Over a year ago I started training for obstacle course races. There was a Spartan race in Atlanta, I think back in March. I had a few months under my belt, felt good for the race, and then promptly broke a bunch of ribs. When I recovered from that, I'd planned on doing a Barbarian race in Alabama in the middle of the summber, but I then got pretty sick a few days before that. Finally, this past October, there was another Spartan race in Tennessee, and I was healthy enough to run it.
I say "healthy enough" because it wasn't perfect. A week prior to the race, I'd gotten a pretty wicked sunburn at an air show with my buddy Jon...
...but it turned out, I was adqeuately recovered from that before the race.
Beatriz is the chick that got me into OCR last year. She was going to do the race in Tennesse, and so was her friend Valenti, so we all met at B's place the night before, had some delicious pasta, slept in the various guest rooms, and then road-tripped up together the next morning.
Roadtrip!
B kept randomly shouting "Roadtrip!" during the trip, and it was a lot of fun.
The drive up was great. We stopped at Bucees, which is always a lot of fun, and Chattanooga was beautiful.
I'd been to and through Chattanooga a few times, but apparently never out on I-24. The lakes and mountains are a sight, but the roads are steep and twisty, so it's a lot nicer as a passenger.
We joked about that during the drive, actually. It's pretty rare that either of V or I are passengers when driving up for a race, and while nice, it felt a little unusual.
B and I were doing 5ks, so our races were on Sunday, but V was doing a 10k, so her race was on Saturday. As such, we drove straight to the venue, rather than check in to the hotel.
I had to pee super bad when we got there, and I had to run like a quarter mile across the huge grass parking area to get to the tree line. It turned out later, that there were porta-potties, but they weren't any closer. We did a little shopping at the merch tent before heading into the venue itself, and I want to say V bought a shirt or something.
The whole thing was on some farm, in some set of cow pastures. We parked in one pasture, and the race wound its way around another one. To get from one to the other, you had to cross this fairly sketchy little ravine. Like 100% of the participants and spectators had to descent a set of big chunky rocks, step over a little rivulet of water, and then climb back up more big chunky rocks. On a trail, you wouldn't think anything of it, but it struck me as funny that you HAD to do it to get in. There was no way around it. At the OCR King Compound, Cody always has a "buy in" in his workouts - some set of gym-type excercises that you have to do before you even start on the obstacles. We joked that crossing that ravine was the buy-in for the race.
Once we got to the venue itself, the whole thing was a little surreal. "South African candy aisle", for sure. Kirk went to South Africa way back and took a photo of a candy aisle at a gas station there. In general, it was familiar. It was immediately recognizable as a candy aisle, like you'd find in any gas station. But, all of the candy was unfamaliar. All of the wrappers were different colors, and different combinations of colors. On closer inpection, it was completely unfamiliar. The whole race vibe was like that. I've been to a gazillion races, but they've all been some sort of mountain bike race. The general race environment was completely familiar, but almost all of the details were different.
One thing that was familiar though, was registration. You gotta register when you show up for a race. So, we did that.
However... It was entirely electronic. No hasty, incomprehensible scribbles on damp paper with a pen that barely works. We filled out everything on a tablet, and it was super fast.
To get in or out, you have to walk through the gift shop, which mainly had all kinds of Spartan-themed clothes for sale. I didn't get anything, but the ladies got a few items. I figured I ought to get a few races under my belt before diving into the full-on Spartan culture.
On the other side of the gift shop was even more South African candy aisle. People were milling around, warming up, there was a podium, announcers, spectators with camping chairs, pop-up tents with vendors. All familiar, but again, the details were all a little different.
We took a bunch of photos in front of the Spartan photo thing, but I didn't end up with any of them.
I love how they had to put up signs saying don't climb on it - the barbed wire wasn't enough of a deterrent.
V had a few hours before her race, so we walked around a bit and got familiar with the layout. It looked like they had replaced the helix with the hoist, but otherwise everything looked about like we expected. There was a short track set up for kids' races, and there were a bunch of kids racing, so we cheered them on for a while.
About an hour out, V started getting ready - changing clothes, stretching, brading up her hair, and getting psyched up.
Then, it was go-time!
To get to the start, you had to bear crawl under some barbed wire, then jump a 4-foot wall. Normally the announce shouts: "Spartan, what is your profession?!" and everybody responds with "Aroo! Aroo! Aroo!" but the batteries had died on his mic or something, so he didn't even get everybody together for the start, he was just like "You can go when you're ready." Since the start and finish are tracked with chips that you wear, it doesn't really matter when you go.
B and I walked over to the cargo net and waited for a while. Before long, we saw her coming out of the woods, over some hay bales, and up and over the cargo net.
Then she ran over to the spear throw, but she ran faster than us, and we didn't make it in time to get any pics of that. The spear throw is argably the most difficult obstacle. About half of the time, you miss. After the spear, she ran up the hill and did the hoist, but it was too far away for pics.
Then she was gone for a really long time. There were like 8 kilometers and 10 or more obstacles back in there somewhere, so we figured it would be a while. We were hungry, and the only food to be had was BBQ, so we got some sandwiches. The smoke made my eyes burn and itch super bad, for some reason, but only when I was right in it. As soon as we walked away, they started getting better, and I couldn't tell at all after about 5 minutes. Super weird. I guess Tennessee BBQ is rough, for some reason.
The weather had been wild, all day. It was in the 50's, which was dramatically colder than we were used to. It had been in the 80's in Atlanta until that day. It was also sprinkling on-and-off, but not badly enough to even get through my puffy jacket. The sun would come out and it would warm up 10 degrees, but then it would go away and start sprinkling again.
