The Baack Paack

2015 Boston Super, Barre, MA. (Saturday)

I ran this race with my brother-in law, Scott Hastings.  Scott was the first person that I had met who decided one day ” I am going to take up running”.  I have other running friends, however, they ran all the time I knew them.  Scott was one who didn’t run, and then one day decided that he would start.   I have a lot of respect for him for that decision, and sticking with it for years of road racing and OCRs as of late.

The venue for the Boston Super was literary a large cow farm in Barre, Mass.   Spartan Race rented out dozens of school buses (yeah, the yellow ones) to shuttle racers from the parking lot to the venue.   At the farm, the buses pulled in and looped right around a barn that had to be built in the late 1800’s that housed various tractors and attachments before stopping to let us all out and head to registration.  Right out of the gate, you knew where you were from what you saw… and what you smelled.

Registration was pretty painless as I printed the forms I needed the week before and had them all ready to go.   My registration line was light and I was quickly through registration and into the venue.

“Arizona?” Said the volunteer looking at my license.
“Yep” I replied.
“You do a lot of these?” she asked?
“Well.. I was in Breckenridge last weekend….”
She just shook her head and handed my my packet.  “Good luck!”

I met Scott in the venue and we got our various needed bits of race gear on, the wrist band timing chips, the heat time entry bracelet, the free beer bracelet for Scott (which he didn’t even bother with later that day) and of course, the Spartan bib headbands.

From there we hit bag check, and were blessed with a short VIP line (thank you annual pass!) unlike Vegas, which had a monster VIP line.   From there I  was off for some “quality Jay time”. Some of you know what that means.   Fifteen minutes later I was lighter and walking around the venue with Scott, checking out the obstacles that we could see in the distance as to what they were and where they are on the course.  The music was starting to fire up with some good beats and more and more racers were stating to funnel into the venue.  We made our way down to the starting line where the Elite women were getting ready to start the race.    Elite racer heats always have a rule meeting before each heat is released as race rules are tighter for Elite heat runners, due to the monetary payout for the finish.  Things such as, no help on any obstacle, and if there is a “gamble” (a fork in the road or an option to do this or that..) they HAVE to run one way or be disqualified.  Their burpees are monitored so that they conform to the rules as well.   In this meeting, they were told, “skip the memory challenge, do not stop, run right by it”.   That should have resonated to me that they would not have someone checking the memory tests but it didn’t click.  A few minutes later, the smoke was popped, and they were off, a herd of long braided hair, spandex wearing, gazelles, bounding down the course.

Five foot walls and smoke

Five minutes later they called in the 8 AM heat.  Scott and I followed the small group of racers to the starting area,  flashed our 8 AM starting bracelet and hopped over the “hot gate” wall.  Getting my head ready for what I was going to be facing, I looked around the 8 AM wave and noticed that the 8 AM heat was not that populated, compared to the west coast races I usually run.  I guess the mid June temps in Barre, Mass in the 70’s didn’t put any pressure in getting an early start, unlike AZ or CA, where triple digits can sneak on you by the late morning.   After about 7 minutes of the usual dub step, house and EDM mixes blaring out of the speakers at the starting line, I was ready to race.  (I am a sucker for EDM, love that jam right before I workout or run).   The starting line announcer whipped us up with the standard starting line speech, then the smoke was popped and the shouting of GO GO GO!! began.  I started the GPS on my TomTom Cardio as I crossed the starting line and we were off, heading towards the first obstacle, the hay wall.

Mile 1 & 2

The first couple of miles are always the hardest for me.  This is where my body gives me the “go” or “no go” signal.  The “I am sore and tired” or “I am ready to race” signal.  Today, “ready to race” was the feeling.  I was not only racing with a team, I was racing with family and feeling good.   I bounded over hay wall, then jogged over to the 6′ wall, stopped,  grabbed the top with both hands, thew my left ankle up over the top of the wall to “hook”, then pulled myself over with my left hamstring.  Quick, big muscles, and efficient.  Stopping on the other side, Scott popped over the same wall I went over soon after.  From there we started off again and then hit the OUT (Over under and through) series of walls, where you go over one wall, crawl under another, and go “through an opening” in the third wall).  From there we hit the Cliff monkey bars.  This is an obstacle that I usually fail.   Often this obstacle has sets of monkey bars are on different planes, so that some bars are higher than others, and the spacing isn’t consistent.  Taking a quick look I noticed two things.

