Normally, I have many pictures and videos to show from my events. Sadly, the Spartan Beast in Temecula, CA required a sacrifice, and that sacrifice was nothing other than my GoPro, extra battery, and head strap.
I was, however, able to recover my hat, so there is that. But the slip-n-slide into a mud pit ate the GoPro and no amount of thrashing around in the freezing cold water could find it. Sacrifice complete, I finished my leg of the trifecta, finally putting together the big medal.
When Spartan mentioned, “… the fastest times will be around 180 minutes… ” I doubled that number as part of my expectations. I was not properly prepared for this race, hadn’t done p90x3 in about 3 weeks (well, not consistently, anyway), and I’m… old. Not to say that Spartan is only for the young (there were older gentlemen and ladies out there), but my wrists have taken a beating, and they’re not as strong as they used to be. So, my expectations were that I would be doing a lot of burpees, because there is no way I’m climbing slick, muddy rope to ring a bell and then falling and breaking something that would cost me not only time away from work, but potentially my job. So, burpees it was.
Fortunately, there were only 4 times I had to do my 30 burpees, but that was enough. One was the rope climb; The second was a rope crawl that, despite my best efforts, my calves instantly cramped hard every time my legs went over my head; the third was the bar/rope dangle thingy, which my wrists simply weren’t strong enough to handle, and the final one has been my bane from day one: The wall crawl. I guess I’m just too fat.
The rest of the 33 obstacles I was able to go through, under, over, or in as required. An added “obstacle” was taken from the death race: A memory challenge involving a letter and phone number. Fortunately, I remembered my number (Papa 793-2034 – damn, I guess I’ll know it forever now) and avoided another 30 burpees.
The weather was perfect; Not too hot, and not too cold. My race wasn’t my finest, but I’m happy with the time. I know I would have finished in under 4 hours if I hadn’t lost the GoPro… And that, my friends, will have to be satisfaction enough.
