I guess that since I decided it would be a good idea to post that mini-manifesto the other day, it would seem only fitting to do a post-race download. Warning: very tl;dr. No tags First thing first, I was not 100% going into this. It was two weeks after I pulled my back, and only three or four days that I was actually able to go from sitting to standing (fully upright) in less than a couple of minutes. Throughout the day I was either sitting completely still in my chair in my office, or laying on my back or side on the floor of my family room. Couple that with chiropractor visits every other day for two weeks. I’m going to say that I was 80% (for me), understanding that my scale is 100% being normal and 50% being the point where I decide that it’s bad enough to go to a see a doctor. The trip up to South Carolina I spent pretty much flat on my back in the car not moving. Aside from the pain, I had two weeks that I didn’t train or do anything. Walking was… hard, but doable. The concept of even jogging was something that I honestly was afraid of and didn’t want to think about. I knew for sure that I wasn’t going to do any running for the rest of the month…at least. From the moment I felt my back go, all I could think about was worrying about whether or not I would be able to race in Carolina. Mentally, there was a lot riding on this. This was the next to the last opportunity for me to race in a Spartan Beast, and to earn a trifecta. If I didn’t run this weekend, I would have to get myself out to Dallas the following weekend, and do it there. I even made contingency plans to fly out to Austin a day earlier than I had planned on (We’re going out there to steal an election next weekend – more on that later), drive up to Dallas (a 4-5 hour drive) and walk up and run in the next available heat no matter my back situation. Honestly, though, that plan is too insane, even for me and in my mind, the physical pain was way less than the crazy mental torture that I would put Beth and myself in Texas; so in the end there really was only one choice. STFU (Spartan the F* Up) and do this. After all, I just put a tattoo on my body that said “Actions not Words” and “With it or on it”. I mean….. So it was when we stopped at the Georgia visitors center that while chatting with a friend of mine who was doing her best to psyche me up, I decided that I was going to try something faster than I had moved in the past two weeks. I’d like to call it “jogging”, but to the witnesses I think they would describe it “something like the Hunchback of Notre Dame waddling”. Knowing that it was more mental than physical; I forced myself to jog about 100 feet and then 100 feet back, and I managed to complete that successfully. I guess that was all that it took for me to seal the deal. In my mind, if I could do that, then there was no reason not to do the race; so we kept going, all the while I chewed pain-killers. When we got up to the hotel to meet up with family, including my brother-in law who would be racing with me, I was nice and numb, so I was able to mask the pain pretty well; I knew that my wife and sister knew I was committed, so they didn’t even bother to ask. 5AM came up pretty quickly, and instantly I did a double dose of my prescription, and got dressed for the day, which should have also included a parka; because it wasn’t even 40 degrees out. We got to the place just in time for the pain killers to kick in, and between that the cold and the adrenaline that stated pumping, I was doing a pretty good job walking like a normal person – no hunched back!!! It was really too cold to move around, though I knew that I needed to. All around me, I was watching people stretching and warming up… doing pushups and what have you. Me? My entire stretching / pre-race warm up consisted on jogging (!!) to the booth that sold hot chocolate, grabbing one of them and jogging back. Yeah, I. HAD. ABSOLUTELY. NO. BUSINESS. RACING. TODAY. One of the first things you have to do in a Spartan Race, some say the first obstacle, is to make your way over a 5 foot wall. The unspoken thought that if you can’t make it over this to get to the starting line… well…. you know. I had been waiting for Joel for some time (we had gotten separated), and there were only a few minutes before our heat started, so I had no choice but to hurdle the wall, which I managed to do with the style of a water buffalo on Vicodin and to do the race alone – once again (I think it’s really my destiny). Turns out, that Joel thought I had already gone into the paddock, and thought that I was at the front of the pack, so he wormed his way up there and started up front. Me, I was the last in my heat to cross the starting line. It would take too long to break down all of the obstacles, and everything that I came across; well that and there was a lot of that was just a blur. I think I managed to turn off all of my pain receptors; but here are some of the highlights. The first obstacle is always the Under – Over – Under – Over – Under; basically crawl under a thick mesh and jump over hurdle walls. They like to throw that at you within the first mile. I managed them pretty well, and the Runkeeper lady voice in my head told me that I was doing a pretty good pace, so things were looking up, even if it was all fueled by adrenaline. About a mile in a half in, we were off path, and running through the woods, and hitting pretty gnarly hills easily reaching 5 feet vertical for every foot across (or as it’s labeled on my treadmill: F@#* % incline), and I said to myself, “wow… no mud yet” and no sooner as the thought finished processing, we came around a corner to find a section carved out of the woods where they laid out barbed wire over a mud pit. By mud, I mean feeding a herd of cows bad Mexican food the night before, and letting us wade through the result. It smelled horrid; but I figured that if anything this stuff could prolly kill ebola if I ever caught that. Always thinking on the positives. Coming out of that, and straight up hill for about 50 