thief vault and the lazy vault to sail over most of the log hurdles, adding a pop vault for the tall ones. Who says hours watching YouTube are wasted?
I also used the lache technique to swing across the eight parallel bars. Of them all, this one probably saved me the most time. The guys would hang from the bars, reaching forward to grab the next bar before letting go of the first one. I didn’t have that option because my arms were not long enough to touch both bars at once. I had to propel myself forward, using legs and momentum, and “fly” from bar to bar. If you get the rhythm right, you never slow down, just zip along under the bars, arms pumping. The guys never had to trust themselves to fly.
Even my landings were better. The guys would drop, absorbing a little impact with their knees, and then keep lumbering forward. I would land like a cat and spring back up, catching that momentum to propel myself ahead.
So I felt pretty confident standing there, about to start. Owen was the youngest, and probably the fittest, of the guys.
But I could still beat him.
* * *
CASE CLANGED A metal pipe against another as our starting gun.
“Go!” he shouted, and we were off.
I didn’t even look at Owen, I just launched—hoisting and spinning, vaulting and leaping into a massive lead over him before we were even halfway done.
I worked the course like a pro. It was more like ballet choreography than anything else. I skimmed under the monkey bars, vaulted over all the logs without ever breaking stride, and scaled the eight-foot wall without faltering.
At the top of the wall, with only the rope climb left to go, I had a good one-minute lead on the rookie.
But then I landed wrong.
Maybe I had too much momentum. Maybe I was distracted by all the guys watching, but when I hit the ground on the other side of the climbing wall, rather than shifting straight into a parkour roll, I caught the side of my foot and felt it bend under me.
I heard a crack.
I felt the pain sear up to my brain and then reverberate back down—and I’ll admit, it threw me off. I made a quick self-assessment. Definitely sprained. Possibly fractured. I heard a clonk to my right and looked up to see Owen hook over the top of his wall and drop down. I took off running, limping badly, and he scrambled after me.
One final thing: the rope climb. Parkour couldn’t help me too much with this one. It just called for the standard technique of wrapping the rope in a J-hook around one foot. I’d done it before, but this time my injured ankle wasn’t quite working right.
I’d tell it to push, and it would just kind of disobey.
The rookie had a real advantage over me here. Not only did he have two working ankles, he also had big guy shoulders. I was strong for a woman, but his shoulders were twice the size of mine. There really was no way I could beat him up the rope. But I wasn’t giving up.
The rookie and I were neck and neck when I gave up on my legs and just started climbing arms only, hand over hand, letting everything else dangle below me. It was harder, and slower, but it was my only option, and the truth is he beat me to the top. But then, in his haste to drop back to the ground and head for the finish line, he dropped too fast. He hit the ground hard and fell on his side. I dropped fast, too—rope-burning my palms as I went—but I never lost control. I landed on one foot, just as he was getting back up, and I took off running, ignoring the searing pain shooting from my ankle all the way to my hip, and crossing the finish line a good two seconds before him.
Here was the weirdest thing about winning that race. There was no cheering, no hugs, no high fives. There was just me, and my throbbing, angry ankle, as I collapsed on the ground, and a whole crew of firefighters surrounded me in disbelief, admiration, and maybe even a little respect.
“Does it hurt?” Six-Pack asked.
It hurt like hell. “Nope,” I said.
“We’re going to need a medic,” Case called out, and all the guys raised their hands to volunteer.
“Let me guess,” I said. “You’re going to make the rookie do it.”
They