The Baack Paack

 

 

 

 

 

The 2015 Hawaii Spartan Trifecta weekend is now in the books.  The interwebs are buzzing with the positive, the negative and everything in between regarding this race, the venue and the organization of the event.  These next few pages will be my recap.  I don’t race in the elite heat, have no plans to run elite, and enjoy running with a team. I like to stop and help people over walls.  Seeing their smiles of accomplishment often means more than a 20 second faster time at the finish.   Please realize that these ramblings come from a 42+ year old, overweight male, who races to push himself and his team to realize what he and they can do.  I never plan on winning anything, other than a new found respect for myself in what I can now accomplish.

For anyone looking to do the Hawaii weekend Spartan race, the first thing to think about is where you are going to stay.  Most stay down in Waikiki and travel across the island to get to the race.  A few lucky (smart) racers rented a house or room on the North Shore (the side of the island where the venue was held), making the commute a lot faster in the morning as well as the evening.

For those that have never been to Hawaii before, expect three things.

1. None of the roads are straight
2. There is a lot of city traffic and pedestrians
3. Everything is posted at 35 mph. (Well, almost everything)

One you get the hang of that, getting to the venue is straight forward.   Spartan Hawaii did a good job sending out emails with details about the race, and were very quick to reply to email questions as well.  I think that if some of the racers had paid attention to the emails, a lot of questions and frustration at the day of the race sign up would have been avoided.

So, let’s dive right in.  Got up at 4:15 AM, on the road by 5 AM to get there by 5:45.  Parking and signage was well staffed (in the dark) and was easy to park, pay the $10, and follow the crowd for the roughly 1 mile walk up over a ledge of a small mountain from the parking area to the venue.  Due to the early start and arriving on the island just 10 hours earlier, I skipped my morning coffee (which didn’t help my performance any) and proceeded directly with Tad (a fellow racer who flew out to Hawaii just to volunteer for two days…more about that later) to the venue.   The walk to the venue through the lush forest canopy was humid, but not “hot”.. Yet.  You were greeted by scenic coastal views, trade wind breezes and the morning sun rising to the east.

 

After the 15 min walk we were on site just to hear them MC announcing the start of the Ultrabeast wave in 10 minutes.  At this point is where you could start to see the frustration and tension building from several folks in the crowd.   Tad took off to find the volunteer tent to get started on his daily duties, and I headed to registration.  Getting in my “A-C” line (based on last name), I found that I was about 15 people deep.  The line to my left, where all the frustration was coming from was the same day registration line.  On the mainland, same day registration is uber-expensive, so I was perplexed as to why this line was so long.  I soon realized that this line was also handling the “change of registration” as well.
We have all been there.  You are racing in Open, but for some reason your chip is tied to an elite wave.  So you make your way over to the change registration line, usually staffed by a Spartan “blue shirt” staff member and a computer to make the changes.  Not a big deal.  But now, add the line of same day registrations (which was growing as I stood there) and a host of indecisive participants, you could see why this was slowing down.

This was a snippet of the conversation that the blue shirt was dealing with.

Let me set the stage: Female Blue Shirt staff member, hunched over a laptop.  A husband and wife pair standing next to her, both anxious to get going from standing inline:

Blue Shirt:  Hey, what do you need?

Male: We want to change our Beast to an Ultrabeast?

Female: How long is that?

Male: About 27, don’t worry you will be fine.. (Looking at the Blue Shirt) yes, change both out Beasts to Ultra.

Blue Shirt: Your name?

Female: Wait what? 26 miles? I don’t want to do 26 miles!

Male: You will be fine, I will do it with you.

Blue Shirt: Name?

Female:I thought we were doing 12?

Male: Yes.. Twice.

Female: No, I don’t want to do that.

Blue shirt: Your name???

Make: Fine! You can do the Beast, I will run the ultra. (Looking at the Blue Shirt again) just transfer me to the Ultra..

Female: What?  You said you were going to race WITH me!

….

 

Dude, work out those logistics BEFORE you get in line, it’s not like you just walked together for a mile from your car to this point.

Anyway.. that line was full of this type of conversation as well as those who were just trying to get something corrected on their entrance packet.

Making it through registration, I picked up my timing chip and color coded wrist band for my Beast race.  The color coded wrist band signified which race you were doing.

