Most Greek Week events are highly competitive and taken extremely seriously, so holding more relaxed and fun events can be refreshing.

Canoes and Pyramids are outdoor events that do not require the extensive training that the Greek Sing and Tugs do.

Kristin Mueller, a senior health and exercise science major, said the event has been held the same way for some time.

“It’s a fun event and it’s good to have a laid-back event in the middle of the week,” Mueller said.

The Pyramids event requires 10 members from each house to run together to a point then build on top of each other.

One person balances on top of two people who are stacked on top of three people who balance on the backs of four people.

After assembling, all members of the human pyramid must hold their heads straight and upright for three seconds, then disassemble and run back to the original point.

“The top three houses with the best time go into finals,” Mueller said. “Guys and girls have completely separate competitions.”

Blair Holly, a senior family and consumer science major, is this year’s captain for Sigma Kappa.

“We started practicing about three weeks ago and we usually like to have a guy come and help us practice,” she said. “It’s good to get some competitive advice and insight from another set of eyes.”

Some teams practice more intensely than others for this event.

Practices depend upon each house’s preference and can range from every day for two months to once a week for the past two weeks.

Cat Tindell, a senior recreation administration major and member of Alpha Phi, said her team has been practicing three times a week.

“We usually run a couple sprints, build a couple times trying to find the right fit for people and make it so we can be as stable as possible,” Tindell said.

Holly’s team won last year. Because she was one of the oldest members she decided to volunteer for the captain position this year and she got it.

She said Pyramids is sometimes not taken as seriously as the other Greek Week events, but is worth the same points as Airband.

“I would encourage people to come watch because it’s a light-hearted event and it’s fun to see if teams will build successfully or if they’ll fall.”

Tindell said everyone else has their specific events that they take part in and enjoy, so her house has really tried to make this event their thing.

“We won first place my first two years at Eastern, second place last year, and hope to take back our championship again this year.”

Like Pyramids, fraternities and sororities compete separately in the canoe races.

Two teams race to a buoy in the middle of the pond and whoever makes it to the finish line first wins.

The canoes event is usually funny and the least serious event every year, Mueller said.

People like to have fun with it and dress up in all sorts of things like water wings and floaties, Mueller said.

She also added that when people fall into the lake the canoes event can get quite funny.