Guest post by Mom:
I am officially two months behind on my blog again. Four kids, working part time (but pretty dang close to full time) and trying to keep my house clean has obviously taken its toll. However, I CANNOT let any more time pass because I need to document so many things.
Back in January...maybe February...a couple of the other trainers at work talked me into signing up to race in a Spartan Obstacle Course Race that was on March 18th. These are the kind of races where you not only run, but you crawl through mud and climb up ropes and go across monkey bars and do burpees if you suck at it. I'm not sure what made me think I'd be good at it, but I was totally in. I joined their team and did a few of their trainings with them. I ran a few miles here and there in between all my gym classes that I teach, but nothing really substantial. That was unfortunate since I was signed up for the Super Spartan which is 8-9 miles with 25 obstacles.
The race was held in Mesquite right on the border of Littlefield at what I think used to be a shooting park of some kind.
It was a beautiful day and wasn't predicted to be outrageously warm, but definitely sunny. We had a 10 am start time which wasn't too shabby.
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| Cara and Cera are my ladies at work! |
This is a shot of our entire team. I knew only about half of them. They were super awesome and I had no idea that I was signed up with the freaking rockstars of the race world.
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| The ladies! |
I was understandably nervous and I knew that most of the people on the team were in much better shape than I, but I was still pretty excited.
Actually...I'm thinking it's at this point that I should back up and mention what I did to my hands training for this thing. The rope climb is my nemesis. I just don't have technique for it and any time I would attempt it I usually just kind of got up a few feet and had to come down. One evening in February, just before I was teaching, I attempted the rope climb again. I went up partially once and was a bit disappointed. I went and got myself set up to teach my class, but remembered I hadn't put away the rope. I ran back and just decided on a whim to climb it. Magically I found myself reaching the top of the rope!! It was unbelievable! Until I realized how high I was and that I had never thought of coming down and I panicked. I panicked and slid slowly down the rope. HUGE MISTAKE!!!!! Like massive. It was better than falling and breaking my leg, but only just. I massacred my hands. Five minutes before I had to teach a Power class. I had severe rope burns. I took these photos after class.
I was oddly out of commission for a whole week. These photos were a few days later.
Anyway, it kind of took me out of upper body training for the race. They were fully healed the day of, but I still was pretty skittish.
Okay back to the race day.
It was so fun. And it was so freaking hard. Like really hard. I was not fully prepared for it. The first four miles of the race were through sand right next to the river. In fact, they took you IN to the river during the first mile so your feet were wet and then coated in sand. I pretty much ran for about a half mile and then did a walk/jog shuffle. It got to the point that you were so excited to see an obstacle even if those were hard! The first four obstacles were cake. They were just walls to jump over and through and an atlas carry. I quickly discovered, though, that my upper body strength was not where it should be. However, it was so fun to be surrounded by everyone racing. My own team left me in the DUST, but they were in amazing shape. I had people help me over the really tall walls and I helped them. I also chatted with people and laughed over the never ending sand trail.
About half way through the race, a truck came FLYING past us and it was obvious there was an emergency happening. In the back, they were doing compressions on some poor guy! As in CPR. It was kind of sobering and all the people who were there with me just kind of got quiet and then helped rally each other.
It was at that point though that I realized I was in a bit of trouble. It was getting hot. We were up against a hillside/cliff and were going to go up and down it something like five times and my calf started cramping. I couldn't quite run. I had to be careful how I moved my right leg. It was a little demoralizing.
The last mile of the race has probably 10 of the 25 obstacles crammed in. This is also were people could actually watch you! I was basically falling apart just as my sweet family could see me. I was covered in mud and barely moving, but I did it anyway!
This right here is an aerial photo of the last mile of the course.
This thing was inverted...it seemed daunting if you were short because you basically had to jump to get on!
This barbed wire crawl/swim/roll through mud was kind of awesome, but a lot longer than you though. It was at the end of the 4 miles of running through sand though so it was seriously a welcome cool down in the beginning.
I should have been running after that mud pit, but it was so hard to feel my feet slosh and slide and I was starting to realize just how out of my element I was!!!
The Z wall ended up being my favorite obstacle. It was easy peasy compared to most of the others. (This was the obstacle that I actually became aware that there had been some sort of medical emergency happening somewhere. I could hear the walkie talkies of the staff buzzing about needing truck access!)
I basically hopped up and put my hand on a ring and then dropped down and ended up in the burpee pit on all these rigs. They sucked!
Look at this tire hill! And this was the fourth time we had to go UP the freaking hill!
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| SEE! I'm so tired!!! |
This lovely photo was taken as I came out of the water after going under the dunk wall! (This is where I was starting to freak out because the mud was making it hard to lift my already cramping legs!)
Slightly out of order photo....this was up on top the hill. The sand bag carry wasn't too bad. It was right after seeing that truck with the guy in it though so I might have just been feeling grateful to be walking.
I have never felt so crappy finishing a race. I was a bit of a mess! You have to jump over fire to finish the race and I just KNEW my calves were going to cramp. You can see it on my face in these pictures. (Side note, you can also see my awesome hubby in the background taking my picture!)
After I finished, I had no idea what would make me feel better. I wanted to lie down, but it didn't help. I wasn't quite thirsty, but I couldn't just stand up. I basically kind of wandered around looking for my family and my friends (who had finished like an hour earlier!)
Cera snapped this photo of me as she half laughed at me and half took care of me.
She walked me over the showers, gave me a salt tablet and a nutritional block and handed me over to Pete. She's amazing. So amazing that she won the race. Yeah. I know her.
Now while I was having a small breakdown over finishing the race, my girls actually competed in the Kids Spartan race! They absolutely LOVED it. Thanks to the Spartan we have some great photos of them getting muddy.
We were pretty proud of ourselves and I was starting to feel more human at about this point.
We will definitely do it again. And I will definitely train more seriously!
