Paintball'n

A few months ago, the local newspaper’s “deal of the day” was for a rent one/get one free offer at a nearby paintball course. I’ve never played paintball before, but I’ve always wanted to. I sent out an email to some friends and we all decided to do it. We also decided that it would be fun if our wives/girlfriends would participate, although we weren’t sure if they would. The ladies went back and forth on the idea (they were afraid of getting hurt) but they finally decided to participate and six couples purchased the deal. Everyone’s schedules were really busy, so it took some long range planning to pick a date.  We were finally able to play last Sunday, June 10.


During the final days leading up to the 10th, some of the girls (my wife for one) began to mount a fresh campaign to get out of participating. They were seriously concerned about how getting shot would feel... We offered their spots to a few other friends, but everyone declined, so the girls were committed to participate. We arrived at the site after lunch to find a metal building and 3 fenced in fields full of random walls, dirt mounds, barrels, truck camper tops stuck into the ground, and other assorted large debris to hide behind and maneuver around. Upon arrival, Karen’s response was less than enthusiastic. The rest of the group filtered in after us, all the guys were pumped up and ready to go. The ladies, on the other hand, had attitudes that varied from excited to play down to “let’s just skip playing and go to the winery that is 3 miles up the road.” In the end, everyone decided to play and we went through the safety talk, a walk through on the gun operation and out on the field we went.

The site

Some of the obstacles

I guess the feel of a gun in their hands made the girls gain some instant mojo, because they decided the first match would be guys vs. girls, 6 on 6. The guys, heavily motivated by the need to “not get beaten by the girls,” won the first round relatively easily. We then split up into mixed teams and played another couple games. Then we were put up against another group of 10 people (which contained several experienced players) and we were promptly mowed down by the experienced players. We didn’t stand a chance. Once the referees (yes the matches are officiated) realized that we weren’t going to be able to compete with that group, they split up the two groups and created two teams containing a mix of experienced and inexperienced players. We played several games with those teams, which was pretty enjoyable. During the games with us mixed in with the other group, some of our wives started dropping out and then they quietly disappeared and headed over to the winery to relax.

Our group

The remainder of the ladies and the guys from our group ended up moving to a smaller field and we played several games of 4 on 3, which was the highlight of the day for most of us. The combination of the smaller field and the smaller teams made it a much faster paced game with nowhere to hide. The adrenaline definitely gets pumping when you are crouched behind a barrel and you hear paint balls whizzing past you.

After we had shot through our group’s allotment of 6,000 paintballs (500/each), we changed clothes and headed over to the winery to meet up with the early departers. While there, we talked and laughed about the day’s events and spent some time comparing wounds. Yes, paint balls do leave a more than just paint when they hit you. Since the outside temperatures were around 90 degrees (luckily there was a breeze), most of us opted to forgo an extra layer of padding in order to stay a little cooler. That lack of additional padding lead to some colorful bruises. The ladies contended that it was really painful to get hit; I’d say it was more like getting stung by a bee. It really wasn’t that bad, however I will say that some parts of your body are definitely more sensitive to it than others.

Over the course of the day, I was hit in the hand/arm (3-4 times), legs (3-4 times) back of the head (once) and the most painful were two shots to the left side of my torso from less than 10’ away. Those two shots to my side have bruised up pretty badly (see below), but only hurt if you poke at them. I also managed to bruise my chest by diving for cover during one of the final fast games. That is the injury that seems to be bothering me the most today. Hopefully it will go away soon so I can go swing a golf club again.

Shot to the back of the head, yellow paint splatter

Nice bruises on my side, I should have held up a quarter for scale...  they are between quarter and half dollar size.

Would I do it again? Most definitely. I can see how some people get hooked on it, is an interesting mix of strategy and exercise. Will Karen ever do it again? Probably not, although if it was colder outside where a couple extra layers could be comfortably worn, I might be able to talk her into doing