• White: Ultra Beast
• Green: Beast
• Blue: Super
• Red: Sprint

These are the same style wristband that they use in stateside races to write down the heat time for your entry- just color coded.  You also had a matching color coded timing chip. (red, blue, green, white) that you had to wear on your shoe to record your race.

 

What was missing from the packet was the headband, and this is what set a majority of people off.  Due to a delayed shipment, the race headbands did not make it into the registration packet, and we were told in the email that the headband was your id for bag check as well as future packets (as you needed a new timing chip and wrist band for each distance/race you were running) No headband- no bag return.  This was a big deal as a lot of racers were running three races, which meant a lot of trips to bag check to get and store stuff between races.

So, twelve lines from registration now swarm this 8’x8′ pop up tent to search through boxes and boxes of headbands (over six thousand) to find the right headband for each racer.  This was a mad house.  Racers digging through handfuls of head bands and then putting them back into the wrong box, which caused future delays, as they were laid out in numeric order in the box.  All the volunteers who were at the table had a good idea of what box had what number set in them, but when they would turn to the right to help another racer who was patiently waiting in line and some other racer would start digging through the numbers, he would dump his fistful of wrong numbers back into the WRONG box.. So those 5-7 numbers from number set 310-316 are now tossed into a box with 1200-1800.   See where this is going? A lot of confusion and frustration by both the racers and the volunteers.  A staff member should have been leading the show here at this tent to help control the chaos.   After about 15 minutes, I was given my headband and made my way down to cop a squat on the grassy hillside to over see the venue, get a lay of the land (where the start and finish where) check out the vendor area, as well as find the porta-potties.  The music was thumping, and the MC was releasing wave after wave of the races Ultrabeast, elite Beast, elite Sprint, and elite Super, as he worked is way down to the first open wave, (mine) the Open Beast at 7 AM.

 

Once you were though the registration lines, you could feel the attitude change.  Racers were starting to relax, laugh, stretch, get their “game face on” and jog around.  Many new racers and spectators were staring slack jawed at the mountains surrounding the venue.  They are an impressive sight, a combination of ageless beauty, harsh rugged angular rocks, and lush vegetation covering it all.  It was very easy to see why the filmed movies such as Jurassic Park, Godzilla, as well as TV shows such as Lost, and several other productions here.  Stunning beauty from this landscape.

At this point I had my timing chip on, the green wrist band, and my headband.  My Geigerrig Cadence Racing Vest was packed with the usual 2L bladder with Amino energy powder, Cliff bars (peanut toffee buzz and White chocolate macadamia nut) and Cliff Shot Bloks (strawberry and Margarita flavor).  A few Hammer Espresso gel packets were thrown in for good measure. If I consume all of it, it would be around 1200 calories.  I predicted I would burn off about 2500 during the race. (Actual calorie burn was just over 2700).   I was good to go. One last pit stop at the Porta potties, then off to the start line, with a quick stop at the course map so I could try to get an idea of what I would be facing.

From what I could tell from the map, there wasn’t a lot of new obstacles, and some of the standard ones were missing.  Inverted wall, Traverse, Herc hoist, log hop.  In addition, there wasn’t any mile markers posted on the map or a real sense as to how all the courses tied into each other.  I left with a few questions about it all, but I knew of the course of two days, it would all be figured out.

Rounding the corner of the starting corral, I came face to face with the Spartan Hawaii memory challenge.
Awesome.  I get to start the race with having to remember something.  Within seconds of be standing there, looking for my number (Foxtrot-996-3951) a flurry of smart phones were being pulled out where folks where taking photos of the wall.  Maybe they were taking pics of the whole wall to post in their blog or on FB after the event.  ‘Yeah, un-huh.. that is what they were doing.. Keep trying to find the good in these folks Jay.’  At the same time markers were being shared all over the place with folks writing down various numbers.
Just in case you missed it the first time.. “Spartan Hawaii Memory Challenge”.  Enough said.

There had to be about 800 of us all in this starting line and the MC was whipping up the racers to get them psyched up for the race.  After about 2 minutes, the first 250 racers ran out of the starting gate, heading towards the woods.   Three minutes later, the second 250 left, followed by about a 5 minute wait, then my group of 250 took off.  It went like this for an hour. Crossing the starting mat I pushed down on the TomTom Cardio control arm next to “RUN”, and I was off and going.  I elected to just track distance vs. Distance and Heart rate combined as I was not sure of how long I was going to be out on the course.  Jogging off, I found that I was surrounded by a large group of female racers from Australia.  On Facebook I had heard that there was a large group coming from Australia and I would learn over the 12 + miles of the course, that over 150 made the 11 hour airline flight from Australia to Hawaii to race here.  That is a lot of sitting!  I loved three things about this group.

