As we were closing up shop the other night, I scanned the space and said rather incredulously “I guess there’s not much else to do around here!”
And it’s mostly true!  Roughly 2 months later, the awesomeness/badass/coolness/sexiness development center is complete!  Of course, like your house (and mine), it will never really be done-done!  Here are the highlights of our building efforts and examples of how they are used:

Rock wall – we made this out of 2×4’s, 2 layers 3/4″ plywood, and a lot of textured paint.

 

Jenn’s not-so-slippery slope – this feature was made in honor of one of our clients who completed Bold r Dash last year!  The slippery slope bit her pretty good but she overcame and conquered this obstacle.  We have not covered this in a tarp and sprayed it with soapy water…yet!

Monkey Bars – we made this with plans to use it as a poor man’s version of the MoveStrong FTSapparatus and so it’s become.  Besides traversing the monkey bars, we use this for rope inverted rows, battling ropes, the base for the salmon ladder, the anchor for resistance band moves, jumping pullups, and more!

 

Ring Traverse/Rope Pulley – this is probably my favorite feature because of sentimental reasons.  Once used as the beam for my childhood swingset, we “repurposed” a 24′ long aluminum fence post to make a fun and unique suspension system for the popular ring traverse and the Rockeyesque Rope pulley.  We also use this for rope climbing every once in a while by looping the rope over the beam a few extra times.

 

Stump Jumps + Marine hurdle – I stole hurdle idea from the Men’s Health Urbanathlon and the stumps were donated by my Uncle (and LbF neighbor and inspiration for my alias at the dock)Donato.  This is an underrated obstacle that’s pretty damn tough to nail in one take (video = 2nd or 3rd).  Throw in the fact that we used a telephone pole for the actual hurdle and you have a good challenge on your hands!  (Also, please note the cross-bracing was been securely fastened after making the video below)

 

Berlin Wall/Warped Wall Simulator – our simplest and most economical obstacle was made with scrap 2×4 bolted to the CMU wall, heavy duty brackets, and an under-used pullup bar from our power tower (there are so many things to do pullups in here anyway).  A little scary at first but then a piece of cake after a couple attempts.

 

The Salmon Ladder – The ultimate!

 

Cargo net – if you can make it up and over this cargo net then you’ll easily conquer any net an adventure race throws at you!  We didn’t want to build more columns so we hung this from the roof joists.  While perfectly safe and secure, it doesn’t really feel like it because there’s not much tension horizontally.  It makes for a tough ascent and you must overcome a fear going across the top.  Like we say, it’s better to freak out on a training day than an event day!

Thank you to Lemay Contracting, Double D Locks & Security, Steve’s Landscaping and all our family and friends who contributed to this project!