The Baack Paack

Vegas Spartan Race 2015 is in the books!

Since January Team BaackPaack has been training hard on obstacles and distance running.  We hit the Las Vegas course and completed or payed the burpee penalty for every obstacle.  Many were surprised how difficult a mile (the last mile) of a Spartan Race can be, especially when you throw in about 6 obstacles, and end up doing 30 burpees at over three of them.  Nothing like grinding out 100 burpees in the last mile of a 9 mile course!    ONWARD to Temecula, and the hills of California.

 

In this blog post I hope to break down some of the events as well as provide some insight in to what goes on before, during, and after a Spartan Race.

The desert of Jean, NV was the site of the 2015 Spartan Super Obstacle Course race.  For those of you on the east coast, think desert.
Here is an aerial view of the general area of the course, thanks Tad!

If you look at this pic and see the two tan “spots” towards the middle of the picture with a line heading down towards the lower right, that was the starting and end ending area for the race.  The festival activities were in there as well.  What you do not see is water or trees.  This was a very dry race, except for two water obstacles that were completely man made.  Rocky gravel terrain was a dream to run on for some (I loved it) while others, who had not trained for these conditions were left hating the loose rock and single track trails.  While the heat was in the mid 80s to low 90’s, the sun was VERY intense, and I would say that 90% of the 10,000 participants had some sort of sunburn by the end of the day.  Just another obstacle that you need to prepare for and overcome.

The start of every Spartan Race is always a mix of emotions.  Loud “house party” style music, high energy from the crowd, as well as some obvious anxiousness from those getting their “head right” before race. Tempers in line are a little high, as folks want to get to racing.  It is a sea of bodies armored in spandex, compression gear, high end racing shoes and colorful clothing. From the 4% body fat elite racer to the 35% body fat newbie racer.  Regardless of the size, they all have a common goal.  TO finish and claim their prize.  When you first get to a race you need to get your paperwork processed. This consists of filling out and signing waivers which state and I quote “you may die“, to finding your bib number and checking your timing chip information.  Spartan Race went away from making folks wear a numbered racing bib several years ago as they went with timing chips that are typically worn on your wrist.  Crawling through mud tends to rip bibs off, and those pins are sharp when you end up placing one into your palm during an obstacle.  Using timing chips eliminates all of that.
Once through the registration gates, you hit the festival area.  Vendors, bag check, team tents, warm up areas, sample obstacles, changing tent, hose shower, a bazillion porta-potties… all of these things are here.    Lots to look at as well as take part in.  I have a pretty strict schedule that I keep pre-race, so I am good to go on the course.  I deviated from this once (the Jan 2015 Temecula Super) and I paid the price for it with cramps for several miles when out on the course. So before the race Vicki knows I am off doing “my thing” for about 40 minutes, getting my head straight and my body ready to race. Others just mill around, jog, or find fellow Facebook friends that they were planning on racing with.  Stretching is always a good thing, as racing with a pulled muscle for miles is not fun.  Been there, done that.

Starting at 7:30 AM, things get underway with the first wave hits the course.  This is the elite males, followed thirty minutes later by the elite females. They are all racing for money as well as a free entry into the World Championships later this year.  Open (non prize money) heats start at 8 AM and release every 15 minutes with up to 400 racers hitting the course.  Thia is done to try and keep folks spread out on the course.  Some courses this works well, others, due to the terrain right out of the gate, not so much.  Here in Vegas, the 15 minutes provide more than enough time for the stronger racers to get 2 miles out on the course before the next wave was released.  This cycle goes on all day until the last heat of the day, somewhere between 3 and 5 pm depending on the number of racers and the venue, with those starting after 2:30 needing to carry a mandatory headlamp so they can finish in the dark if need be.

Team BaackPaack was in the 8:15 AM heat.  Second open heat of the day, and would have around 1000 people (yeah a thousand) people in front of us between the elite men and women and the 8 am open heat.  The first thing you are faced with when you head to the starting corral for your heat time, is the 5′ wall.  Some say it is 4.5′, others say 5′.  Regardless, you need to jump the wall to get into the crowd and start.  For those that are not comfortable with going over walls, this is often the first of many “Oh Gosh!” moments, and a real message that what you are about to get into is going to require a serious effort on your part.
Once you jump the wall…. it is “GO TIME!”

