Champion of the Wild - April 2021

[GeeBizzle]

Ah, it’s a good question. I imagine the cart as a wheeled cart that can be pulled in parallel to the water lane.

Could we have trained with a small floating boat in place of a wheeled cart. Yes, yes we could have but… we made our choices.

[GeeBizzle]

For both @VictorViper and @GabrielH how much sand could each animal move per trip?

I can fully imagine a narwhal and hippo As strong animals and being able to move large amounts of sand but an otter surely would struggle to move more than a cup of sand at a time?

[RogerBW]

@GeeBizzle

Could we have trained with a small floating boat in place of a wheeled cart. Yes, yes we could have but…

…if you put a small boat above it, shark gonna shark.

[GabrielH]

So, an otter weighs (according to the card) about 50-60 pounds. That’s already about half of my weight! Still, carrying heavy objects isn’t really their wheelhouse. Dragging, however, is a different matter. I can drag about 3000 pounds with a pallet-jack, which comes to about a 26:1 ratio of load to worker. Bringing that ratio to an otter gets about 1500 pounds of dragging power? Of course that’s different in water, but even a tenth of that is still quite significant. I’m sure she’d be able to move something at least the size of one of those plastic storage bins.

And whereas the underwater creatures would significantly reduce their hydrodynamics with their loads, my on-top-of-the-water athlete will be able to do so without with minimal drag!

[Najim]

Since we have water lanes available, I am sure the organisers provide waterproof sandbags.

[VictorViper]

I plan on sharing the load pretty equally here. Once the sled gets momentum, Steve can tow a surprising amount, but it’s true he won’t have the raw “torque” to get moving without his pack. To that end, I’ll be helping get us moving at each end of the track. To answer the question directly: assuming “standard issue” sandbags, I’m guessing 30 per trip.

We’ve been doing burpees all week leading up to this, we can do it.

[Brattyjedi]

My husband says he’d vote for the otter. Not necessarily because he thinks the otter could move the most sand but because otters are cute. Good thing for my hippo and me that he does not have an account so can’t vote!

[VictorViper]

@Najim

Since we have water lanes available, I am sure the organisers provide waterproof sandbags.

Just putting it out there, but I think sandbags have something of a reputation for holding up in wet conditions.

[pillbox]

Let the Voting Commence!

Spectators and Coaches, please click the icon of the contestants you think should win!

[GeeBizzle]

Which post are we meant to like?

[pillbox]

@GeeBizzle

For months I have been training Bruce on using a full body harness which can be attached to a cart. In this way Bruce can comfortably pull 30% of his body weight (336kg) at a speed of 50km/h. Throughout this stage I will be loading Bruce’s cart with sand and by putting a small cut on my hand and bleeding into the water I can help direct him on where to swim.

Last words of advice to Bruce would have to be follow the blood.

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@COMaestro

I will be entering this competition myself. As a father of two boys, I am used to bearing heavy weights and feel like I have been training for such an event for years. I am confident I can move 50kg of sand per trip, and with my long legs, I span a good amount of distance with each step, and always walk with a sense of urgency, which should eat up the distance between the sand pile and the goal.

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@VictorViper

This is Steve. He’s a pack alpha and a very good boy, yes he is ! He cut his teeth on Caribou hide and Iditarod races where he keeps getting disqualified for not being a dog. For this race, I will need to start by lining our lane with a dusting of sand. From there, we should have the low friction required to load up our sled and mush! to victory.

Wild card here is me. I can shovel sand with the best of em, but my back is sore today and I really gotta think about quitting smoking ahead of these things.

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@Brattyjedi

This is Helena the Hippo. She’s got the strength to carry a lot of sand in any one trip but is surprisingly fast despite her mass to get in lots of trips in the time limit. There’s many reasons hippos are one of the most deadly land animals to humans, and one is that people always underestimate their land speed. No need to weigh her down with sleds or carts. Just a simple harness that will allow me to hang several sandbags along her sides and she’ll be off!

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@Najim

Meet Nils the Narwhale, he is the grandson of Norman, whose tusk was used to stop an attack in London in 2019. So Nils already has heroism in his blood. I easily hang some sandbags around his tusk and his body. Since he is almost 6m long 20m of swimming is a piece of fish cake for him.
Right before the start I would whisper in his ear: “make your grandfather proud” And I have no doubt that he will.

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@GabrielH

And our late entry, Audrey the Otter! If you were to transport sand in real life, how would you do it? That’s right, with a barge! And that’s exactly what we’ll be doing here! I can load it up, and then Audrey will pull it down the canal! We’ve been barging in everywhere we go in anticipation of this event, and I’ll just remind her that anyone can walk, but only the greatest can barge!

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Clicking the at the top of each quoted section will take you to the post by that competitor’s coach. These are the posts from which the votes will be tallied.

[pillbox]

Voting will conclude 2021-04-15T15:00:00Z

[pillbox]

First round goes to Helena the Hippo! Congratulations to her and her coach, @Brattyjedi!

	VOTES	Event Result
Brattyjedy	8
Najim	2
GeeBizzle	1	(tied)
COMaestro	1	(tied)
VictorViper	1	(tied)
GabrielH	1	(tied)

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I guess we never discussed how to do scoring. We can do cumulative votes. Or we can award x points per rank (1st, 2nd, 3rd). Feel free to discuss

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Stage 2

Coaches, please confirm with me the competitor you will be submitting for Stage 2 – Cheese Rolling!

[COMaestro]

Oops, posted too early.

[VictorViper]

Did the same damn thing.

[Chewy77]

Cannot wait to see how the trainers are going to convince their animals to do this…

[Brattyjedi]

Official rules say you can assume the animals want to win and will try their best as much as a human athlete would. Tips and strategies on how to actually achieve victory, that’s the real trick!

[pillbox]

I have heard from all of the coaches and we have our contestants finalized!

Coaches, please introduce your competitors!

Official Order, but feel free to jump ahead in line/queue

@Brattyjedi
@Najim

@GeeBizzle
@GabrielH
@COMaestro
@VictorViper

[Brattyjedi]

Representing team Bratty in the cheese roll is Anthony Ant and this time it is all about coaching and strategy.
Anthony is a small and nimble athlete and we have planned this out very carefully to take advantage of those traits. I have advised him to size up the competition at the starting line to see who he thinks is most likely to come out ahead and position himself next to them. When the whistle blows, Anthony will leap onto that competitor and spend his race running on their body, getting to the front-most portion of them and then leaping from them to touch the cheese or cross the finish line just before they can do so themselves.

[pillbox]

I have been asked by a coach whether grease is available.

Yes, yes it is.