feet, my left leg cramped up. It was mile two. The cramp never went away. One of my favorite obstacles, the tractor pull (drag a cinder block on a chain 200 feet down a hill and then back up) was a welcome sight for me around mile 3. I think I actually smiled. The halfway point was back at the festival area where all the spectators were… that’s where I ended up doing my burpees. I fell off the monkey bars, reaching for the third bar (30 burpees), nearly bought it on the traverse wall, hitting the bell as I was falling off, managing the inverted wall swinging my cramped leg up first (WTH?!?) and then failing at the spear (30 more burpees). Somewhere in all of this, Beth saw me and had a conversation with me; I kind of remember saying “hey”, completely zoned out, numb and with my brain shutting everything off with the exception of whatever it was that I needed to do for the task at hand. Miles six through ten was the sandbag carry (one foot in front of the other), a cargo net (a relief), and the 7 and 8 foot walls; all interspersed through steep hills. My main strategy was that since I wasn’t feeling anything, jog as fast as I could down the hills, taking the straightaways or up the next hill as far as I could; walk the rest and then repeat. That happened a lot. One of the other secrets of the Spartan race is that they put out these mile marker signs to let you know how far you’ve gone; the secret being that they either skip some miles, or outright lie at the distance. “Mile 8” was really seven and a half miles in. It’s one of the mental obstacles that they use to toy with you. It was during mile 10 that I broke down and would have given up. The pain meds were starting to wear off, and I was becoming aware of the general throb going on throughout parts of my body and we had just come up to the top of a hill which in the non-Spartan real world was the start of a motocross course. You know the kind, the one with the steep hills and dips. I seriously wanted to kill the people who thought up the idea of motocross. That went on for a good half mile; up and down hills while switchbacking our way down the overall hill until we got to the bucket challenge. Here, take this five gallon bucket, fill it past the holes near the top, and go up a hill about 200 feet, and then back down. If any of the holes are visible in your bucket, you’re disqualified from the obstacle and 30 more burpees for you (the lesson, don’t drop your bucket). My brain broke down the obstacle as “fill bucket”, “take bucket”, “walk with bucket” “empty bucket”. I filled my bucket well more than I needed to, near the top. At that point, what’s another five to ten pounds; I was already broken. The only way I managed that hill was by focusing on a point off in the distance, maybe fifty or a hundred feet, telling myself “walk to there”, figure out the next spot and repeat. On the way down the hill, some woman lost her footing, slipped and dropped her bucket, spilling a lot of its contents, and more than likely twisting her ankle in the process. Had I been fully coherent, I think that I would have reacted to try and help her, and would have prolly dropped my bucket in the process. I’m thankful that I was completely zoned out focusing on each of my own steps. At the end, I dumped the contents of my bucket back at the start of the obstacle, and started jogging up to the next obstacle right after, my thighs at this point were completely on fire. The “swim” as they call it is really just a fifty foot maybe water crossing. It wasn’t deep; it came up to most people’s midsection or armpits. There was no gradual entry into it. The first step and you were three feet in, and the bottom was at least a foot of gelatinous mud. Worst of all, was that the water was frigid. The moment I entered the water, my entire body seized up and for a few seconds which felt like forever. It was impossible to move, but I knew that if I didn’t I would get medicaled or whatever happens to people who can’t do it; and I was determined not to let that happen to me. It may have only been fifty feet, but that was the hardest I had to force myself. Coming out of it, there were people telling us, congratulations, that there wasn’t that much far to go or something… words didn’t make sense to me to be honest, I was trying to keep my body from shutting down from the shock of the cold. Following that, it was the herc hoist, which was gratefully really light, compared to Washington D.C., another mud put and then the final four obstacles. When I got to the rope climb, I knew I didn’t even have it in me, so I just went to my burpee penalty (30 more for a total of 90), the lattice bridge, the slip wall and then the fire jump. I can remember thinking about trying to do a rockstar jump over the fire, but I ended up just trying to make sure I didn’t fall in the fire. I crossed the line completely spent and done. The lessons learned from all of this is that if I were healthy, I think I could have done a lot better; knocking off at least a half hour from my time ; but balancing that with what I would have felt not doing this at all, and it’s a pretty easy choice. There were only two outcomes for this race. I was either going to finish on my own, or out on a medical. I forced myself through those twelve miles. Much like pretty much everything else in my life, I don’t suggest my path for anyone else. In fact, quite the opposite; but for me, this was something that I had to do. About 30 minutes after the race, I started cramping up really bad. The cramping managed to go away enough by the time we got home this evening. We got back to the hotel before 5pm and I was passed out by 8pm. The Beast is completely grueling, and a challenge for everyone; but everyone *can* complete it. The only way you can’t complete it is if you decide to take yourself out of it So there it is… .if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask
Posted on: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 05:44:37 +0000
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