1. The were high up in the air, so I could really “swing” my legs for momentum
2. All the bars were on the same plane

Scott is really strong on the Monkey bars for someone over 225#. That isn’t a diss on his weight.. that is the truth.   This obstacle ISN’T friendly to folks who are over 175# due to the strain on grip and forearms.   However, Scott had been practicing it and it showed.   Not wanting to have to do burpees right after mile 1, I gave it a shot, and soon found that I was flying through them right next to him as we went across the bars.  Full disclosure, having this obstacle HIGH ENOUGH in the air so you CAN swing your legs (without having to hold them up) increases your success rate of achieving the obstacle.  With about two bars to go I could feel the burn in my forearms, but I knew I had this one down.   Landing back on the ground, we exchanged high fives and kept on pushing to the next obstacle, the barbed wire crawl.

The crawl was not overly complicated with hills, hay, and barriers that Spartan Race loves to throw into them.  There were one or two large logs, that you had to navigate but that was it.   What was tight was the height of the barbed wire.  It was very low. One of the lowest I have seen.   As in, it would snag your pack on your back at each wire –  low.  Being in a cow field, it was grass and dirt as far as the ground under the wire, with some aged deposits from the cows that reside in this field when folks are not racing all through it.    Longer than most, I had to switch directions several times as I was rolling under the wire and getting dizy.  (I counted the number of rolls I completed on Sunday doing this same obstacle.  One hundred and three.  Like I said, it was a long crawl obstacle.

From there we had a half mile jog back to the venue as we climbed up and over the lattice wall (which served as the entrance for the racers in later heats behind us).  One of the first height challenges for Scott. (Who doesn’t really care for heights).

Climbing down the other side, I popped a few Black Cherry Cliff shot bloks for a quick couple hundred calories (my main race food for this race), then we headed off to the memory wall.
The memory wall (I have spoken about this in previous races), is a large grid numbers, words and numbers.   You find the last two digits of your bib (in my case ’68’) then look up that number on the wall.  Immediately after the bib number will be  a word and a set of numbers.  In my case, “Quebec 082-2772” was my set that I would have to remember.   Easy.  Quebec, a city in Canada that I had WAAAAY to much fun in back in High School (and we are going to leave it at that), and 082-2772 became: 82 – 2772.   Three numbers to remember.  EASY!   After about 15 seconds I had it, and told Scott, I was heading on.  He said he needed another few seconds, but I knew I would meet him at the wall series at the next obstacle anyway, so I pressed on.  (Little did I know he was matching his number set to NFL jerseys numbers so he could remember them.)

Walls, woods and weight

The next set of obstacles were the 7 and 8 foot walls, about 20 yards between each other.   Seeing how the walls were bone dry, I ran up and hooked my leg on the 7′ wall, then continued on and did the same for the 8.  Then jogged back to help Scott.   He had told me that he was ‘OK’ with the 7′, but why struggle when you have the team available?  A quick discussion on where to step on me, he was up and over the 7′ and then 8′ without incident. From there we started our second woods run of the day.
For those of you that have not run through the woods of New England, it can be real tricky.  A lot of rocks, roots and mud can make for spills, falls, and broken ankles, if you do not pay attention to where your feet are going.  Scott and I both spent much of this time in the woods run, staring at our feet, or the ankles of the person in front of us to put our feet where theirs went, in order to navigate the terrain.   Having a dry day made it nicer, as the mud wasn’t thin, (think the oil on natural peanut butter) but dark, earthy, and chunky ( think undercooked brownies).
Soon the woods opened up and we hit the sandbag carry.   A forty pound weighted bag that you have to carry for a short distance. (MUCH shorter than what we had at Breckenridge, CO, the week before.)  However, it was back into the woods, through a few muddy streams and then quickly back out to dump the bag and continue on.

Heights, Z-Walls and drags

After another short jog we came across the vertical cargo net.  Not a favorite of Scott or Vicki.  Vicki made a point to go visit this obstacle at the Las Vegas race the day before she ran it, to get her head “right” about getting over this one.  And in Austin, she crushed this obstacle.  Scott had confided in me that this one was a tough one for him, for when you are at the top, you have to throw your legs over to start the downward climb.  I could tell he was focused on this climb, by the way he was moving and breathing.  He crushed it.