1. The men were strick about chest to ground burpees at the events if you failed an obstacle
2. Everything was “cheers” and “mate”
3. The female accent.  I am a happily married man.  However, I could just sit and listen to those Aussie ladies talk forever. I don’t care if they were reciting tax codes, menu items or a grocery list. I love that accent.

 

The Aussies had several different teams there and they were all very intense.  Some doing the Ultra Beast (26.6 miles), some going after trifectas in one day.  All of them excited to be racing in Hawaii.  Many for their first trifecta.

 

 

 

Within a third of a mile you hit the first water obstacle, a rocky stream bed filled with about waist deep water (on me) for a few hundred years.  If you watch any YouTube videos about the Hawaii Trifecta races, you will see footage of this obstacle.  Low hanging trees, the side of the river bank about 3′ above your head, in waist deep water.   Knowing that this race was the addition of smaller races added together, such as the Super was all the obstacles and course of the shortest race (Sprint) with more miles and obstacles, and the Beast was the Sprint plus the Super course, plus additional distance and obstacles, let me know that I would be doing this obstacle, as well as every other obstacle on the Sprint course, three times over the course of the two days.  Which meant, by the time I ran the actual Sprint course for time, and not as part of the Super or the Beast, I will have already seen all the obstacles at least twice.  This water, while not super cold, was cold enough where I knew it would be messing with my muscles come tomorrow.

Once out of the water, you hit the OUT walls (Over one, Under another, through the final one), and then started working you way up to the cargo net wall climb, a cargo net frame laid against the side of a mountain that you climbed up to traverse the rocky face.   Fun obstacle, quite a bit of slack in the webbing, but fun none the less.

 

 

From there you had a steep muddy descent where you used trees a great deal for hand holds as you went down the backside of this mountain.  The mud was thick here and everyone was sliding around.  I hopped from tree to tree, bracing my feet against the base of the tree as a stop point so I would not slide.  At this point, being tall had advantages!

Clearing the mud trail the course would break out into field running, where you could see off in the distance the rope climb (at the end of the race) as well as immediately to your left, the racers who just started who were running towards the stream obstacle.  Soon after the fields you had some rolling mud pits, several more short, but steep climbs, then the 8′ wall obstacle.  Now, I have an 8′ wall obstacle in my back yard.  I built it.  I train on it (not as much as I should, but I do).  I know how high I have to jump, etc..  I swear this wall was closer to 9′ than 8′.  This one was tall, wet and semi slick with mud.  When I jogged up to it, there were 4 distinct lines on the wall.  The far left, males, running up to it and over. Next in, males helping other males get up and over. next in, mixed pairs helping each other, then the last line… all female using the blocks to get over the wall.  Had a clinical psychologist been standing where I was, they could have observed some very interesting behavior, and I am sure written a very interesting paper!  “Coach Jay” mode kicked in and I headed over to the side of the wall with the women struggling on the blocks.

“Step on the block, then my shoulder, and I will stand up.”

I must have said that about 50 times, each time for the racer I helped.  Every time I thought about pulling away to climb over, I would look up to see a few women with that “deer eyes in the headlights” look who I would stay for and help. Countless “thank you” were said as they flopped over the wall.  I offered to everyone, many took me up on it, others did it themselves.  After about 10 minutes (yeah, I was there a while), three racers came back around the wall, looked me straight in the eye and said “your turn!  You have been here all day!”  I smiled, told them to push my right leg, jumped up, hooked with my left, and I was over.. heading back down the trail.

After another mile and several small hills later, we came to the first water station.  The water stations here are unlike anything I had ever seen at a race stateside.  Stateside, it is a big table with jugs and cups.  These were large cylinders free standing on a metal frame about 3′ high that were filled with a water truck, with push spigots all along the on the bottom to fill cups and bladders, much more of a self service station than those on the mainland.  This allows for 7-9 racers per station to access water at the same time per station, and each water stop at the race had 3-4 of these on site.  Skipping ahead, a bit – I only witnessed one issue with the water stations, and that was that they had run out of cups.  Another water station that I came up on had run out of water, but the water truck was viable on the road heading to the station, and the containers were all full again in 3- 4 minutes.  Other racers mentioned to me that they had run into empty water stations with no water in sight.  I did not witness this situation.

