"Fitness Park" Tour: Tom Slick Park

Now that Hero Rush is behind me, I don't have another obstacle race on my radar until December. That's a lot of months without scaling walls and climbing nets. People I know of who are much more into this than I am, with much more available space and much better carpentry skills, have rigged up things like their own backyard obstacles to practice on. Since my yard is small, my fence is made of rotting wood and rusty nails, and my ability to make a spear from scratch is nonexistent, I've taken instead to enviously admiring construction equipment as I drive by it. ("Hey, look, kids! Tunnels! I wish I had a tunnel..." as we drive past large piping.) So, in an effort to avoid trespassing and/or burglary charges, I decided it might be a good idea to look into the various "fitness parks" spread throughout the city.

Unfortunately, almost all of the parks with adult-sized fitness equipment are located a considerable drive from my house, and neither the city website listing their locations nor Google was forthcoming with pictures of what kind of equipment, exactly, I could expect to see there. And so, a new challenge was born: tour and rate San Antonio's fitness parks, one weekend at a time.

Today's excursion was to Tom Slick park, since as far as I could tell it was the closest to my house. It sounded like a nice enough setup from its brief description on Yelp--it had a dog park, a kids' playground, and adult fitness equipment. When I got there, though, I was immediately disappointed. Most of the so-called fitness equipment was exactly what you'd see at a gym, just outside. There was a stairclimber, bars for pullups and dips, and other very basic run-of-the-mill equipment. My hopes were raised when I saw the "balance steps"...and then dashed when it became apparent these steps would only be a balance challenge for someone already suffering from vertigo. Each step was about a foot in diameter and also only about a foot away from the next step. Walking across was a piece of cake and definitely not good, or even mediocre, practice for the 4-inch-wide posts of a Spartan.

Really?

Not wanting to waste my time on equipment that was less effective than I'd see at my gym, I told my kids we were going to leave and try another park, and gave them five minutes to head over to the kids' playground area, which was barely visible from the adult equipment/dog park area. They took off ahead of me, and as I approached...a beautiful sight greeted my eyes. Hanging metal chain ladders! Maybe this park wasn't such a waste, after all!

 I headed for the ladder right away--turns out those hanging ones are pretty intense. I made it close to the top, but with the bottom not staying still, and the ladder going straight up and down rather than at an angle like the cargo nets I'm used to, there was no going up and over the other side for me.

Harder than it looks.

 Of course, my 12-year-old has no fear. Or no sense of self-preservation.

After that, I figured I might as well play around on the equipment like a kid...and what's more kid-like than running up a slide? It even had a handy ledge across the top I could scale like a short wall.

I played around on anything else I could climb on or hang from, too...

So that was pretty fun. I'd still like to find grownup-sized monkey bars, since every ounce of skill I had as an eight-year-old has vanished. And balance equipment that's an actual challenge would be nice, along with tunnels and walls. Preferably all at a park with zero other people around to view my ridiculousness. But this was a decent start, and I look forward to checking out the other parks on the city's list...at least until I can make my own backyard climbing wall.