A Mysterious Waffle: Ruckus Pittsburgh 2011

A few months ago I heard about this event called Ruckus. It was advertised as an "adult playground" and an obstacle course for all fitness levels. I was hooked. So I registered early and only had to pay $65 (+handling fees on active.com). Yea, the price was a bit steep, and it only got worse as you delayed. These were the fees:

Loyalty Registration $60 - 3/9-3/25

Early Registration           $65 - 3/26-5/6
Standard Registration   $75 - 5/7-6/10
Late Registration        $85 - 6/11-7/13
Walk Up Registration      $100 - 7/16 - if available

On top of the somewhat high registration price, parking at the event was $10. Now I understand that there probably needs to be extra emergency services on site, but I was really beginning to feel like I was being nickel and dimed here.

Then the kicker came at the end of the race. It was advertised on the website and in my final instructions e-mail that all participants over 21 would receive a wrist band for their complimentary beer post-race. Well I thought it was odd when I picked up my packet that no wrist band was inside. I then realized after the race that beers were not complimentary and were in fact $4 each. I probably wouldn't have been that upset, but why tell me I'd get free beer if you are going to charge? Needless to say, I skipped the beer.

You may be thinking that I'm giving this race a negative review, but it's really more of a neutral review. Since this was the first time that the Ruckus coordinators have tried to have this event in Pittsburgh, I'm willing to cut them some slack. Also, several people did injure themselves on the course. I saw a guy who had broken his tibia on one of the obstacles while I was out on the course. While this event wasn't perfect and there are definitely kinks to work out (some of the obstacles were falling apart as the day wore on and were removed from the course), I did have a lot of fun during it.

The obstacles themselves consisted of mud pits, mounds and valleys of dirt to scale, inclines, monkey bars (over a mud pit), walls to conquer, tunnels to climb through, did I mention mud? You can see in Figure 1 that Rob and I had a lot of fun and did get quite muddy. Although the website said the race would be 4 miles, it seemed like it was only about 2.5 miles. On the other hand, the event really was for all fitness levels and if someone couldn't make it through an obstacle, they could walk through. The whole event was really about having fun and getting out there and playing in the mud.

Figure 1: Post-race covered in mud (Rob got hit a bit worse than me).

To top it off, there was some gear for finishers; a medal (Figure 2) and a t-shirt (Figure 3). As an added bonus, Rob made it to the front page of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Sunday paper (Figure 4). Overall I'd say it was a successful event, and I hope that it returns next year.