Appalachian Adventure Racing Camp
Copyright© 2025 by Canairs90s
Scene 5 — Cal
After the brief interlude to get their breath back, the pair began to get back up to their normal jogging pace. They were still sore but not in quite so much pain. It took a little longer than between previous obstacles but they arrived at the third one before too much time passed.
“I have some good news and some bad news,” Cal said, “which do you want first?”
“Uh, bad I guess?” Lindsey said unsurely.
“Bad news is I’m pretty sure this is mainly a psychological challenge. Good news is it’s not too physically demanding, aside from like the risk of death,” Cal explained.
“ ... That’s not exactly encouraging for someone doing it blind, buddy,” Lindsey said drily.
“Yeah, probably not great phrasing, sorry about that,” Cal replied and began to explain the obstacle: “It’s a concrete pipe in sort of a shallow ‘v’ shape. It’s pretty narrow, only a little more than shoulder width so it’s going to be tough to push ourselves through it. It angles narrowly downward for about 20 feet to a low point and then goes up for about the same distance. What makes this really fun is that it looks like maybe 10-12 feet down there’s water filling the pipe.”
“So we have shimmy downwards in this narrow pipe for maybe 10 feet to the the water, then we have to go another 10 feet holding our breath before we can start to try to crawl out, and then we have to go another 10ish feet before we can take a breath?” Lindsey confirmed the task. Her tone was not enthusiastic.
“You got it,” Cal answered, “in theory it shouldn’t be that hard, but going down into a dark hole underwater, yeah that’s the psychological challenge. Hey, at least being blindfolded won’t matter much, right?”
“Thanks, Positive Patty,” Lindsey said sarcastically. “So what’s the play here, you first then me?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Cal said. “There might be something weird on the opposite side, I guess. Honestly, I don’t think it makes a huge difference, we’re both going to be effectively blind in there, especially once we’re under water.”
“Is there any chance we could go through together?” Lindsey asked. “Like I could be on your back or something?”
Cal took a moment to ponder that. He didn’t hate the idea of being in such close proximity to Lindsey. However, he was pretty sure if they could squeeze into the tunnel together they would have a really hard time moving.
“I don’t think that’s the best idea. It’s already really limiting how much you can move to push forward with how narrow it is,” he explained.
Lindsey nodded her acceptance and Cal positioned her so that she was touching the entrance, then climbed into the pipe. It was about as tight as he had anticipated. There was about a foot of on either side of his shoulders so the best he could was crawl on his elbows. That didn’t feel good on the hard concrete surface. He tried rolling over onto his back. That allowed him to use his hands on the ceiling and his shirt protected him from getting scraped up as he pushed himself along. After a few moments he had moved far enough his feet were in the pipe and he could use them to push himself forward. He bent his knees, planted his feet and lunged downward; it was sort of a bizarre upside down squat, but it worked.
“Hey!” he shouted, “Recommend you roll over to lay on your back once you get in. You can get a bit more extension with your arms on the ceiling and use your feet to push yourself.”
“Ok, sounds good,” Lindsey acknowledged. “I’m coming in.”
Cal continued to push himself down the pipe, he sensed he was getting close to the water and rolled over onto his stomach to check things out. The water was just as inky black as would be expected and smelled a bid fetid. There was a small sign on the roof of the pipe. It said ‘Pull rope in case of emergency to open drain at bottom of pipe. Using drain will result in significant time penalty.’
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