Soon after the water station at mile marker 2.44,  the color coded markers changed to Blue/Green heading to the right, with the Red, (for the Sprint course) heading back to the left.  Time to leave the Sprint course and head to the Super!

Once you made the right turn, you had some more trail running, small and medium size hill climbs, then a quick downhill to an uphill barbwire crawl.

Bad thing: (or good thing depending on how you think about it) the course was going up hill, so you had to bear crawl.

Great thing: the barb wire was really 550 paracord, strung out like the traditional barb wire layout.

This means you could crawl “a bit higher” (a great thing for us 6’4″ racers) and the rope would slide off your back and pack, and not GRAB like traditional barbed wire does.  It made this obstacle a lot faster as you didn’t worry about sticking yourself.  Once at the top, you ran back down a hill to another few fields before you hit the bucket carry.
For last year and the start of this year, my logic has been that Beast courses have more obstacles than the Super and Sprint counter parts, however, they are not as long.  So, yeah, you might have a bucket carry and two sand bag carries over the course, but they will be shorter.   That logic failed miserably during this course.  The Bucket carry was a ball buster.  Long and a very short steep ascent right out of the gate.  Very similar to the carry in Temecula in 2014 and 2015, where you had a near vertical climb with the bucket.  The a long looping course with a long descent back to the rock pile.  This one was tough.  Probably the toughest I have done this year.  Not a fun carry.  Hot and humid and that first climb was tough!
From here, my recollection of the events in the correct order becomes a bit cloudy.   We had a sand bag carry, 30# bags, Beast racers carry 2 bags.  Men AND women, 2 bags, 60#.  Equal opportunity suffering.  I did feel a bit bad for the 105# 5′ nothing female racer hoisting up those two bags while I threw them on my shoulders with ease..  then I remember the monkey bars and how she flew through them.. and I did 90 buprees over three races at that station alone… bad feelings over.
We also had an atlas carry.  Pick up a heavy cement stone carry it about 25 yards, put it on the ground, do 5 burpees, then bring it back.  Then there was a balance beam obstacle, similar to what I have in the backyard, but on the side of the boards ( I passed it), a rope climb station under a tree.  No knots on the rope, and they were slick as hell with mud.  These were not starting in water, and only about 15′ high.  I just could not get a grab on the rope they were so slick.  30 burpees for me and 99% of the racers.  The good thing, the burpee station was in the shade.  We had several more fields and small climbs before we hit the green only flags, signifying the turn off for the Beast course.  At this point we were about 4.6-5 miles into the course, and the climb started.

If you have heard anything about the Beast race, it was the “Norm climb”.  The one obstacle that was the pinnacle of the race.  The one thing that you loved or hated.  This was it.  Full disclosure, I LOVED the climb up and the very technical climb down.  What I didn’t love, is what about 600 other racers didn’t love, which was the bottleneck on this hill.  My race pace went from a 21 min mile (a great pace for me) at the start of the climb to a 49 minute pace by the time I was done the .8 miles up and down.  Here is the break down of the problem.  In stateside races, you have heats.  250 – 300 racers start at 8, then 250 at 8:15, then 250 at 8:30, etc.  Doing this 15 min between heats provides SPACE on the course.  The fast push on, the slow fall to the back.  You get passed by the faster racers in later heats behind you.  Here in Hawaii, the starts were every 2-3 min for the 200-300 racers, until you were down to 20 or so, then they could start whenever they wanted.  So, mainland 750 racers spread over 45 minutes. Hawaii, 750 racers spread over 6-8 minutes.   THAT was the problem.   Unless you were a very fast racer in the very first wave, you got jammed in this bottleneck, as there just was not enough time to pull away from the pack.  Add back the 10 minutes I spent helping folks at the 8′ wall, it just pushed me back father into this log jam.

So what was it like?