From there, you crowd down to the rest of the racers, (anywhere from 200 to 400 other racers) who are geared up physically and wound up mentally, looking to take on the race.  For my team, I could see a lot of nervous energy and trepidation in the faces of some of the members.  “Did I train enough?” “Can I do this?” “Am I READY FOR THIS?”  I could see it in all of their eyes.  I did my best to give them a tap of encouragement and try to snap them out of their mental state.

“Carmen!  You good?”

“umm. yeah.. just real nervous!”  I could tell past her sun glasses that she was anxious about this race, even though she has always been one of the strongest members of the team.

“YOU GOT THIS GIRL!” in my most positive, thunderous voice.. all the while looking for a smile or body language change to show that she was ready to take this on.  A saw a weak smile, but enough to know she was ready.

 

PUSH FORWARD SPARTANS!

When you are in the starting corral, you will hear this a lot as they try to get everyone into the chute for the start.  Most racers at this point are in their own little world, so don’t take offense if someone bumps your shoulder trying to get past you in the corral to get closer to the line. Folks are just focused.

Once you are all in, the Spartan Race MC kicks off the Spartan pre race chant, a dialogue that lasts about 2 minutes to get folks even more excited then they are currently, then pops the white smoke grenade, throws it on the course, and screams GOOOOOOOOO!
At that point we are off!

Most races have the course map posted the day of the race, so you have “some” idea of what is coming up next during the race.  Some racers use it as a guide of how hard to run, or push at this obstacle, to “save” for the next one.  For me, that is all head games.  I used to care about the map, but now, I rather be surprised, and not spend any energy worrying about what was coming up next.  I rather see it coming on the course, hit is hard without hesitation, and move on.

 

On the map, the numbers surrounded by the white circles are the obstacles.  As you can see, there were long stretches (about a mile) without obstacles with then clumps of obstacles, then more running.  This was a great course for those who were on their running game.  Several long stretches so you could really separate from the rest of the racers.   From the start we hit the OUT obstacle (Over, Under and Through), a series of walls that you have to climb over, under and through.

 

From there is was about a mile to the one and only climb of the race.  One thing about Spartan races, they like elevation.  They like to make you climb hills, and they WANT to make you to complain about it.  Knowing this, we trained a lot on hill hiking and hill running for the past few months.  While tired, the team did great on this stretch.  Even stopping to offer aid to others who were unprepared for this race (no water, no fuel) and starting to show signs early on that they were hurting.  (You DID sign up for a 9 mile race in the DESERT of NEVADA.. RIGHT???)  Just another example that there are many out there that “look the part” (very fit, sporty clothes), however, don’t have any idea of what they are doing.  Once we got to the top of the climb, we glided down the other side and ended at another obstacle, the memory challenge.

The memory challenge is a great example of an obstacle that isn’t physically demanding, but requires some focused mental effort, or you WILL pay with physical effort in the way of burpees if you get it wrong.    This obstacle is a giant wall, at least 10′ x 10′ with a huge list of two numbers 00 – 99, followed by a word, then three numbers, followed by four numbers.

As an example:

50       YANKEE  816 8964

51       OCEAN   431 0043

52       DELTA     914 0752

etc.

What you do is take the last two numbers of your bib (which are on your Spartan headband that you are wearing, since you are not wearing a bib) and then find those on the list.  In my case, bib number 450 meant I needed to find “50” on the list.   My phrase was “YANKEE  816 8964”.  The goal of this is to remember the phrase and carry it with you for a few miles, when you would have to repeat it back to a race volunteer later in the race.  Get it right, off you go.  Get it wrong, burpees for you.  Sounds simple enough right?

Now add about 50 people all milling about in front of the wall saying THEIR number out loud.  Combine that with the fact that you just RAN there, It becomes very hard to focus on your number.  My technique is to find mine, see it and walk away saying in my head.  Come back to make sure I have it right, then take off with the rest of the race.  I play a lot of number games with the number to make sure I remember it as I run down the trail,  but needless to say, I probably say it to myself over 500 times by the time I have to repeat it for credit.  I have passed everyone of these challenges using this technique.   Moving on, we had another 1/3 of a mile to get to the first water station.

After the water station was the sandbag or pancake carry obstacle.  The Spartan Sandbag is a large disc shaped sand bag that looks like a large pancake.  We had to carry this over a short course and up a slight hill, then drop it back off and continue on.  Compared to other races, this was a shorter course.  Men have a 50# bag, females have a 25-30#.  This is a pic from the Temecula 2014 race, but you get the idea.  In this race (Temecula) , the temps reached over 116 degrees.   Over 40% of the racers DNF (Did not finish) this race.

