Long time no talk. Again, I am sorry I have been so absent.
I recently completed the Spartan Race with my gym. It seems like every year I say, "It was the hardest one yet!" But I am telling you- this one was the hardest one we have ever done. Not the obstacles, but the terrain. We seriously went up and up and up. This mountain was steeper than all the others and below us was slippery, cake-like mud that you could slip on in an instant. You had to be laser focused the entire time or you were going down and possibly taking others out with you.
We started off running through a smoke grenade up a large grassy mountain. That was tough, but it didn't phase me too much because we practiced running hills every Sunday. Then we faced large logs about 4 feet off the ground that we had to jump over. Next was a rocky windy hill that lead us to the first uphill climb that was probably a quarter mile long. It may not sound long, but when it is so steep you need to use your hands to secure your footing, your quads are burning and your lungs are panting, it seems like forever. Once we reached the top, we had to go through a section of the woods where we dodged rocks, roots and trees. Shortly after, we had three more of those horribly steep uphill climbs except one of them had nothing but rocks to step on. Some were loose and some secure so you really had to watch out. I told myself several times not to look behind me or down because I would have been screwed. I am afraid of heights and we were ridiculously high up with nothing to hold on to. If one person fell, many others would too.
After we reached the top, we caught the most amazing breeze and and saw a beautiful view of the mountains. We did't stop for long because we had to go through more wooded trails. We finally saw a flag that said "1 mile down" and we all complained loudly because we were shocked at how little ground we covered. Afterwards, we ran some more grassy hills, went through the woods and charged through tough terrain until we came across another obstacle. The men and women had to pull up a huge sand bag (I think the women's was 100lbs?) up about 20 feet through a pull-y system, then let it down gently. That was easy for me, however I went into the race with a torn up back and yanked it even more during that obstacle. The rest of the race I had to deal with little spasms and sharp pains (but I kept going). Then we had a 20ft cargo net to climb up that went straight up and straight down. Afterwards, more wooded trails. This time the trials went downhill. Even though going down is usually the easy part, these were not easy. They were so so steep you had to go slow which made your legs burn and you were mentally exhausted from watching every little step. Sometimes we had to slide down on our butts because it was such a sharp drop.
From here the obstacles are a little jostled in my mind because I think I was starting to get delirious from exhaustion, but we had to:
-Carry a 25lb sand bag up and down a crazy steep mountain. I crawled up the mountain with the bag on my back. Courtney saved me during the last couple feet because my back was giving out.
-We had to jump and climb in and out of muddy water holes that progressively got deeper
-Swing across monkey bars that were uneven in height and distance
-Swing across slippery rings
-Pull yourself across a rope that was 5 feet high and about 15 feet long. You had to wrap your hands and legs around it, dangling and pull yourself across.
-Scale across a zig zag wall
-Throw a spear into hay stacks
-Crawl or roll under about 60 feet of barbed wire that also went over trenches of muddy water.
-Jump over walls
-Climb walls
-Jump over a fire pit
-Carry a utility bucket filled with rocks up and down an incredibly steep moutnain- The girls I ran with kept reminding me that I have a wedding in less than 2 months and I should not chance it with my back. The way my back felt, I opted out of carrying the bucket, but I walked the obstacle which was still exhausting bucket or not. I felt like a cop out- but my wedding/back was more important than a Spartan Race
-Swim across a long lake and swim under tubes that were set up in the water
-Rope climb
I am sure I am missing a couple of other obstacles, but just imagine running up and down mountains or through the woods to get to each obstacle. All in all, it was 4.5 miles with the first 2 miles going straight up the mountain and the last 2.5 miles trailing through the woods to get to each obstacle.
I was hard. It was dirty. It was mentally challenging. If you ever want to test your mental grit, I say go to Blue Mountain and do the Spartan Sprint. Here is just one side of my leg. My elbows were scraped up, my back was sunburnt and more bruises were found on my body! BUT IT WAS ALL WORTH IT!
I am so so proud of the BAWS Gym Spartans! Everyone finished!
AROO! xo.