Let’s say I have Billy in front of me, and Di (an Aussie racer) behind me.  (To be honest, I have no idea of the racer in front of me, but I do know Di was behind me.) Billy picks up his left foot and moves it forward.  He lets go of a tree with his left hand to grab another.  I put my right foot where Billy had his left.  I grab the branch that he let go of.  Di, puts her right foot where my right foot just was, and …. you get the picture.  it was THAT tight going up the slope.  No hike at you own pace.  It was literally that slow.  Add about 6-8″ of mud on the trail… it was a mess.  There is a few videos out showing it, but none of them do it justice.  If no one else was on the climb, it would have been a good hard climb. A lot of tree grabbing to pull as you placed your feet. A lot of slick mud pushed around as well.  Going down I thought was even harder than up, because, if you fall going up, you land on your face.  If you fall going down, you clean out about 10 racers in front of you.  Not good.  The down section was so steep that they had ropes tied off to the trees for you to grab on, however, they were caked in mud and very slick as well – not worth using.  The other reason that the ropes were there was to keep you from falling off the side of the hill.  There were a few spots that if you missed the rope, or the tree that it was tied to, you were going to tumble down the side of the slope for at least 100′.  Did I mention it was technical?  😉
On the way down, the crowd started to thin out, as there were places for folks to pull off to the side and you could pass.  Combine that with racers who were trying to make up all the time they lost going up, and were flying down the trail.  Getting the the bottom, you ran into a confusing point in the trail, when you end up in a X trail crossing.  You come out of the woods form the lower left of the X and then head to the upper right.  Run around for 3 miles and then end BACK at this same crossing a the lower right of the X and head to the upper left.  Sounds easy enough, but a ton of folks were taking the wrong trail.  I managed to get on the right one and continued on, getting to another sand bag obstacle. as well as more hills and fields.  Soon we were running toward the Jurrasic Park set, the big doors that kept the people on one side and the dinosaurs on the other, it was neat to see it.  We ran right through the prop set.

 

Once through the set, you hit a very long stream hike.  Picture walking through a stream bed with calf to knee deep water, over and around rocks and roots, for 1.5 miles.  UP HILL.  Yeah walking up a stream flow for over a mile.  Another racer I met at the airport summed it up quite well.  Think of it as controlled falling for 1.5 miles up hill.   You can’t see what you are stepping on, so your feet are going in every direction, you are trying to move quickly, so you are stepping in spots you shouldn’t be.. and of course, all the rocks are loose.   This was really the only point in the race where I questioned my sanity.  I mean really, who walk in a single file line with a bunch of Aussie women, in the deepest part of the stream up hill for over a mile?  (If only I had some tax code manuals)..I think I laughed out loud a few times just to get my head clear, and focused back on the bigger picture.  I am racing in Hawaii!  How freakin’ blessed am I?  During this stream hike you would hear whoops and yells of excitement close by, and wonder, who the hell is yelling during this suck fest?  However, you soon realized that you were under a zipline course, and the screams of excitement, we not coming from you fellow racers, but from the particpants on the zipline, 80 feet above you.   But soon, we were out of the stream and back into the mud trails heading to the lower left of that X crossing to start back on the second climb up and over the ridge.   At this point I was racing with Di.  She was faster on the flats and the downhill runs, but I would catch and pass her on every uphill climb. (Who would have thought THAT three years ago?)  On one particular climb, she was struggling a bit going slower than normal.  I figured I would try to motivate her and with a glance at my watch, I called out.  “Eight point four done!”  (I tell you, even when Aussies swear it sounds like kittens, puppies and rainbows all playing together in a pail of freshly baked cookies.)

“Don’t tell me that sh*t!  How much faaaather in kilos?”  she barked.

Quick math in my head, with an assumed distance of 12.6 miles for the course, (unknown at this point), we are at 8.4, 12.6-8.4 = 4.2 = 5K=3.2 + 1 mile, .6 K per mile, .. ” Ahhh 7K left” I stammered.   She sighed deeply and kept pushing up the hill.