In that race I went “elite” mode and carried two of the male sand bags (100 pounds total). The heat does crazy things to crazy people.. 😉

 

From there we hit the tire flips.  An obstacle that has large tractor tires that one has to flip over 4 times.  Filp them one way twice, then two flips back.  Women’s tires are around 150# men are around 300#.  This is one of the obstacles I can make up serious time on over my lighter, faster competitors, who weigh 150- 170 pounds and struggle to get the leverage on a 300# tire.   Flipping a tire is all about proper form so you don’t wreck your back or blow out a bicep (Trust me.. you don’t want to do that once.. forget doing it twice).  Squat and dead lifts will give you all the practice that you need for this event.  This is a very quick obstacle that requires a burst of energy four times over.   When doing this obstacle, watch to make sure that you don’t or someone else doesn’t, flip their tires on your heel.   Ouch!  I have seen it happen several times when the volunteer does not enforce everyone going in the same direction with the flips.
We finished this up pretty quickly and was able to spy our first copy of the course map, lying on the ground next to the volunteer.  I was surprised to see that we had about 4 miles of course to cover before we would recite back the memory phrase!   Plenty of time to work on remembering it, and plenty of time to get it wrong!  Y A N.. K E E  817  89  64!

After the tire flips we hit the Z Walls.   This is a new obstacle that was introduced about 6 months ago.  No longer are the traverse walls flat in one direction, they are multi-sided, so you have to navigate blind corners with your hands and feet.  Here we ran into Kristine, a fellow Arizona Spartan racer who was volunteering on the course after running the Spartan 4 hour Hurricane Heat the night before.   As you can see, you have 2×4 scraps to stand on as well as grab with your hands.  No two walls have the same hand and foot placement, and on courses that are muddy, this event can be VERY hard due to the 2×4’s being wet or caked with mud. (Not the case in Las Vegas).  Kristine is showing the right footwork position, toes pointing outward, and core tight to the wall.  Those with a strong core and balance can fly through this event.  Those with a weak core will start to sag away from the wall, and end up pulling themselves off the obstacle.  Thirty burpees please!

From the Z Wall we went off to a few of the standard obstacles, walls, vertical walls, atlas stone carry and more running.  Our team was great on all of them as we practiced a lot and knew our roles to help each other with the obstacles.   This year many of the events have the 6′ 7′ and 8′ walls right in the same area, and count all three as one obstacle.  I like this setup, as I am able to get all three done at once.  Others who are not a fan of the walls don’t like seeing all of them at once.  To each their own.

Past the walls we had the herc hoist, a rope with 75-90 pounds of sandbag weight for women and 100-120# for men, up over a pulley and down to you. You have to pull the rope to lift the weight up to the pulley and then let it down softly do it does not slam down.  Another “gimmie” obstacle for me, but for others on the team, especially the lighter ones, or the members with not as much shoulder strength, a hard one to complete.  Burpees are rare here, unless you let it slam to the ground, as help is encouraged.  At this obstacle Vicki ended up tweaking her hand pretty bad due to the rope slipping and wrenching her hand, adding to her injury count as she had just tweaked her hip a few obstacles earlier on the walls.  However, she “Spartaned UP!” fought through the tears streaming down from behind her sun glasses and kept working to finish the obstacle and the rest of the race.  Later on the course she told me, “I was never thinking about quitting.. but that F’in hurt BAD!”

Right after the Herc hoist was the vertical cargo wall.  An obstacle that stopped several members of the Baackpaack in the Arizona sprint dead in their tracks. A vertical cargo net 12′ high that you climb up one side, over the top, and down the other.  Not the case this year, they flew over it – attacking it with a new sense of confidence, pride and determination to get it DONE!  From there several more common obstacles including the dreaded bucket carry and the sled drag (both a shorter course that AZ or Temecula this year) and then more running.

My plan during this race was to help everyone get over an obstacle, then have them run to the next obstacle, where I would usually pass them on the run to help with the next obstacle on the course.  At this point in the race we were close to mile 6, and which held a lot of significance for one of the members of the team, as she recently attempted a Tough Mudder and had to get pulled off the course at mile 5 due to dehydration and getting sick repeatedly on the course. She had IVs jammed into her arms and the whole nine yards in the medical tent.   I know the memory of that event was seared into her psyche as she started off on this race.  I made a point to stop when I was running past her.