There was a big smile on his face when he got back down to terra firma, and he pushed back into the woods.   Next up was the inverted wall, which we both scaled easily and got over, then some field running until we came to the Z -wall.

The Z-wall is the new version of the “traverse wall”, where you have short 2×4″ block of wood to grab with your hands and stand on with your feet, as you navigate down a wall.   The Z aspect is that the wall is now has three two corners, one you can see, and one that is “blind” where you have to reach around with your hand and feet around a 90 degree corner to get another hand a foot hold.  Most people fail at this part.   Scott gave me a ton of support on this corner (thanks!) and didn’t need nearly the support on his attempt.   Ding the bell and we were off to the Atlas Carry, where you pick up and carry an atlas stone about 60′, then drop it, preform 5 chest to ground burpees, then pick the stone back up and head back to where you started.  Not overly complicated, but that atlas stone can get heavy, and it taxes your grip strength as you hold this big round ball of cement.

After those two obstacles we came upon the sled drag.  A metal sled with sand bags in them that are attached to a rope.  You have to pull the sled until it hits a metal post next to your feet, then you drag it back down to where you started from to “reset” the sled for the next person.  Women have one sand bag in them, men have two.   My trick to this obstacle is to go “deep”.  Most people gravitate to the first or second or third pull station.  They get rutted up very quickly to where the front of the sled dives down into the ground from the aggressive pull.  This adds ruts.  Ruts = the sled not pulling smoothly.  If you go to the end of the station, you often find virgin, or near virgin soil where there are not any ruts.  This means a smoother and faster pull of the sled.  Momentum is your friend with this obstacle, and it is hard to achieve if the sled is digging into ruts with every pull!

From the sled drag we made our way up a short hill to the bucket brigade.  This has turned out to be one of my favorite obstacles in a race, and one that I can make a lot of time up on (and pass a lot of other racers).  At this obstacle, you take a 5 gallon bucket and fill it with sand, gravel, rocks, what ever they have in the pile.  You use your hands to scoop the materials into the bucket past a certain line, then carry this bucket (Not on your head or shoulders) around a course.  This course was not that hard, but a bit on the longer side as to what I have seen of late.  Nothing like the carry at the PA Sprint in 2014, that was a 1000 yard bucket carry from hell with a 400 yard incline and decline.  This one was much shorter and not as steep, but is a great equalizer to those that are shorter and lighter.   I have a distinct advantage here of being morbidly obese for many years of my life.. I know what it is like to carry around all of this extra weight.   Many guys, who spend a lot more time in the gym than the do at home based upon their musculature, end up dropping this bucket time and time again on the course.  On this event I must have passed close to 20 folks who started well before me, strictly due to not stopping and focusing on my technique and breathing.

Dumping the rocks back into the bin, we hit the Stairway to Spartan, a wooden “A frame” structure with a solid wall on one side that you have to scale up in order to get started.  Awesome views and a nice breeze at the top, as this was situated at the top of a small rise on the property, and I stole a quick look out to the horizon as I transferred from one side to the other.  I know Scott didn’t appreciate the view, as he was power breathing again focused on getting over this obstacle.

A short decent off this rise had us run past the cow pens (and that wasn’t ankle deep mud we were running through) to a water stop.   A few quick sips of water and a pour over the neck we were back into the woods with more technical woods running.   This took us to the spear throw station.   10 stations, each with the standard 2 bales of hay with a spear and string attached.   New rule was announced, even if the spear sticks into the hay, if the back end of the spear is touching the ground, burpees for you.   This means, if you have a weak stick, and the weight of the spear pulls the spear down so it is touching the ground it is a failure.  The bales were at the standard height and standard distance (just like the sets in the baackpaack training facility).   I was nine for nine with my spear throw this year in races and I really wanted to hit ten for ten.   I found a station that I liked, gingerly put the rope on the far side of the fence, grabbed the spear, bent the tip to straight, balanced the spear in my hand, found my grip, placed my feet, squared the hips, inhaled, and let it fly.

