Iwakuni's Own Amazing Race

Back in June, Joel and I had the opportunity to compete in the gym's version of the "Amazing Race" on base. He and I love to compete against each other, so of course we couldn't be on the same team! The MCCS Behavioral Health Branch (where I work) was able to create two teams of four (with a little outside help) and we wound up being the only civilian teams up against 8 active duty teams, egad!

It was really cute how they came up with obstacles and made us run all over base (a little over 5 miles total) to accomplish them. We had tons of fun and as was to be expected came in last and second to last when all was said and done. But the important thing to carry away from this is that MY team was second to last, meaning Joel LOST... to me!! Bwahaha!

The folks from my office - Heather (Substance Abuse Prevention Specialist), John (FAP and General Counseling), Tracy (WIC), Ashley (WIC) and Jeff (Substance Abuse Counselor)

Jeff and me with our amazing admin, Mioko-san

Team Tenacity chillin' before the race

Team Ultimate Fighters

A little "friendly" competition 'tis all

I didn't get to take pictures of most of the obstacles (I think there were 14 total, but we all had 2 skips... that was part of the strategy because you didn't have a clue what was left so you really had to pick wisely which ones to skip!). Anyways, this obstacle involved plastic gloves and tossing a Crisco-fied weighted ball back and forth.

Tracy and I in an action shot

In this obstacle, each team had to bowl until they reached a score of 300. It took us over 20 frames, LOL. It was funny though because we caught up to the Ultimate Fighters there.

This one was crazy hard! We had pictures of about 10 or 12 energy drinks and we had to match them up with how many grams of sugar they each contained, yikes! Took us a couple rounds...

Don't know how I got so lucky, but I was the one on our team who had to wear goggles and a hair net so I could fish around on a plate full of whipped cream and find 4 tic tacs! It was SO hard!

I pushed a lot of whipped cream off the plate during my struggle and apparently sent some tic tacs with it, so I had to keep licking the table until I found them. ICK!

Tracy and Lana (she's actually a personal trainer at the gym)

We caught up to the Ultimate Fighters again! This one was tough... each team had a compass and coordinates they had to use to find golf tees in the grass with letters on them which would spell out a secret word. It was extra tough because the ground was super uber wet and we were all sinking!

For this obstacle, we had to have 2 teammates balance on bosu balls and take turns doing rows with the stretchy bands. Each of us had to complete 10 without either of us losing balance.

Heather and Tracy had to balance on the bosu's while passing the ball back and forth all the way around in a circle 10 times

Still friends... even though I'm more of a winner ;-) It was a really fun afternoon!!