“Jill!!! Hey!! You know what?”

“What?” she said in a very tired voice, not even looking up at me to talk..

“We just passed mile SIX! NO throw ups from you!  YOU GOT THIS GIRL!”

At this point she looked up, smiled and said “Really?” I showed her my TomTom Cardio GPS watch, which showed 6.2 miles.  “Yup, really!” and continued running on.  I know she was thinking about it, and I wanted her to know that I knew she was thinking about it.
(Side note: Jill finished; no ‘puke-e-dukes’ either!)

From here we ran to the inverted wall, a dreaded obstacle for some, but one of my favorites.  The inverted wall is all about explosive energy at the top and core work. Folks with very strong upper body can jump up and do a pull up to a muscle up maneuver to get over the wall.  Those with less strength in that area need to rely on their leg hook to secure themselves at the top.  Regardless of the move, you have to commit to the maneuver to keep your momentum moving forward to get over this obstacle.

Example video from Salt Lake City Beast race 2014, about 1/2 way through the race.  (Man, I am a lot stronger and faster now than I was there!)

 

At this obstacle the Baackpaack ran into another racer on the course.  This guy was about 6′ 6″ and had to be over 400#.  He was next to us helping some others over the wall.  He was getting ready to walk around the side of obstacle when I asked him.. “Hey man!  You need some help getting over?” He looked at me in this “Do-you-know-I-am-400#? How-do-you-think-I-can-get-over-this-wall?” look, and said “Naw, I am all set”  (BRRRRRR Wrong answer buddy!)   Before I could even reply, he had 5 other women from the Baackpaack telling him “HELL NO!  we got you! We WILL get YOU OVER this wall!!”

Needless to say, he couldn’t say no, we got him over the wall with ease, he got a great sense of accomplishment, Shiloh got a nice bruise to the forehead (the guys knee caught Shiloh’s face as he was going over, and damn near knocked Shiloh out.. OUCH!) and the Baackpaack continued on.  (I love this TEAM!)

Another mile run and we were at mile 8!  Wahoo!   We had been on the course for about 3.5 hours and we now could unload our memory challenge.   Did you remember what mine was?

Yankee 816 8964

Passing mine, I wanted for the rest of the team to show up, recite theirs (only a few of the team failed to remember it) and then press on for the last 1.2-1.5 miles of the course, then the finish.

 

At mile 8, I was feeling great.. as in “I could run this course again, great.”  The last 1.5 miles was a challenge.   About a 1 mile run back to the venue (I could start to hear the music playing again during the run), to the rope climb obstacle, that I burpeed out once again. (Race #6 this year) but was excited to see Shiloh get the footwork down and complete the climb!   Nice work man!    He was super excited when he rang the bell at the top, I don’t think he remembered to come down the rope slowly, as he came zipping down and splashed in the water.   Awesome job!

A quick 300 yard run and a nice 50 degree uphill sandy climb led us into the “Spartan mud barbwire crawl”.

This crawl was not muddy, nor even wet.  Sandy gravel for about 100 yards that you had to crawl on.  Most folks went with the roll technique which has two advantages and one big disadvantage.

Advantage:  Fast!
Advantage:  Less pressure of elbow and knees, so less painful.
Disadvantage:  Easy to get vertigo, which makes you want to stop and puke. (I roll with my eyes closed to combat this)

Crawling on your arms and knees, “military style” can tear up your knees and elbows, which is typical of each race.   Arm compression sleeves prevent this by adding a very thin layer of protection on those tender elbows.  Vicki and I picked up a matching set from X-Raceware (awesome local Arizona company) at a local marathon event before the race and wore them in Vegas.  No cuts or scrapes on the elbows this race! Win!

 

After the crawl was what I call the “Funky bars”, I think the official name of the obstacle is the “Cliff Multi Bar”.  Which consists of an angled pipe, that one has to traverse (hanging) followed by two ropes with knots, followed by another pipe, followed by the bell to ring.  If you have a lot of pull up strength, most were able to complete it.   With a torn rotator cuff, I didn’t even try it.  Burpees for me.

 

Several of the women on the team helped each other to get over this obstacle. With them riding on the shoulders of the other team member. Some husband and wife pairs were teaming up and getting it done. (Great work Ginger and Steve!)  Shiloh, still riding a high from the rope climb, completed it, going 2 for 2 this year on this obstacle.