A solid hit in the high bale.  No burpees for me!  Ten for ten this year!  Wahoo!

Scott had mentioned that he was 50 / 50 in the past few attempts.  He ended sticking his as well, I think we were two of the 4 who stuck the spear at that moment in time at the obstacle.  Close to 20 Spartans and soon to be Spartans were  in the penalty box doing burpees for missing the spear.    We jogged off again into the woods immediately hitting a stream and several mud bogs before we were back to the roots and the rocks.

Climbing with the Captain

When we hit the rope climb station, I noticed two things.  The pit was really deep, and the ropes seemed shorter.   So, I spent some time wandering around in waist deep brown mud water pulling the ropes out of the water as if I was looking for one that had a big red laminated card on the bottom of it that said “This one Jay”.  I must have looked like a complete idiot, checking all of these ropes, but what I was finding is that several of them were not that long, and using the J hook method to climb the rope, I didn’t have enough rope length to get the first wrap.  Sure, I could have half assed some sort of pull up with my arms and try to stand on the knot on the bottom of the rope, however, having only recently completed my first rope climb, (in Breckenridge, Co beast) I needed to start my climb with my technique that worked in the last one, not something new that might or might not start me up the rope.   So, I wander and wade through the mud, while people are selecting ropes and climbing up, and I am wandering around pulling ropes out of the mud and looking at the length of each one.   What was really only about 30 seconds, which seemed a lot longer, I found the rope that had a decent amount of slack laying in the water and I started up on it.   Pull, hold, Captain Morgan the right leg, and sweep the left behind, under and over.  Step in the rope with the left foot on the right leg.  Stand up.   The foot clamp was solid, and I didn’t feel the rope slipping.  I was on my way up.  I feel I need to explain the “Captain Morgan” comment.   When I learned the technique for the J hook from a fellow San Tan Valley Spartan (Thanks Gio!) The process is that you start with the rope on the OUTSIDE of one of your legs.   Which leg?  I don’t think it matters, it is a personal preference.  I always go with the rope to my outside of my right leg.  Why?  I am left handed / legged, and I find that I have more dexterity with my left leg, and I have found that it is stronger as well.  So, the sweep behind, under and over with the rope comes much more natural when doing it with my left leg.  To those who are still learning this technique, I say TRY BOTH!  You might find one way comes more natural, and then go with it.  Back to the Captain.
So, unless you have lived without television you have seen or heard of the Captain Morgan pose that is done as part of the marketing for the beverage.
They go so far as to have a pose off.. to see who can hold the best CM pose.  Yet I digress.

The point being, that pose is the PERFECT starting position for the leg with the rope on the outside of it.  Align the rope to the outside of the leg, strike the pose, reach up, pull, and sweep the left behind, under and over.  Stand on the right leg.  Repeat until you ring that damn cowbell.

Now, there are several different techniques to climbing the rope.  J hook, U hook, S wrap, etc etc etc.  Many Crossfit boxes teach the S-Wrap, and Shiloh, a fellow baackpaack spartan uses this technique when ascending the rope.   I have tried it and found it too cumbersome, hence why I go with the J hook.  Two issues with the J hook.
1) It will scrape and burn the CRAP out of your shin if you do not have it protected.  I have found that a neoprene calf sleeve is a great guard to prevent this.
2) When you are re-acquiring the rope with your feet, you are holding up your body weight with your hands and arms alone.

The guys and gals who are reading this who have been climbing the rope for years, or who do it without using their feet are saying… “Well DUH!”  but for those who are just starting out, it is something to be aware of.  It isn’t something you want to be thinking about when climbing the rope (Jill) but it is the truth.  Several points during the climb, whether it be 8′ up or 20′ up, all your weight is on your hands and arms.

So.. If you are weak in arm, shoulder and grip strength – or if you are overweight are you screwed?