You know that phrase “most accidents happen within 2 miles of being home”?  Well, I attribute that to lack of attention.  Most folks have driven a certain route so many times that they drop their focus and that is when they end up in an accident.  The same happened to me.  I was coming up on the last of the beast course, as I was starting to see blue arrows again in the distance!  Back to the Super!  I had about 200 yards to go on this 20-25% grade that I was descending alone. Me and my thoughts: foot here, not there, step, grab this tree, step there, slipping, right foot, then left, grab that tree, not that one.. THAT ONE.. look out  – someone dumped here..
A total focus on the trail, the slimy muddy trail.  Heck Bigfoot himself could have been standing just 2 feet off the trail with a unicorn under one arm and I would have never seen him. That is how focused I was on the trail in front of me. However, at about 200 yards from the end, for some odd reason I looked up, and saw a racer standing alone at the junction of this trail to the Super course looking back at me, almost through me.  I kept my gaze on him for about a half a second too long when I felt my left foot loose traction right out from under me, and I crash down on my left side.  Thick mud from my toes up my calves, quads, shorts, shirt and face.  I looked like one of those visual ink blot psychology tests.  Mud everywhere.   I chuckled, pushed myself back up, flicked my left arm so I could still see my TomTom screen, and jogged down to where he was standing.

“Bruddah, u OK?”  (Yes, he was an islander)
Yeah man, I am fine.. I was just looking at you too long.
He didn’t have an answer to that one.
Down the blue arrowed trail I went.

From here, I knew the worst of the terrain was over, and I had less than 4 miles to go.  That didn’t mean I didn’t have hills to climb, but the worst was over. I was on the back side of the Super course with less than 4 to go.

 

At this point we started to pass a lot of the movie sets and tour buses. Here at Kualoa ranch dozens of films have been recorded.  They have markers on site where the filming took place, as well as tour buses taking tourists on guided tours to each location, where they can get out take pics, then get back on the bus to the next location.  Our race course was very close to many of these sites, so our interaction with bus loads of people was pretty constant for about 1/2 the beast course.  Most of them trying to look through you as if I was a homeless bum walking down their street.  Others would give me a nod as the rode on by.  I would just laugh as the passed by.

 

Volunteers and information

I realize that when you are a red shirt volunteer, the on the job training your receive is extremely limited as to what is provided to you and what you need to know.
So, when I ask a volunteer at a water station what is the distance to the next station, or is that another station ahead? and I get a “I don’t know” I don’t get frustrated.  They honestly don’t know.   However, IF YOU ARE GOING TO PASS INFORMATION.. GET IT RIGHT.

I realize in a Spartan race, the midset is for you to adapt and overcome.  I get that.  I know in Hurricane Heats they provide limited or no information on purpose.  I get that as well.  However, if you are a Red Shirt volunteer and you are telling folks “2.5 miles and 8 obstacles to go”.

Please:

1. Know how to count
2. Don’t make sh*t up

So, it is day 1.  The Beast course.  Right around mile 10, 10.5 I have been out here for about 6 hours.  Temp is high eighties and humidity is damn near the same number, 88 degrees 88% Relative Humidity.   It is hot.  It feels like I am breathing soup.  My feet hurt.  waaa-waaa-waaa.  Tell your story walking pal.  I come around a corner splash through a stream and meet this volunteer.   She is chipper, supportive, and happy – and repeating over and over again the following message:  “2.5 miles to go 8 obstacles left, you got this.. woooo-hoooo!” All I could think of was Danielle Rousseau – and her recording.  (Jill will get this.. maybe Vicki)

I heard this and the words acted like a shot of adrenaline in the arm. Less than a 5K.. (Now I AM thinking in Kilo’s!  Damn Aussies!), and 8 obstacles.  I race around the trail and see an 7′ wall.  I launch to the top, hook my right arm over the top, putting the wall in my arm pit.  With my core I swing my left leg to the top of the wall….. and hook with my ankle, pulling myself over the top.  ONE done, 7 to go… but is there……..

I start running again on a field run and I can see in the future another wall, then a  water stop, then a Z wall.  (that would make 2 and three), then I remembered the back end of the race that you can see from the venue.  Rope climb (four) spear throw (five), multi bar (six) slip wall (seven) fire jump..(8) what the hell!  Eight my a$$!  Those are only the ones I can see!  I know there is more out here on the course!

Fueled by anger I climbed over the 8′ wall, pushed forward to water station, sucked two cups down, threw one in my face and ran to the Z wall where I promptly fell off on the second face, and proceeded to bang out burpees..as it started to rain.

This Z wall did not have the standard hand and foot holds for each of the three sides.  One of the sides now only has a 1″x2″ strip to hang on to with your hands, not the big blocks of wood.   American Ninja Warrior anyone?   In the transition from that wall to the blind corner of wall three, I slipped off.. and it started to rain… and I was pissy… doing burpees.

