Hero Rush

Hero Rush is, quite honestly, new to me. :) But, not my son-in-law(Tad) and daughter(Anna). It is a 5K obstacle course, put on by a local fire department, and it benefits mainly the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation of the USA.

Today, I had the pleasure of attending the Hero Rush in Irving, TX, to watch Tad, run the course. It was amazing to me and I wanted to share it with you.

Tad is the man in the white t-shirt on the top of the platform. This is the beginning of the race, they climbed the stairs and are sliding down the poles, while fire sirens are blaring in the background.

At this point they jog/run a bit and find their way through a few obstacles, one being climbing rope and then walking down from 100 feet in the air on what looked like a fireman's water hose! Then more jogging and eventually rewarded with this slimey pool, which was to simulate hazardous waste. :)  Tad said it was slimey and pretty gross feeling. Remember, firemen make this course to simulate their jobs!

There were about 5 more obstacles that I missed, because the trail for us to follow the participants, wasn't clearly marked and we had the stroller.

One that I did see, but didn't get pictures of, was each individual was having to hoist 2 connected car/pick-up size tires over and under the vaults. Apparently they weigh about the amount of a person.

When they came back out of the woods, the part I didn't see, they crawled through a smokey maze and then climbed a rope type ladder into these huge containers filled with soap suds(below). 

Then down the rope ladders. If you look closely, you can see soap suds all over the ground.

Everytime they started to get hot, there was another water challenge in front of them. This is a great idea, since it was about 90F when I was there at 10:00am. (The race had more start times all through out the day)

This challenge looked really good to me! Except, they had to climb up to the top, inside those black plastic tubes, on what was no more than pieces of wood secured to the wall, if I understood that right. Then slide down, and fall into a huge pool of water/mud. 

They then jogged to the ladder that took them into a burning building and across the building and down another ladder.  (I did wonder about this one, as we walked under it)  :)

The finish line!  But, just before it, you can see the smoke, another fire in a fire pit, that they had to jump over to get to the end.

He made it through and did receive a medal for finishing. The happy family.