NO.  You can still climb the rope.  What it means for you is that you HAVE to have your footwork on the rope down solid.  As in, each and every movement needs to be near perfect and QUICK, so you can minimize your time where you are holding your body up on the rope with your hands and arms.  The only way this is going to happen is with practice!  You have to practice this climb.  You have to get uncomfortable with your hands and arms, you have to practice the foot work.   Trust me, it feels great to ring that bell after watching a lot of “fit looking folks” (who are also half my age) fail to get up the rope and are off doing burpees.   Now, I am not happy that they didn’t do it.. but it does make it feel extra special when I compete it.  It took me five sets of “pull and reset” to make it to the top.  I reached up and weakly tapped the cowbell, which responded with a timid “ding”  not a resounding “CLANG” achieved by most.  Immediately I started my hand over hand descent, and still looking up at the bell and the fact that I made it sing, had a fleeting moment in my brain that said… “RED ALERT!!!  GRIP FAILING!”.   See, you have to think about the rope climb the same way that MT. Everest climbers do (yeah, kind of dramatic, but for the past year, the rope climb has been my ‘Everest’ during the race), getting to the top is ONLY half way.. You still have to get down.   At about 12′ my grip went to hell and gravity started taking over.    Finally looking down, (now that I was heading that way very quickly) I realized how high up I was.    SPLASH!   I hit the water and the mud under it, knees flexing as I entered the water and hitting the bottom of the pit.   “Not smart” I thought.   but.. nothing from my hips down were replying in pain so I ended up surviving the fall.   Talking after the race with Scott, I still cannot fathom how the elite racers climb up that rope and then come crashing back down from the top of the rope into the water, without hurting themselves.  Mad respect for their abilities.

This race in Boston was very unique in the layout of the rope climb.  In fact only three of the 9 races I ran last year (and 1 out of 10 this year) had the rope climb earlier in the race and not right at the end of the event.  (2014: Boston Sprint, Pennsylvania Sprint, and Salt Lake City beast, which had two rope climbs).
All the others have followed the traditional format that had the rope climb at the end of the course, within .25 miles of the end of the race.  And for 8 of the 10 races this year… I grinded out 30 burpees at each one, staring at the finish line.

This Super had the rope climb about a mile before the end of the race, which for me, was AWESOME.  It meant that I had some “left in the tank” to even attempt the rope.   The kicker for this race was the following events AFTER the rope climb, the Traverse, the Cliff multi bar and the Herc hoist.   A lot of rope, and a lot of grip strength needed.

I climbed out of the pit to see Scott starting on his burpees. Now I know how it feels for Shiloh, Brandon, Corey and other racers that I have raced with who got to stand there and watch me do burpees after they completed the climb.  I went away and let Scott do his thing.   Flexing my hands by opening and closing them I looked over my shoulder to the next obstacle about 500 yards away, the tyrolean traverse, an obstacle that I really enjoy.  As I felt the cramping in my my palms, fingers and forearms,  I knew this time, this obstacle, was going to be a lot harder.

Ropes, weight and a rocked right calf.

Two obstacles back before the rope climb was the rolling mud walls and the dunk wall. The dunk wall is a vertical wall that sits in water.  It is designed so that you have to go under water and under the wall to come up on the other side.   Spending much of my life near or on the water, this was not a big deal for me.  Get in the water, find the bottom of the wall in the water with my hand, dive down go under and come up on the other side.   One of my best pics to date was taken at this obstacle at the Austin Super.

Here in Boston, the wall ended about 18″ ABOVE the water. This meant that you didn’t have do dive down under the wall.  Most of the smaller racers just bent down  and cleared the space.   I followed suit, bending down to go under the wall, and my right calf rocked.    Solid cramp in the gastrocnemius (medial), or the inside of my right calf.  SOLID, as in cutting granite would have been easier than trying to loosen this muscles.  My leg caved under me and I splashed down in to this 1/2 lunge, 1/2 on my ass pose –  with my butt sitting on my now cramped right calf.    I crawled out of the pit and pressed on, knowing the slip wall is right in front of me, and 100% of my focus was getting over that thing.   I would deal with the slip wall first, even hobbling to it before I rest and massage the muscle.
Driping wet from head to toe, I start jogging towards the slip wall, which while “wet” was surprising easy to scale up and over, and was even waived off any offer to help Scott at the top as he crushed this obstacle as well.

That little break in the sequence of events was important to cover as Scott and I left the rope climb and headed towards the traverse.   I could feel the cramp in my right leg flaring back up again as I was climbing the rope, but since the left leg does most of the work on the climb, I wasn’t think about it.  I could feel it telling me that it was hurting, but not enough pain to do anything about it.   I just dealt with it.

