On February 8th, my friends and I set off on our Spartan Sprint Adventure. Wow. Just wow. Really, there is no good way to describe this race. It was fun at times, miserable at times, challenging one minute and discouraging the next. My shoulder held up well, but after the first set of burpees, my shoulder was toast. (30 burpees was the punishment for any missed obstacle.) Luckily, they let me do air squats instead after that first round. This race was just under 5 miles and most of it was climbing up and down a mountain. The obstacles were (to the best of my memory):
- over and then under waist-high walls
- over, under, through taller walls
- over a much taller wall
- over a tilted wall (tilted toward you, of course)
- rope climb - I did burpees
- monkey bars
- pick up a huge cement ball and walk, then 5 burpees, then walk the ball back
- 20# sand bag carry
- low crawl under barbed wire, through mud
- up and over mud hlls with water pits in between
- up and over a cargo net wall
- spear through
- pull a rope up and and down that is weighted with a sandbag
- over another tall wall
- rope climb up and over a wall
- drag a cement block up and over a hill
- jump over fire
- more barbed wire into muddy water
- under a wall that was submerged in water (no way!)
- and finally make it past gladitors with pugil sticks to get my medal.
I'm sure I forgot an obstacle or two, but you get the gist. Luckily, my super athletic and strong husband was with me every step of the way. Sometimes pushing me over a wall, or helping me do the monkey bars, waiting patiently while I finished burpees, etc. I think at times he may have been impressed, but overall he was very patient. I'm glad he was with me, otherwise I may not have finished. But finish we did.
And then we immediately did the 1/2 mile kids race with our munchkins. Declan and Abigail completed all of their obstacles, and most of them on their own. Over the 1/2 mile, they climbed over a few walls, up and over muddy hills into water pits, climbed under wires, through a tunnel, and over more walls. Abigail was dead last (as the youngest and smallest) and probably the dirtiest, but she wore her mud and her medal proudly. As walked back to our stuff, people we passed were constantly giving them high fives. They were very proud of their accomplishment and I was very, very proud of them.
More pictures will come soon. This was a fun experience, but not one I'm sure I'll repeat. The bumps, bruises, cuts, etc from that race course may be all I need for the rest of my life.
