was both super fun, and a little scary. I’m not a big fan of heights, but slides like this don’t really scare me, except that it was pretty darn steep and you felt a bit like you were in a free fall when you pushed off the top. I know I let out a little “squeak” as I went down, but nobody heard me so it must have been pretty quiet. Like a mouse. 😉 This was the only obstacle where I got water up my nose. And I hate getting water up my nose. -_- After the slide we had just a little jaunt through some “brambles” and one more slip and slide before the finish line.

Done!

This is a nice little note for anyone who hasn’t done a mud run or obstacle race where they advertise “free showers” afterwards. They do not in fact mean free “showers”. They generally mean free garden hoses.

There’s nothing quite like standing around a bunch of strangers and shoving a garden hose down your shirt and shorts while it blasts you with freezing water to try and clean yourself up, haha. We rinsed off here and then headed back to the car where we filled out own little basin with water and got out some soap and cleaned up a bit more and changed.

Besides all the scrapes and bruises, I had fun! I like doing different races and adventures instead of sticking to the same ones year after year so I’m glad I went and drug my trip with me 😉 That means I’ve complete 2 “new to me” races this year – one more to go to meet my goal for 2015!

Have you ever participated in Foam Fest? Did you participate in the Nova Scotia race? What was your favourite obstacle? I’m pretty sure the slip and slides were my favourite, though I really enjoyed the body washer and death drop as well!

Disclosure: I was provided with 4 free registrations in exchange for my coverage of the event. As always, all thoughts and opinions are entirely my own.