Spartan Sprint

My wife and I are nursing our wounds after yesterday’s torturous Spartan Sprint. It’s a 3.2 mile race filled with 19 obstacles. Some of the obstacles are pretty easy, some are extremely difficult. I only have pre-race photos in this gallery, as I was too busy getting slices open by barbed wire and rolling on my ankles as I navigated rocks and hills with a 50lbs. sandbag on  my back to take any shots during the race.

This kind of activity is just up my alley, and while I complain that I can’t move, I’m really glad I did it. It was a whole lot of fun. It was made easier since we were in a group of 8 and we helped each other and stayed together. I had a lot of opportunities to rest as a result. That said, by the last few obstacles, I was dogging it. My ankles were sore since I rolled on them three times, and I had numerous bleeding wounds from barbed wire and landing wrong on balancing posts.

There were only two challenges of the 19 that I failed. One was a horizontal climb across a 30 ft. wall with only small cuts of wood to keep you up. It was like a sideways rock climb. I got to the second-to-last block before I lost my grip and fell. When you fail challenges you need to do 30 burpies. Burpies are that exercise where you start upright, go down into push-up position, and then stand back up. Sometimes you jump at the end, but we weren’t required to do that so fuck that shit. The second obstacle I failed was the javelin throw. I had perfect form, but my javelin missed it’s mark by a few feet. No second try and another 30 burpies. I was mad at myself for missing that one.

Lisa said her proudest moment was climbing up the rope to ring the bell. It was about 30 feet up and she did this like a champ. Lisa was by far the most fit among us, making most obstacles look easy. She did all the wall challenges, too. She totally rocked the Spartan.

My proudest moment was during some of the wall obstacles. The wall obstacles are sheer walls. They started at 4 feet and went up to about 8 or 9 feet. I scaled all of them and without using hand-holds or climbing up the sides. Even for the tallest ones, I just lept up and pulled myself over. I had this technique of walking up the wall so that my hands were over the top edge and my feet were right by my hands, with my butt sticking out. Then I just put a lot of pressure on my right leg as I worked my left leg over. There were a group of actual Marines doing this one with us and only 2 out of 6 were able to do what I did. Not bad for an overweight 42-year old. Hoo hoo hoo!

The most grueling obstacle for just about everyone was the barbed wire crawl. This was a 150-yard up-hill (repeat: up-hill) crawl over wet rocks and mud all under the threat real barbed wire. I can’t describe just how far this is when you have no knee protection. As I am writing this and look at my knees, all I can say is that they are a bloody mess.

As for injuries, my ankles are not so bad today. My forearms are shot. I can barely grip things. I have a 5 inch gash on my back from the barbed wife. I have a nasty scrape on my inner thigh from slipping on a post I was balancing on. Lisa and I were so banged  up we collapsed in bed at midnight. What made the evening perfect was the 2am call from one of the sleepovers. Marco was throwing up and I had to go get him.

Of all the obstacles I endured during the race, getting up and out the door to pick him up was by far  the most difficult.