Once again the Trifecta is mine!
I got my third and final medal to make my 2015 Trifecta complete. This year the red medal came last, I got the hard stuff out of the way first I guess. Yesterday I was in southern MD for the DC Sprint. My heat was at 9:45, so I had plenty of time to check out the course map and find my buddy Leon who was volunteering in the morning and running in the afternoon.
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| He needs to work on his selfie |
They warned us that there were bees all over the place. I immediately had flashbacks of getting stung at the Wildwood Games. But no bees stung me this time! My heat started with the announcer taking requests for the opening speech. He rallied us with the Mighty Ducks speech and it was amazing. Ducks Fly Together! This course was 4 ish miles, 23 obstacles. Elevation wouldn't be an issue compared to the other 2 races I did this year, but it was still pretty darn hilly! I power walked the hills and jogged the flat areas. This course reminded me alot of the SC Beast, and that's a good thing! The first obstacle was some log hurdles, then the 6 and 7 foot walls. I needed a boost over the 6 because it had no foothold. The 7 had a foothold, and just like I did in PA I got up it all by myself. Within that first mile we were assaulted by obstacles. The inverted wall - this time I got up it by myself, which I have done before but the last 2-3 times I needed a boost. Then the Stairway to Sparta, a wall with a ladder on top. I got up the wall by myself, but somehow found myself wedged underneath the first rung of the ladder. I had to drop back down and I ended up getting a boost from somebody. Once I figure out a good technique for it I'll be able to climb it by myself. Water station next, also fueled up here because I did not want this race to turn out like PA where I started having blood sugar crashes. I stayed on top of my nutrition yesterday. We had an Atlas carry here, this thing is just getting too damn easy for me. I owe it all to my deadlifting. Next, the 8 foot wall. Victory of the day - I climbed it all by myself! This wall has 2 footholds. I stepped on the first, put my left hand on the outer edge of the wall, put my foot on the second hold, then reached my right hand to the top of the wall, pulled myself up and moved my left hand to the top. So now I was hanging off the top with my feet on the higher foothold. I pushed myself up from hanging position. It was hard, I was shaking and my muscles almost gave out on me. I remember the volunteer cheering me on. I hung my arms over the wall and pushed. And then I was at the top. I'm proud, not many women make it over that wall without help. Immediately after the wall were the monkey bars. Did alot of pausing and swinging here to maintain momentum because their bars are so freaking far apart, but this was easy peasy. I can see how my grip strength has imrpoved because I wasn't struggling to hang on at any point. Not too far after the monkey bars... there was the bucket carry. As much as I hate this obstacle, I was pleasantly surprised because it was really not that bad! There were some hills, but it wasn't up a damn mountain and also it was in the shade. I only stopped 3 times. Maybe I just hate carrying objects up black diamond ski hills. But next, the sadistic course designer placed the Z walls in our way. First burpees of the day for me.
And so ended the first onslaught of obstacles! All within the first mile! More hills in the woods, then a very easy wooded sandbag carry. We exited the woods again to find a water station, an A frame cargo which was a very slow climb because of all the people, then a slippery wall. As I was climbing it the girl next to me slipped and instantly screamed for help. A guy appeared at the top of my lane to help her, which was nice of him except for the fact that I couldn't climb up because he was in my way, and I was gripping the chain at the top and it was hard to hold on to. Asking for help is fine, but this girl didn't even TRY to get herself over the wall, just instantly screamed for help. I remember fighting for dear life when I slipped on this obstacle at my first Spartan 2 years ago. Anyway. Back in the woods for more trails. The hills were pretty relentless. But we were in the shade, I was having fun laughing with some other 9:45'ers (because Ducks Fly Together) and then before you knew it we were exiting the woods for the mud hills. These things were steep (look at how small the guy on the hill is in the picture) and they had no ropes. The hills got very slippery. I picked what looked like the driest section, got about halfway up, then I just slid down really slowly and splashed back into the water. There was just nothing to grab onto. I exited the pool on the side and climbed the hill from the side. It was still within bounds :) Later in the day I saw they put ropes up so it must have been pretty bad. Next - rope climb. The mud hills actually tired me out quite a bit. My upper body strength was sapped from all the obstacles early on. I got into the pit ready to rock but I realized there was no knot at the bottom. The first knot was like face level! I pulled myself up as high as I could with my arms and scrunched my legs up, but could not get my feet on the knot. I tried 3 times and it just wasn't gonna work. Bummer. I'll get it one of these days.
Back into the woods for a long stretch of running. The trails were flatter so I ran here, but eventually we encountered several pits of crazy thick mud. This was like Neverending Story level mud. Many shoes lost, people slipping all over the place. I slipped and fell on my ass, totally played it off and everyone around me just laughed. My left butt cheek hurt after that and I know the bruise will be colossal. After an eternity of trudging through the peanut butter mud, we found a cargo climb in the woods. One of the ones that's between 2 trees so it moves around on you. There was bottlenecking because the net was extremely slippery from the mud we had all just been through. Right as I was about to go, a girl fell off the top and landed on her head/neck!!! She lay there silent for a bit, eventually said she was ok but the medics were called and she was most likely pulled off the course. The girl in front of me screamed as she almost slipped off the top. I said nope, screw this and walked on past. I'm sorry, but my health isn't worth a silly obstacle. If that thick mud wasn't all over it I'd have no problem, I have done obstacles like that many times. That just seemed borderline unsafe to me so I made a judgement call. I did see alot of people sidelined, one ankle injury at the inverted wall, tons of people with cramps, and a guy throwing up on the side of a hill. My take on it is, yes you do sign a waiver but you should also use your judgement and walk away from anything that looks unsafe beyond reason. But back to the race - many more hills were climbed, then we faced an easy plate drag, the final water station which was much appreciated, and the multi bars - rings, then a softball??? then a pipe. More burpees for me, yay! Followed by a very slippery Herc Hoist, but still conquered with amazing swiftness by yours truly. I guided a fellow chick through it, ready to help out if needed because she was struggling pretty badly. It took her awhile but she did it. Spear throw next, barely missed it! At least I'm getting better at it though.
Then at long last we entered the barb wire crawl. This was a good old muddy, watery, fun crawl. I felt like I was back home in GA again with that orange clay like mud. I took a few breaks but got through it in 8-10 minutes, even faster than some of the boys. Caked in glorious mud, I emerged from the crawl, jumped the fire, and crossed the finish. I received my red medal, and therefore my 2015 Trifecta.
I went and found Leon who wanted to get a picture of me all muddy. I wished him well and then he headed off to go run his race.
I had a freaking blast. I forgot how much fun the Sprints were, having not done one in over a year. I need to move back south, because I'm learning that I love Spartans just like this one, and the Carolina Super/Beast. They are challenging, muddy, and fun. The mountain races were just too difficult to the point where it wasn't fun anymore. I have no problem climbing hills, they're a good challenge and serve their purpose in creating a good race, but climbing mountains just for the sake of climbing isn't really what I want to do. If I wanna do nothing but hike then I'll go hiking. The mud is also considerably absent in the mountain races, and that's a huge part of what makes it fun for me. So with any luck we'll be back down south for the 2016 season and I'll be happy running the GA/SC races.
I also said farewell to my Inov8's. They got me through a year of trail running, a half marathon, and like 8 OCR's.
And my results - I did pretty damn good considering the fact I didn't even try to go fast whatsoever! I didn't run much at all and spent a lot of time bottlenecked at obstacles and helping other people out. It'll be interesting when I get really really good and actually try to go fast.
