Spartan Beast: You'll Know At the Finish Line

 I'm still not sure exactly what we know now that we finished the Spartan Beast. What did I know at the finish line? That I was stupid.

Ok, so that might not be entirely true, but those thoughts crossed my mind many times during our 14 mile excursion through the mud slicked cow pie field of Van Vleck Ranch.

I'm not sure how far back I should go to set up this post. But, there are a lot of factors that go into why Ben and I paid money to be tortured for 6 and a half hours. Last year, Ben did the Tough Mudder, a similar race in Tahoe. I remember thinking at the time that there was no way I could ever do anything like that. The thought of why he even wanted to do it baffled me. I did end up doing a small 5K mud run earlier this year and really enjoyed it. After that, I thought maybe we would do a few more like it. Instead, along comes a living social coupon deal for half off entry into the Spartan Beast. Ben and I decided to go for it since I had been training pretty hard at the gym already. There were so many things I could do at that point in time I never thought I could do before (hold a plank for 5 minutes just to try to win a water bottle...) that I thought why not?

We paid for the race and we both kept training. In the last month before the Spartan, Ben made this little fun guy:

 Almost 30 pounds of fun in a back pack. It's name is The Punisher.

We both took turns training with this pack strapped to us. If you have never attempted this before, and really like to make your life miserable, feel free to borrow Punisher at any time. He's great for doing 100's of jumping jacks and slamming into your back, or making your thighs groan as you do that 150th leap frog in a parking lot...No really, he's super fun to have around-the life of the party. He even has a special patch just to show how fierce he is. 

The day finally comes and of course it is rainy and windy and COLD!!! We later found out this is the worst weather a Spartan has ever been run in. Yay us...

Here it is momentarily clear and we snapped a before shot. Ben decided to wear his combat boots. I opted for barefoot shoes and multi layers of compression spandex wear. A few minutes after this picture we were running to the car to hide from the pouring rain until it was our turn to start. 

 The pictures the photographers got in between horrible rain were amazing.

Here are some examples of some of the hills we had to go up and over. I lost count how many of these we went up and down, but in the mud these are even more fun. I still have dirt under my nails from clawing at the side of hill to keep from slipping as I climbed up. Running the course was difficult and dangerous.  It is a cow field which means there are small holes everywhere, and these were slippery as well. Every step was a chance to roll your ankle. I had already injured myself prior to the race and my left ankle is weak. We ran on every flat surface we could and then looked like we were bad roller skaters the rest of the way. I was grateful for all the core balance training I have been doing just to keep myself upright. Most people were in our situation, walking as carefully as they could from obstacle to obstacle. 

 Ben going head first over a mound and under the barbed wire. This was the obstacle of 100 yards of barbed wire and three mounds to get over. The mounds were so low that you had to slither over them, hoping you didn't catch yourself on the sharp edges.

 I remember this very moment. I remember lots of moments just like this as well when I know I had the same look on my face. Without a ton of upper body strength, I had to rely on my legs to push me through the mud and under the wire. This was a tough obstacle, but probably the one I liked the most (no heights!)

I wish I had pictures of us at all of them. Just a few of the others were: having your feet tied together and having to bunny hop up and back down a slippery hill, picking up a large boulder and running it up and back down a line, dragging a cement block up a hill on a chain and back down, balancing on posts, wading through thigh high mud trying not to lose your shoes, climbing ropes, climbing walls, climbing hills...climbing everything. 

 Ben was great at wall climbs. I wish we had a picture of the way he would freak everyone out by hooking his arm on the top and practically doing a handstand over the top and flipping over. He has a gnarly armpit bruise to prove it!

Lots of up and down and over...

The "great" thing about Spartan is that they lie to you. Oh yes, they are beautiful big fat LIARS. About four miles in, a sweet kind volunteer will tell you "oh I think you only have 12 miles on this course" (the actual distance is never disclosed in the beginning). Then as you near mile 11 thinking you can do it only one more, the water station works say "Great job, only two more miles to go!" So you take a deep breath and push forward, only to come upon the large 13 mile marker sign and look and see you are not close to the end. 

 You approach the end of the course and then see the giant hill and sand bag sitting there waiting for you to take it on a joy hike up and back.

Then you get to scale the side of another hill and come down to the columns with a line of fire to jump over and some gladiators with pugil sticks ready to beat you down. 

This is me headed to meet those gladiators and push them out of my way to where my medal, a tshirt and the best tasting banana ever was waiting. 

The Beast Medal. 

I don't know if I have ever received a medal in my life. I do know that this one looks pretty darn cool. 

It took a grande vanilla steamer from Starbucks to even begin to warm me up and stop the violent shaking after I peeled off my muddy clothes. 30 people from this race didn't finish because of hypothermia issues and 4 were hospitalized. During the course we came upon 8 people hiding in a porta-potty waiting for pick up because they couldn't finish. Apparently they didn't get the memo that you don't run in a sports bra and tiny shorts in this weather...

I cannot tell you how I finished this thing. I kept wondering throughout why I even signed up. Honestly, it is really just to say I've done it. It's one of those things I never thought I would do. I am still waiting for the day for when I think it was fun. Although now writing this and putting together all the pictures, I think that is the fun part. This would be a great time to get sappy and talk about how far I have come, blah blah... Although that's true, I am equally amazed that I love to eat Chinese food:)  We finished the race in about 6.5 hours. The slowest people did it in 9, the fastest in under two. I don't really have a desire to go back and see if I can do it faster,  I am more excited that I completed it and didn't die. And really, I guess I do feel pretty awesome. I think it's hard not to when you finish something like this. But please please don't ever make me do it again!