11 days: Trifecta in my pocket

Hopefully I can stop napping long enough to crank this blog out. I’ve never written a blog about an event like this. I am still delirious from the racing high so it might get lengthy and detailed so please be forewarned.  The obstacles may not have been in the order I’m remembering them either.

The journey started with a 5 hour drive to the Super Spartan in New Jersey.  I met up with a Spartan Chicked, Wendy, in Ogdensburg to share a ride and expenses. You hear “It’s a small world” often but it rang truer and truer the more I got to know Wendy. Most surprising thing I learned is that we both worked at the same place during the same time. So after some crazy driving on Wendy’s part and terrible navigation on my part we got to our HOJO Express hotel in Parsipanny to retire for the evening.

Race morning started at 6am. I had breakfast at a cute little diner and then was off to the races.  My heat was at 09:00. While we were waiting to start they filled us with promises of black bears and a course that was 11 miles instead of 8 or 9. The MC tried to rile us up with a good “Who am I”, to which we were to reply “I am a Spartan”.  I think the general consensus was “I am up too early for this”. First leg of the race was pretty steep hill. Nice way to get the muscles going. I’m sure the snake I almost stepped on also thought it was a great warm up for his day. After some warm up obstacles we hit a longer stretch of trail. Relatively flat but fun. For some reason while running I felt like I was a gazelle. Probably the slower and fatter one at the end that gets eaten, but a gazelle none the less.  I also noticed I lost my bondiband here. It was my favourite too, it read; “Are my kids still chasing me?”. I'm going to have a moment of silence for it.

After some running, and hills I hit the sandbags. I was presented a cute pink 20lb bag for “women”. I went to grab the big red 40lb bag. The volunteer told me those were for men. I said I know and put over one shoulder and head up the hill. I passed a lot of people on the way up, most of which were sitting and taking a break. I kept moving, after all the bag weighs less than my 3 year old.  Once that was done we had to flip tractor tires 4 times. Again there were women tires and men tires and I of course grabbed a man’s tire. I was told by the volunteer that I didn’t need to flip that one. I didn’t say a word and just raised one eyebrow at her. She laughed and said “You get it girl!”. I flipped that thing like it was nothing. It was lighter than my tire at home!!!  I was off again to climb more hill and hit up another obstacle. It was the weight pulleys. I don’t know what it’s actually called but that works. Again I was presented with male and female weights. I asked how much the male weight was. The volunteer told me about 50lbs but no female, including herself, were able to complete it at that weight. Challenge accepted.  I pulled that thing with all my might, as I started slipping forward another Spartan Chick came and put her feet in front of mine so I wouldn’t slip too far. I kept moving back and pulling the rope and finally pulled that bad boy to the top. I got a lot of cheers and respect but no time to soak up the glory, there was a lot more to go!

More running, up hill, down hill, around the bend, and just short of grandma’s house. Climbed walls that were very tall with a little help of other chicks. It was great to see everyone help each other. In between the walls I hit the monkey bars and for the first time I nailed it!! I made it all the way.  I’m not sure if this part is in order but it was possibly the best part of the race.  About 5 miles in I ran into the water park. There was an 18 foot platform and 23 foot platform for which to jump off of and into water.  I did all the male obstacles up to here, I very well couldn’t do the shorter height. So I took off my camelback and headed to the 23 foot platform. I looked over the ledge, looked at the guy running the obstacle, looked at the guys behind me and told them to go first. Once that was out of the way. I looked over the ledge and thought I just need to go. I looked back again and told the guy in line that looked as hesitant as me to go. He insisted I went first so I sucked it up, walked to the edge and said to myself quit drawing it out just go. I think I was about half way down when I finished that though. Wooosh. About a gallon of water up the nose. Swam to shore and off again for more of the same running, climbing and obstacling. 