Within a few minutes we were at the traverse.   This one was setup the same way that the traverse was setup in Austin.  Above solid ground, with a angle up as you progressed on the rope.  The rope is about 7′ off the ground, so when you put my weight on it, plus the length of my arms, it puts my back at about 3.5′ off the ground.  I found a rope that was open and grabbed it.
My hands groaned.  “Didn’t I just hold your a$$ up the air about 4 minutes ago?”
They were screaming at me.

Yep.. you did.. and I need more out of you… now!

I grabbed the rope over my shoulders, leaned back and threw my legs on to the rope.  Move the right hand, move the left leg, left hand, right leg.. and so on.  I get about 4 movements into the rope and my right calf rocks again… solid. In my mind when I closed my eyes I saw the color red it was cramped so tight.    If I drop from the rope now, 30 burpees.  If I slow down I risk burning out my grip strength and dropping from the rope and then doing 30 burpees.   I didn’t want to do burpees.

I grit my teeth (surprised I didn’t crack a molar) and pressed on, trying to move faster, yet with each movement, my right calf is giving me less and less mobility.

Move… move.. move.. move!! My brain is screaming at me.

I can feel my grip strength is starting to wain, my core is starting to sag, and my ankle hooks on the rope have become full calf hooks.  Translation: my form is going all to hell and I am not going to be able to keep this up.  I steal a quick look at the bell.   DAMN.. I am not even half way.

I inhale a mega deep breath and snap my focus back to the rope and hands right above my face and start moving again.
My mantra becomes: I am not falling off this thing.. I am not falling off this thing.. (legs slipping..) I am not falling off this thing.. (grip starting to open up) I am not falling off this thing..(starting to slow down) I AM NOT FALLING OFF THIS THING!!! over and over in my head.

I must have said that close to 20 times as I continued on the rope as each movement was becoming less and less efficient, as I was fatiguing and covering less and less distance with each grab of the hands and movement of the legs.   My once 8-10″ spaces between grabs were down to 3-4 inches.  I was barely moving forward.  My shoulders were on fire, my grip was wide open with the thumbs pointing out into free space, no longer having the strength to  wrap around my fingers.    It was become very ugly, very quickly.

Then I was there.

The volunteer was right on my left standing equal to my shoulders.  She was screaming something at me, but all I could hear was my internal manta to keep moving. I tipped my head back to steal another look at the bell,  and I was within reach!  It was right there.  However, my hands were about to give way.  My grip strength was toast, and I was hanging on this rope by my finger tips.  By now that I had basically stopped, my arms were starting to quiver, muscle failure and burpees were coming at any second.     I looked at my hands, looked at the bell .. made a quick mental calculation and lunged for the cowbell with my left hand.

The next series of events must have looked pretty impressive and possibly painful from the volunteer.

As I reached off the rope behind my head with my outstretched left arm and hand, my right hand couldn’t hold the weight and slipped off the rope.  I am reaching up, reaching back, and falling down to the ground all at the same time.  It was a competition between grit and gravity, where gravity wins 99% of the time.

Today was the 1%.

CLANG CLANG rang the bell.

OOOOPH.. The air escaped out of my lungs as my neck and shoulder crashed into the ground.. and for a moment I was stuck there.   Neck and shoulders holding up the upper half of my body, like some new fangled yoga bridge pose while my legs… were still wrapped around the rope.

If I wasn’t 6’4″ this move could have really screwed someone up, as they would have landed square on their head.  Lucky for me my long torso and physical geometry didn’t allow that to happen.  I released my legs and rolled on to my hands and knees.  I would be lying if I didn’t see stars for a brief second when I closed my eyes.  But I didn’t care.  No burpees for this guy.

Getting up off the ground I made my way over to the Cliff multi bars, a minor limp in my right leg and hands that could barely hold a pencil if asked.  My grip was toast, smoked, and sore – and this next obstacle expected them to hold my body weight by traversing a solid four feet long 1.5″ bar, then transfer to 4 hanging ropes, then back to another bar to then ring the cowbell.

 

All the while holding UP my feet in a “knees to elbows” Crossfit move as the obstacle is built too low the ground  for someone who is over 6′ to allow their legs to swing like the shorter athletes.

