5 tips for carrying your wife from the North American champions
Some opt for the chicken fight or the over-the-threshold.But most competitors, like Giana and Elliot Storey from Westbrook, Maine, choose the Estonian carry when they compete at the North American Wife Carrying Championship.The position requires Giana to hang upside down on her husband’s back — like a backpack — as he runs through an obstacle course complete with log hurdles and a muddy water pit.
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The Storeys are among the 60 teams heading to Sunday River ski resort in Newry, Maine, Saturday to participate in the 18th annual championship. As part of the competition, ladies are hoisted up on their partners’ backs and carried in a dash across 278 yards of uneven terrain with elevation changes, two dry obstacles, and a water obstacle.
Competing couples don’t have to be married and there’s no rule about who has to carry who, though Darcy Lambert, a spokeswoman for Sunday River, told Boston.com, the team does have to be comprised of a man and woman.
Lambert said for the gender requirements, the North American competition follows the World Championships‘ “lead on rules since the winner of our event qualifies for their event.” The whole competition of wife carrying, she said, is based on Finnish folklore of men stealing women from neighboring villages to prove their strength.
Both team members also have to be at least 21 years old.
That’s because the North American prize for the winning couple is the wife’s weight in beer — and five times her weight in cash. The triumphant duo also gets entry into the Wife Carrying World Championships, held in Finland during the summer.
The Storeys won the Maine competition last year, and came in fourth at the July world championships.
“It’s just so fun,” Giana told Boston.com. “Everyone should just go and see it at least once. Just to laugh.”
Here are five tips from the Storeys for how — and why — you and your husband/wife should train for next year.
Broaching the new activity to your partner: Just go
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The Storeys suggested foregoing popping the question to your partner and just signing up for the competition.
“Elliot would just say, ‘Just pick her up and just go,’” Giana said.
Her husband agreed.
“I was just going to say that,” he said.
Both originally from Westbrook, the Storeys have been married for nine years, though their families had known each other since they were kids. Giana’s father owned a family franchise of pizza and sandwich shops, and she recalled that when Elliot walked into the business as “an adult” in 2007 there was an immediate spark and they struck up a rapport talking about fitness and his participation in Strongman competitions.
The Storeys compete in the 2016 North American Wife Carrying Championship.
“That was all it took to get me interested,” Giana said. “It was a typical, girl falls right for a guy just because, you know, he’s picking things up and putting them down. It was cute.”
“It was the same on my end,” her husband said. “But it wasn’t probably until my turkey sandwiches started getting bigger that I knew for sure.”
The couple now has four children, ages 9, 7, 5, and 2.
In 2012, Elliot surprised his spouse by signing them up for the wife carrying competition at Sunday River. He said he’d always been aware of the event because of its media coverage.
But his wife had never heard of the sport before.
“He signed us up and was like, ‘Let’s just go!’” she said.
They practiced for the first time in the living room, and at the competition they came in fourth place, competing in the Clydesdale division.
They’ve been attending the event ever since. In 2016, they came in first with a winning time of 59.18 seconds.
“It’s impressive because it’s so intense — the hardest minute Elliot does all year,” Giana said.
Choosing a carrying method: Pick the style that keeps the lady out of the way
There are five basic styles of carrying — piggyback, chicken fight (“wife” sitting on shoulders), over-the-threshold, fireman’s carry, and the Estonian.
The Storeys use the Estonian carry, or as Giana calls it, “the human backpack.”
“As tight as the girl can get to the guy without getting in the way, is the best way possible,” she said. “Because he has to do a job, so you can’t be in the way of his arms, his legs. You can’t be in his line of sight, but you can’t bounce too much, you can’t be too tight. So you have to be, what I call, ‘a good jockey.’”
Getting ready for the competition: Train as ‘specifically as possible’ and get ‘the right fit’
Competitors in the 2016 North American Wife Carrying Championship at Sunday River.
“The best way to train is as specifically as possible,” Elliot said.
What improved the Storeys’ time last year, he said, was working on running downhill.
“The uphill is power and I won’t say it’s easier, but you can be a lot more balanced,” he said. “It’s not as big of an impact. But controlling all that weight at that speed going downhill is a lot harder.”
Otherwise, he said, just pick up your partner and run up a hill. The Storeys practice on a hill in their neighborhood with their kids, who watch their parents train.
“It’s become kind of a family tradition,” Elliot said.
Giana said it’s also important to “get the right fit” for where the jockey is holding on.
“I used to give Elliot the Heimlich, and we figured out that didn’t work because I held on in the wrong places,” she said. “If you’re holding on around right under the chest, the guy can’t even breathe. The girl has to do a lot of work on her own.”
The pair agreed that if you’re planning to participate competitively, it’s important that you’re a good match physically — the jockey shouldn’t be too tall compared to her partner.
“You certainly need to be able to see, so the jockey’s legs are important,” Elliot said. “They have to be out of your line of sight and they can’t squeeze too tightly around your neck or you’ll blackout. Just practice.”
And if you’re feeling nervous ahead of the race, that’s normal, they said.
“Every single time we do this, I feel like right before we’re about to go, there’s a good 30 minutes of, ‘I’m not going to be able to hold on, I’m not going to be able to do it,’” Giana said.
But the adrenaline and atmosphere quickly take over.
Once they’re “saddled up,” they don’t speak to each other until the race is over.
“You just kind of rise to the occasion,” Elliot said. “It would be easy to just go out there and play to the crowd and have fun, but you got to get down to business if you want the beer and the check.”
What to watch out for during the race: Balance and the log
Elliot and Giana Storey go over the log at the 2016 North American Wife Carrying Championship.
Being the one hanging upside down, Giana said the scariest part of the Sunday River course is the log that teams must vault over since she can’t see the approach to the obstacle.
“I come literally inches away from it,” she said. “And I stare at it. And as he’s jumping over it, the first thud of him hitting the ground — all my anxiety goes away because I want to clear that log.”
She said the couple has seen other women cross the finish line “bloody and banged up.” Some of the jockeys choose to wear helmets at the Maine course, but Giana does not.
The key, she said, is to jump as a unit, together. If her husband shifts, she said she shifts too, to ensure she doesn’t throw off his balance.
“You have to be aware of how he’s jumping,” she said.
Elliot agreed, adding that one of the toughest things about the course is the hill itself because of the rocky, uneven, and unmowed ground.
“Balance is a huge issue for the carrier,” he said.
His wife also warned that with the Estonian carry, the competition can be hard — and painful — on the jockey’s quads and legs because they slam into the carrier’s shoulders during the race.
The jockey is also at risk of being dropped in the mud or sat on.
Why you should do it: Relationship building
Elliot and Giana Storey.
The Storeys think their participation in the sport has solidified the “good couple” attributes they have — spending quality family time, mutual respect, and admiration.
“I don’t want to be the jockey, and I love that she’s so good at it,” Elliot said. “And obviously she respects my power to be able to sprint up a mountain with her on my back.”
“I think that’s good for kids to see too, that we get along and do a competition together,” his wife added. “We lost a bunch of years, so there’s losing involved. They see that.”
They agreed that participating would be “great couple building” for others in a relationship, and pointed to their own friends who participated last year.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing — he fell in the water obstacle and sat on her head, in the mud.
“He didn’t mean to,” Giana said. “It was awful. She crossed the finish line all muddy and disgusting and then he dropped down to one knee and everybody starts gushing.”
They’re getting married on October 12 — just days after the wife carrying competition.
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