 

Once we were past this obstacle, it was on the to dreaded spear throw.  This event in the Spartan Race community is known at the burpee maker.  At best, 1 out of 10 complete it.  Las Vegas threw a whole new twist on the race, the bales were elevated much higher than normal, so you were throwing uphill.    Ohh… evil!

 

Team Baackpaack spent a lot of time practicing the spear throw in the last few months.  HOURS of time.  For the standard spear throw with the bales at “normal” height (about 4′), half of the team had a 50/50 chance of making the throw.  Three of us were 9 out of 10, a few 7 out of ten, several 5 out of 10 in practice.  Getting to the venue, we saw that the bottom of the lowest bail was at 6 feet off the ground, and this was on top of a hill!  This screwed with a lot of the competitors, who now had to aim higher, release earlier and still have enough “oommpphh!” on the spear to stick in the bale.  Yes, they still have the strings on the end of the spear to deal with (not step on or get fetched up in the fence)  My throw was very ugly but it stuck, I stumbled and almost fell over the fence.  No burpees for me.  Shiloh’s throw was prettier and stuck, and Tad zipped that thing like it was shot out of a gun, and stuck.

Tad was super excited when he came over to tell us that he stuck it, while several of us were doing ‘team burpees” so that others on the team who missed the spear could count them towards their penalty burpee count.

I told him: “Awesome Tad!  You know what your prize is for sticking it?”
“No what?” said Tad with a big smile on his face.
“Do 5 burpees for Jill”.

Tad looked at me, smiled even harder and banged them out.   Did I say I love this team?

Right after the Spear throw was the dunk wall and the slip wall.   I grabbed Shiloh and we took off to get these done quickly, as I wanted him on top of the wall with me to help everyone else as this obstacle can sap your strength if you hangout on it for a while.  A quick splash in the water, under the wall, then a run up the slip wall to grab the top and pull myself over.  Probably one of the fastest slip walls I have ever done, thanks in part to building one in the back yard to practice on, and having the pressure of the rest of the team in my head got me over this quickly.

Once at the top we started hauling folks over the wall as they neared the transition from using the rope and their feet to having to grab the wall and pull themselves over.

 

This obstacle is easy to fail.  If your foot work is not right, you will crash to the ground.   If you lack grip strength, you will crash to the ground.  If you get a real slick patch, you will crash to the ground.  It looks real easy, however, you need to have the technique down and have a large reserve of “I am getting this done” stored up in your head in order to complete it.  Due to all the practice on the slip wall in the backyard, many of the team did awesome on this event.  Several not needing ANY help. (Becca rocked it!)  Vicki made a great attempt and got much higher on the wall than Arizona but slipped and crashed, then burpeed out.  Jill did her classic “Jill move” and being physically spent from the duration of the race was dead weight on the wall. Shiloh and I literally holding her burpee fate in our arms.  In what I am sure felt like hours of agony to her, she found a last minute burst of energy and got her leg hooked and she was able to get over the wall.  She completed it to the thundering cheers of the crowd.  I know Jill, nearing complete exhaustion didn’t hear them, but I did.. and several hundred people were in her corner, throwing her good vibes to get over the wall.  They were all cheering, ‘AROOing’ and clapping in her accomplishment.

Getting everyone over the slip wall, we went up and over another cargo wall obstacle, and then hit the Tarzan swing, right before the fire jump and the finish.  I crashed into the moat on the swing, 30 burpees for me, along with many of the team.  Doing 30 burpees when you can see the finish.. sucks.  NO honey, I am NOT building a moat in the backyard, no matter how much you want one.
Thirty long burpees later, we jumped the fire and crossed the line.   Completing the 2015 Las Vegas Spartan Super!

Five plus hours out on the course, with the last 1.5 miles almost taking 2 hours to complete (can you say tired?).  The fastest elite racer did the whole course in just over an hour.
For team Baackpaack, it was not about the time.  It was about finishing.  It was about completing the goal, relying on others, having others rely on you.  It was about being better than you were yesterday, and finding what you need to improve on for tomorrow   It was about finding who you really are, when you are wet, bruised, scraped, chafed, sun burned, and dog ass tired – and you still have distance and obstacles to cover.

It was about CRUSHING limits and reaching goals.

AROO brothers and sisters!  One more for the Trifecta!

 A special thanks to Ranae, Amy, and everyone else who posted all the pics that I used in this post.  You guys took some great photos.  AROO!