Almost a year ago – before setting off on our 5 year, 50 state road trip – Shae saw something on Facebook about an Insane Inflatable 5k race.
As the name suggests, it’s a 5k run (or walk) that has inflatable obstacles throughout the course. It sounded like it’d be loads of fun, so we booked ourselves in for the 5k in Grand Rapids, Michigan on August 4, 2018.
We weren’t due to be visiting Michigan as part of our road trip yet, but it was the race location that best fit into our plans this year seeing as we’d only be a few hours away in Illinois.
At the last minute, a couple of friends from Ohio decided to join us and signed up for the race. So on a warm Saturday morning, we met up in Millennium Park to see how insane it’d be.
It was possible to pick up our race bibs the evening before, but we didn’t get to Grand Rapids in time. The participant guide email from the Insane Inflatable 5k team suggested getting to the park an hour early, so we arrived at 8:30am seeing as our wave was due to start at 9:30am.
It turned out that we didn’t need to arrive quite so early as the morning registration process was quick and efficient. Although there was a fairly long line when we arrived, we had our bibs within about 5-10 minutes. All that was left was for us to wait for our 9:30am wave. You can choose your wave when registering, with a wave setting off on the course every 15 minutes.
9:30am came soon enough and it was time to mount the first obstacle by climbing the steps on one side and sliding / bouncing down the other side.
After a short jog, we came to the second obstacle. We took this one slowly so that we could knock the giant beach balls around a few times.
Just after that was the third obstacle – it’s a straight inflatable but with four bumpy lanes along the way. It looks fairly straightforward, but it was trickier than it appears. I ran along the second lane from the right and about halfway along, someone in the right lane stepped down just before I did. That moved the inflatable where I was due to step which made me lose my footing and I tumbled over into that lane.
Shae had an even worse time of it as she tried to cross. She was in the second from the left lane and ended up tumbling into the left lane. Due to the bounciness of the inflatable, she started to get up and fell over in front of one of our friends. While on the floor, some dude ended up hurdling her to get past!
She ended up making it off safely as our other friend gave her a hand up while I took photos – no hubsey points for me!
Having gone over three obstacles in quick succession, there was a bit of a wait to reach the fourth one. I think that’s because the route through Millennium Park in Grand Rapids meant the large inflatables could only be placed in certain locations.
It was a lovely place to do a 5k though, with the route taking us alongside Millennium Park Lake.
Due to the heat and the fact that Shae and I aren’t in the best shape at the moment, we jogged a little but mostly walked to the next obstacle.
Obstacle 4 was set up like a tire obstacle, with a short inflatable wall to traverse at the end.
Shortly after that we reached the fifth obstacle. This one started with a short tunnel that led to some steps…
…before sliding / bouncing down, weaving our way through barriers and back up some more steps…
…before sliding / bouncing down again at the end. I keep saying “sliding / bouncing” as the material my shorts are made of weren’t very conducive to sliding down. I also didn’t want to burn my legs while sliding, so with the slides I sort of bounced and slid down on my butt.
Within a couple of minutes we were at obstacle 6. This one had large inflatable steps which were much easier to climb up by using the ropes provided.
As with many of the other obstacles, there was a long slide at the end of this one. There was also a water station set up at the end of this obstacle which was greatly appreciated. It was about 85° and humid even though it was only 10am by this point, so I had a few cups of water and tipped one over my head which felt amazing.
Next up was a long obstacle where we had to duck below a barrier, then jump over one, then duck below one, then jump over another one.
After making it past those, we had to dodge these barriers and then climb over a barrier at the end.
A few minutes further along the course was the eighth obstacle. This had giant balls you had to make your way through. Unfortunately these were fixed to the main inflatable structure, so you couldn’t knock them around at the people you were running with.
Although the eighth obstacle had balls that didn’t move, the ninth one had no such issues. It started off with three dangling balls that we could knock around at each other. We then went up and down and up and down before coming out the other side.
It was then a bit of a longer walk / jog through the park and across a bridge which gave some lovely views of the area.
Soon enough though, we neared the end of the course. Before mounting the final inflatable, we got a group picture together.
Obstacle 10 began with some more of those large, dangling balls. After making our way through some more vertical barriers, it was time to climb up the ramp with the assistance of some ropes.
Then, with one final slide / set of bounces down, we reached the end of the Grand Rapids Insane Inflatable 5k.
Having completed the course, we got our T-shirts and medals, as well as a “bottle” of Boxed Water. We loved that the back of the T-shirt said ‘Growing Up Is Overrated’!
Here’s a video of the Insane Inflatable 5k in Grand Rapids that Shae put together as she was wearing a GoPro.
Final Thoughts
We had a fantastic time running walking the Insane Inflatable 5k in Grand Rapids. The inflatable obstacles are so much fun and made for a much more interesting race than just a regular 5k.
Shae and I were also both impressed with how well-organized the race was. Events like these can sometimes be disorganized and seem like the people running them don’t really know what they’re doing.
That wasn’t the case with the Insane Inflatable 5k though. Pre-race email communication was great, providing pretty much everything we needed to know. I’d emailed them with a question a couple of days before the race and received a reply less than 24 hours later. Registration was also extremely quick and everything seemed to run extremely smoothly on the day.
We had such a great time that we’re planning on doing another of these races in the future if it aligns with wherever we’ll be in the country on our road trip.
If an Insane Inflatable 5k race will be coming to a city near you, we highly recommend signing up as you’ll have so much fun. Here’s a list of their upcoming races so you can check if there’ll be any near you.
(n.b. We don’t write sponsored posts – here’s why. We paid for our tickets and don’t have any kind of affiliation with the organizers of the Insane Inflatable 5k. The race was simply loads of fun which is why we wanted to recommend it.)
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