It was a clever move to put the adult size 100 foot slip and slide before the sucky end of race obstacles. Everyone looked like they were 5 again going down the white tarps. After that it was all downhill for me. Not literally but I didn’t do so well on the remainder of the obstacles.  The traverse rope across the creek must have given me basic training flashbacks. I let go half way and did 30 burpees.  When I got to the end of the race we had a gauntlet of obstacles. First was the spear throw. Well I got the spear to the target but didn’t stick. 30 more burpees. Up to 60 now if you are doing the math. Then I had to cross the traverse wall. I’ve never even seen this thing before. I wasn’t sure how to take it on. About half way neither did my feet and I fell off. 30 more burpees, 90 total. Now I was faced with my arch nemesis. The rope climb. I’ve been practicing and was ready for it, or so I thought. I am not use to knots and I should have ignored them. They were too far apart and I was not use to using them. I got about half way and I couldn’t go further. It was the most disappointing part of the day for me. I did 30 more burpees in shame. 120 total burpees. After it was time to crawl under some barbed wire. I use the word crawl loosely because it was just a pile of jagged rocks and water. I ended up rolling sideways uphill the whole way, only leaving a little knee flesh on the wire. Made a goofy face for the camera and headed to the fire jump. I wanted to something cute for the picture while jumping over the fire but I’m sure it ended up looking more like my pooping face. 

I kept running through the gladiators. The first guy didn’t spare me but the second guy gave me an “atta girl” tap on the butt with his pugil. I didn’t complain. I was DONE! AROO!! AROO!! Got my medal, t-shirt, and about 20 samples of free coloured water things. Official time was 3:55:25.  I also got my Trifecta medal and walked around the grounds feeling like quite the bad ass for a while. Although I was “done”, this was only round one.

 

I’ll spare the detail as much as I did for round one. I do have to tell a bit about how different round 2 went. When I hit the longer stretch of gazelle running I was hit by storms. I mean epic downpour. The forest turned really dark and the trail flooded to the point where you couldn’t see the rocks and details of the terrain.  There was a tornado warning. If it happened to come by I made plans in my head to find a tree I could wrap my arm and legs around, sit and pray to every deity possible.  Until such time I kept going. My husband and I were doing a True Blood Marathon the week prior so naturally when this starts happening my thoughts of gazelles and Lion King type happiness were gone and replaced by thoughts of vampires, werewolves and the theme song of doing bad things to you. Queue angry IT Band right here as well. Just because it wasn’t fun enough. The rest of the race was very slow for fear of breaking my face. The volunteers were pulled off the course and apparently so was all the water. This is why they said a camelbak was recommended as a Spartan is always prepared. Despite the absence of officials it was great to see the integrity of runners doing the obstacles. We did the sand bags, tires and pulleys. I did as many as the obstacles as I felt safe doing “at my own risk”. The cliff jump was close and I skipped the big walls. I completed the whole course and got the distance in. 

Although I couldn’t do all the obstacles I feel that the weather made for its own obstacle and my second race was just as big an accomplishment as the first. Official time on round 2 was 3:56:11. You can’t say I’m not consistent!  So ended day one. We had Outback steak then back to the hotel for a recap with Wendy and 5 hours of sleep. We were volunteering the next morning. No rest for the wicked! We headed back to the race site and signed in for volunteering at the registration tent. Well not even an hour in they asked us to help on the course instead. We were placed at the Hobbie Hop to hand out resistance bands. Simple enough…until people decided they were coming in waves of about 50. We only had about 50 bands and between the broken ones and people leaving with them we had even less. So the next 6 hour were spent running up and down that section of the mountain to grab resistance bands then tell people how to do the obstacle.  No small feat in flats and jeans. When it was all done Wendy and I abandoned our plans to take pictures at the race and just started the journey home. We were both wiped out! 

I am proud of my accomplishment but I also need to say how proud I am of my Spartan Chick Wendy. She is 50 years old, has had a slew of health issues including cancer but she still got out there, ran this race and finished it. Something 2/3 of those that tried could not do.  The book is closed on this adventure and now my eyes are on the Ultra Beast on September 22^nd. It should be 26.2 miles but knowing Spartan Races it will probably be more like 30. I feel ready and can’t wait to take on the Ultra Beast. Today I’m taking on something that is perhaps more grueling than any obstacle Spartan has to offer. I’m cleaning the house I left for the weekend with a husband, a 3 year old and almost 2 year old. If I don’t blog again by the end of the week, please send a search party.

My cheering section