Trout, Eagle Tail chop down Paul Bunyan competition

Ryan Trout and Cyris Eagle Tail of Staples placed first and second at the Paul Bunyan Extreme 5K obstacle course race on July 9 held near Brainerd.

The two worked together for the first part of the course. “I ran the first half of the race with him,” said Trout. “We were helping each other out, talking and letting each other know what was going on and what to watch out for. It was helpful to have someone doing it with you.”

Halfway through the race, Trout took off, ending up with a time of 26:38 and Eagle Tail came in at 28:24.

The 5K was set up at Mount Ski Gull just north of Brainerd. There were 21 obstacles along the course, like: mudstacle, spider ladder, dumpster dive, tire park and “Paul’s size 24 boot.”

The first obstacle involved crawling through muck, mud and slime. “They get you soaked right away, so you have to deal with that the whole race,” said Trout.

Trout said the hardest station was crawling under a burlap net that was staked to the ground so it was tight, and water was spraying on it the entire way.

There were also some fun obstacles;  like the rope swing into a pool of water, giant wire spools layed out in different patterns, one with a jumble of tires and one memorable obstacle was carrying a large rock up a big hill.

“The most challenging part was the hills, the first 1,200 meters were all working uphill, some places the hills were so steep you had to use your hands to get up,” Trout said.

“It’s a major workout the entire time,” he said.

Trout said he loves the competition part of it. He ran cross country and track as a senior last year for Staples Motley and raced the semi pro snocross circuit this past winter.

He said cross country training helped in the hilly part of the  race. “You have to know how to run downhill, know how to start out slow, build and sprint without falling, a lot of people fell on the downhill.”

Trout ran the PB Extreme race last year and placed fourth. He said there were a few change-ups this year because the weather was drier. “Some of the swamps were muck instead of water, last year you could swim through them, this year you would sink up to your knees,” he said.

Another oddity a long the course was the tame turkey hen and her chicks he encountered on a grassy path in the race. “They wanted to stay on the mowed path so they were running with me and around me, then suddenly they took off,” said Trout.

There were a record 777 racers this year, going off in heats every half hour. Trout said he knew he won his heat, but had to get to a wedding so he didn’t know he had won the entire event until he checked online that evening.

 Another of Trout’s former high school teammates, Tony Caudillo, also competed in the event and the results showed Addison Lorber of Staples also competed in the obstacle run.