As soon as I finished the burpees, and watch others skip them all together (yes, that happens) it stopped raining.  I shook my head, of course it stopped as soon as I finished..of course.  I jogged on down the trail to find yet another obstacle. (Eight, my a$$) another sand bag carry.  For those keeping score at home, this makes the second sand bag carry for the beast, and this one was longer than the last one.  Same rules, two bags for beast racers and up and around we went.  I could feel the heat coming off the grass, almost as if it didn’t rain here, just where I was doing burpees back at the last obstacle. However, almost landing on my a$$ on the slick grass on the downhill before dropping off the bags made me realize I was wrong.  After dropping the bags you had a short road run filled with tour buses and ATV tourists until you hit another stream, crossed that climbed a short hill to face yet another obstacle not included in Daneille’s message.  Another bear crawl.  This one was longer.  Much like the crawl at Boston  Super back in August.  A long crawl with a dog leg to the right at the end, however, without barbed wire it made for a fast moving roll.  After than, you jogged up to the hill to the rope climb.  This one I burpeeed out.  Three reasons:

1. I had to race twice more tomorrow and could not afford a bad landing taking me out
2. I needed my biceps a lot on Sunday and didn’t want to burn them out
3. These ropes were slick with mud as well

So I did slow a$$ sets of 10 burpees, in the hot sun.  Then made my way to the spear throw.

To this point this year I have stuck every spear throw at every race I attended. I was 12 for 12 this year coming here.  I noticed that the bales were a little smaller at this venue, which didn’t bother me.  What did bother me was the lack of length on the paracord that was tied from the end of the spear to the gate.  As in –  unless the spear was sticking perfectly horizontal into the bale (tip and end on the same plane) the spear would not stick.

I grabbed my spear and noticed right off the bat it was heavier that my practice spears.  Ok, aim high. the weight will drop it into the bale.

I stepped on the tip to straighten it.  I grabbed up all the cord, stretched it out to remove any knots or tangles and laid it on the other side of the fence, with the grace of someone setting a four course table set for 12 complete with the opposed horizontal fork and spoon over the plate. (What? I have class, I just don’t show it often)  Attention to every detail of the rope to not let it snag on anything.  I found the balance point, grabbed with my chopstick grip, brought it past my left ear, pointed my right foot, squared my hips, raised my right arm, like I had done thousands of times this summer to this point…. and threw.

 

 

The spear stuck in the upper right of the bale…and then just as if a 4 year old yanked on the string, the spear pulled right back out – falling to the ground.

 

 

Thirty burpees. Why?  The rope – too short.

I clenched my firsts and raised them at the sky.

• Perfect 12 for 12 * gone *
• All the practice in the backyard for nothing
• A solid throw but screwed by the string

 

Welcome to Spartan Racing – if you want easy go do something else!  Looks like I will start my new streak tomorrow.

30 burpees.  Grind them out..  and oh look, up next is the multi bar.   Guess what –  another 30 burpees there.
Finishing these 60 burpees, I made it up and over the slip wall and jumped the fire, throwing the #3 a the camera guy, signifying the number of Beasts to date.  I was done.

Just over 7 hours on the course.   The log jam played a good part in over an hour of extra time and the 90 burpees at the end of the race added another 30 minutes as I was pretty darn exhausted from the mental energy needed on the runs.   It was a great course.  I was just glad it was over.  It was just past 2 PM in the afternoon.  I grabbed one of the last 20 or so brown 1/2 bananas and made it to my gear check bag for extra food.  No Cliff bars, no beers. Just 1/2 a banana.   It still tasted great.  *Note* when many of the Ultra Beast finishers finished (26.4 miles), it was near dark, with nothing left at the finish line. According to them, it was a ghost town.  Think about that one next time they don’t have the specific flavor of Clff bar you desire at the end of the race.

 

And yeah, I NEVER did have to recite the Memory Challenge.  Foxtrot-996-3951 Oh well, it is stuck with me now.

 

An extra bonus was getting to meet Laura Messner at the event and grabbing a photo with her.  She is super nice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1/2 of the Trifecta weekend complete!  In 16 hours I will be back on the course to complete my Super and Sprint runs.

More to come soon, AROO!