To this point in the race, I was in a penalty free race, and I had a fleeting moment that I could get through this obstacle and have my FIRST EVER penalty free race.  My first grab on the bar snapped me back to my harsh reality that today would not be that day.  I made it across the bar, reached for the rope and my feet hit the ground.

 

Burpees for me.    I made my way over to the burpee area and soon Scott was joining me.  Three sets of 10 burpees later, we were back on the move, heading towards the cargo net A frame (not difficult, just high and not really fun for Scott who doesn’t like heights all that much) and then a quick 70 yards over to the herc hoist.

This obstacle (herc hoist) is actually one of the obstacles that i can “rest” on.   It consists of a 120 – 130# weight (for me) (75-90# for women) clipped to a rope that goes up to a pulley and back down to you.

 

 

Since that is about 1/2 of my body weight, I choose a technique that I grab the rope and lean back, basically falling to the ground.  Walk my way back up the rope, then fall down again.  Four or five times of this move and I have it to the top.  Pretty easy.  Most of my attention is on the descent of the rope to make sure I don’t let it slam to the ground and guarantee 30 burpees for me, as this is the point that most fail the obstacle.  They can get it up the to the pulley, but cannot control the descent.    I finished the obstacle just as Scott was getting into the area.  I pointed out a rope for him and he attacked it using his own technique. (he was using more small muscles than big muscles.. I gotta share that secret with him)
With about 8 feet to go, I could see he was struggling a bit.  I ran up and operated as the ‘brake’ for him.  He pulls down, I clamp on the rope so it will not move, he readjust his grip and pulls again. I brake again.. and so on.  He does all the pulling and work, I just keep the weight from crashing down to the ground between pulls.  Four pulls later he was at the top and we let the rope out to let the weight descend back down to the ground.   All rope / grip obstacles completed.. and none too soon, as both of us were feeling it in our hands and forearms.  High fives, and we are off for another woods run.

What? This is the end?

After the Herc hoist we headed back into the woods to what we both thought would be a .75 mile or so trail run.  As with this entire race, I was pacing a bit faster on the runs from obstacle to obstacle.  This worked out well for obstacles like the walls, where I could get over them, then come back and offer help if needed. This again was the cace and soon found myself right in the middle of an OCR team who were moving on a pretty good pace.  They swarmed around me, and being on a single track woods run, I had a choice of pulling off the trail into the brush, or picking up my pace.  I choose the latter, and was absorbed into this mass of runners, literally stacked up 1 second behind each other.   I hopped / darted over rocks and roots with them through some pretty technical mud and rocky terrain staring at my feet the whole time to make sure I didn’t crash.  Before I knew it, I could smell the smoke of the fire jump and hear the announcers tent.

I looked up.  WTH?  The finish line already?

I found an opening and quickly I pulled off to the side into a deep puddle of muck up to my calves as the team flew by me whooping, cheering  and high fives as they crossed the line.  Standing there in calf deep cow *cough* “mud”,  I looked for Scott, expecting to see him right behind me.  Not seeing him, I thought it more prudent to get out of the cow crap and finish, where I could wait for him over the finish line, not in this pool of stank.  Twenty yards later I jumped the fire and finished.  Scott was a minute later, with a ‘weak’ (his term not mine) jump over the fire, and Saturday’s 2015 Boston Super was in the books!

High fives, bananas, and Vanilla Almond Cliff bars were now up for the taking!

YES!   We collected out pics, the finisher shirts, a quick Spartan shower, then back to the busses for the ride to the parking lot.  From there we departed ways, Scott back to Cape, and I back to the hotel for the night in prep for round two on Sunday.

Now I sit in the hotel, typing this up, flexing and stretching my legs in preparation for tomorrow.  My right calf is better, but still not 100%.   I type and flex, type and flex, trying to loosen it up.  Tomorrow is going to be a wet day, wearing wet clothes.. and the course is going to be completely different in these conditions.  Difficulty is going to go up by a factor of about 10 on ALL of the obstacles, even the easy ones.  The weather keeps showing big time thunderstorms for Sunday and at least an inch of rain in the morning.     I can’t do anything about, so I am not going to stress over it.   We shall see what tomorrow brings in about 12 hours.

Aroo!