Allison Tai has flipped a lot of tires. She’s hauled countless sandbags and logged thousands of miles on her feet and hundreds more on her hands and knees through the mud. She’s come back from a coma and body cast, too.
You might have seen the champion obstacle racer running laps of her East Side neighbourhood, making use of public parks or taking two red jerry cans for a walk.
“I love them,” Tai said of the 20-litre jugs she clasps in each hand, “because they develop all the components of lifting and carrying while working on grip strength. They are great for working on core stability.”
Once, while out circling the blocks with the cans that each weigh roughly 55 pounds when filled to the brim, a concerned driver pulled over and asked if Tai needed help, presumably with her stranded out-of-gas vehicle. Tai recounts the story with a laugh at her own expense, typical of characteristic resilience and sense of humour.
“I was like, ‘My semi broke down...’ Why else would I be carrying these two things? But it is what it is — functional fitness.”
Tai is no weekend warrior, but a champion warrior. In 2014, she won the Canadian Ultra Beast title, a Spartan prize for a 12-mile distance littered with 12 military-style obstacles.
When she reaches the podium — like she has 20 times since 2012 in the Spartan race series alone — she is often photographed carrying one of her daughters as she accepts medals and trophies.
In obstacle course racing, we’re always adding things to our list. I can do that, I can’t do that, I have to do that… — Allison Tai
“That’s always the joke — people recognize the baby before they recognize me,” said Tai, a fitness expert who has made training and competing a family affair. She doesn’t race with her daughters in tow, but typically after the elite women’s event is finished, her husband John will take off on his race and they put their daughters, aged five and two, in her care.
The focus of a Reebok commercial earlier this year for the retail company's feminist Express Your Strong campaign, Tai is a darling of OCR. An unrelenting competitor and friendly, encouraging coach who compells racers to reach new heights in a sport that throws a new challenge at her around every turn, she is also an entrepreneur.
At 34, she and her husband are taking their passion for training and competing in obstacle course raceing to a new level, a warped wall level. Instead of merely signing up for and winning events like the Tough Mudder, Battle Frog and Spartan Race, they will host a series of their own in Vancouver.
This Sunday, April 3, they will hold the first indoor event of the Vancity OCR series, a sprint race called the Tactix Attack. Capped at 100 competitors, the event will include elements seen on the popular American Ninja Warrior series such as cargo nets to climb, pipes, balls and cones to swing between, hurdles to jump and salmon ladders to ascend. Also on that list: a warped wall and “magic,” which retains an element of surprise and lets John Tai fabricate whatever his imagination and woodworking skills can entertain.
“My husband is the obstacle innovator of the family and he builds the obstacles and all these crazy wonderful things, and I try to get myself across,” said Tai.
For the inaugural race, the obstacles are not spread over a marathon distance, but are stacked one after the other in a system familiar to CrossFit or circuit training.
“A lot of people see the obstacle course racing and they don’t love the running. They get a little intimidated by it or it’s just not their thing,” said Tai. “They are missing that really short course, one that is fun and approachable but challenging and intense.
“The holds will be achievable. We didn’t want to make it something that only two per cent of the population can do. We wanted it to be something that people who work out in a gym can do — traverse across the holds and run up the warp wall and all that fun stuff that is doable and that people can enjoy.”
The challenges are what move Tai forward. The monkey bars used to impede her. Now she swings across them as a tool to build for greater challenges.
“What really attracts me to obstacle racing is that [thought] I can’t do that... I could never do this… I will never be able to…,” she said. “And then the next moment, I’ve done it. It’s pretty crazy how you can talk yourself from that place and then, finally, it’s done.”
Her latest challenge is a 10-foot wall, one that is dotted with round holes all the way up. To climb it, she has to place a peg in one hole with her right hand, and then do the same in a higher hole with her left hand. To climb with only two pegs, she makes her own hand holds. There are no foot holds. She’ll pull herself up before straining to place a peg in a still-higher hole until she’s done this all the way up two storey height. The only way to rest is to hang. Or drop.
“I didn’t think it was possible to scale the 12-foot wall and then I saw somebody do it and now I have to get my game up and try doing that,” she said. “In obstacle course racing, we’re always adding things to our list. I can do that, I can’t do that, I have to do that… The fact that I am terrified of [certain challenges] right now is almost exciting because then I look at all the other things — like monkey bars — at one time I couldn’t do and didn’t think I’d ever be able to competently do them and they are something I actually enjoy.”
There’s one challenge unlike any other. In 2006, Tai overcame the bone-shattering obstacles of being hit by a truck travelling 100 km/hour. She was on her bike, training for another Ironman. She woke up in hospital with a body cast holding together her broken arm, snapped back and shattered pelvis.
“The fact I got hit when I was already training for the Ironman was my saving grace. Not even in terms of the physical challenge that lay ahead but even the mental and emotional stuff,” she said. “I was used to confronting challenges and trying to continue to make myself better each day as an athlete and that really factors in when you’re recovering from such an accident.”
The prognosis was not optimistic, and Tai lives with a permanent disability rating of 24.5 per cent. She moves with imbalances she refers to as her “wonkiness.” She also has a six-inch scar running down her toned left bicep.
“When I get up to a series of handholds, I have to really think out and plan what is going to happen because I don’t want my left hand to be on a challenging hold,” she said.
Grip strength is difficult to develop for most competitors, but Tai is further challenged but nerve strength in her left hand. “I have to be careful which arm I’m putting on the more difficult holds or if it’s starting to get fatigued, I just have to be that much more careful to try to position myself so that I’m using my good arm because I still don’t have a lot of total feeling in that hand.”
It’s not something jerry cans will remedy on their own. For that, Tai has an indomitable spirit.
To register for the Attack Tactix obstacle race, visit vancityocr.com.
Twitter: @MHStewart