All of this made for a very dramatic sky.
We guestimated how long it would take V to emerge near the Z wall, and we were pretty close. We watched dozens of people on the Z wall, and like 50% of them cheated in some way. It actually got semi-annoying after a while. I risked it, and hit the porta-potty, right before she came around the bend.
Side note... That was a theme for me for the entire trip. "Hey, let me pee real quick..." was my MO all weekend. I like to stay hydrated for a race.
The second she lifted her leg to mount the Z wall, her calf cramped up, and it took a few minutes to work it out. But, she managed to get it under control, and had an easy time of the wall.
She cleared the hurdle easily, but ran the penalty loop rather than attempt the rope climb.
The slip wall was easy.
But the rolling mud was tough...
Getting into the water was easy, but getting out was a lot more difficult than one might immediately imagine. Imagine climbing 45-degree wet clay. You could do it if you were just the right weight. Too light or heavy though, and you just couldn't get enough grip. It was, fortunately, possible to kind of get out on either edge, but that didn't occur to a lot of people, and so many of them just slid back down, over and over. One guy tried like 3 times, before just standing there looking defeated, and I never saw him make it.
V made it out though, and went under the dunk wall.
She'd been apprehensive about it earlier, but when it came down to it, she did it with no problem.
Then, a quick leap over the fire...
...and she was done!
Her scream was like 1/3rd repressed trauma, 1/3rd relief, and 1/3rd pride. With that finish, she'd gotten a trifecta - sprint, super, and beast, all in one season.
God, I've heard that scream before. I've screamed like that before. Hearing it brought back a flood of memories and emotions that I wasn't 100% ready to feel. Man, I love that kind of thing. She stumbled over to the rail, and I hugged her like BMX riders hug each other after one of them does some amazing trick - where it's part congratulations, part consolation for the terror they just went through, and part gratitude that they survived. I was wearing my Mulberry Gap t-shirt, and got mud all over it, but it just looked really cool for the rest of the day.
Yeah, Valenti!
She got cleaned up a bit and we finally headed to the hotel. They were able to get into their rooms right away, but there was some odd delay with mine, so I hung out in the lobby for like half an hour before it was ready. It turned out that just about everybody was there for either the race or a dog show. I only saw one dog though, and it didn't really look like a show dog. There were a bunch of kids running around, and I saw the all doing the kids' race the next day.
After getting checked in, we all went to Demo's for dinner. B had eaten there last year and loved it. I got some blackened chicken alfredo, and it was easily as good as what I get here at Zucca. If you're ever in Lebanon, TN, check out Demo's.
On the way out, we noticed a '70's Smoky-and-the-Bandit Firebird, and a '60's firebird next to it. Then a few spaces awat were several other vintage cars. We figured there must be a car show in town or something.
Then, across the lot was this monstrosity!
Gotta be a car show!
Back at the hotel, I grabbed a little thing of chocolate ice cream and B yelled "Sugar!" at me - an inside joke about my A1C, and having to cut out a lot of sugar from my diet. This led to the guy behind me being like: "Was she calling you sugar, or telling you to eat sugar?" and me explaining the whole A1C thing to him. We both agreed that the quarter-pint of Hagen-Dazs was probably ok. Meanwhile, the line was taking forever for some unknown reason, and I started worrying that it would melt. The guy behind me was finally like: "Man, just take that up to your room, I'll cover it, it's like $2."
Woo! I made a friend, and got free ice cream out of it!
I watched like 30 minutes of American Dad in the room, then crashed out hard and got some really good sleep.
The next morning, I packed everything up, as I would not be able to get back to the hotel after my race, met the ladies in the lobby, and headed back over to the farm.
B's race was about an hour later, so she got dressed and warmed up, and ready to go while V and I watched people play around in the "training area". They had a spear throw, a bunch of various heavy balls, a 7-foot wall, and a rope climb that you could get some last-minute training on, and a bunch of folks were trying it all out.
As her race time approached, B crawled under the halloween-themed barbed-wire...
...and over that first wall.
The announcer had gotten new batteries for his mic by that time, and she got the full group-start experience.
Go!
Like B and I had done the day before, V and I walked over to the cargo net, and pretty soon, we saw B emerge from the woods, climb over some hay bales, and run by us.
She made quick work of the cargo net...
...but missed the spear throw, and had to run the penalty loop.
The weather had been even worse that morning - colder, and pretty much sprinkling all morning. Water did actually stop falling from the sky before she went off, but it was still super wet. How warm to dress was anyone's guess, and she'd started off with a jacket, that she tossed to us after the spear throw.
We watched her run up the hill and hoist the sandbag, but then she was gone for a while.
She was "only" running a 5k, so we wouldn't have to wait all that long for her to get to the Z wall. And, yeah, before we knew it, she was comign around the bend.
Go B!
She didn't have any trouble with the wall...
...or the hurdle.
The rope climb was super slippery, but she got it!
The slip wall was a piece of cake.
Or, at least, she made it look easy.
The monkey bars, on the other hand...
...were just too slippery. She fell on the 3rd to last one. Almost nobody was making them, though. It was just so wet.
Then there was all that mud!
Which she managed pretty easily.
And the dunk wall.
Which, again, whe managed pretty easily.
Over the fire...
...and, done!
No half-terrorized scream from her though. She'd done plenty of 5k's before, and this one was about average, and not even as wet as the one in Atlanta had been.
Still, pretty awesome, and it made me feel a bit more confident, actually watching somebody I know, with a level of fitness that I'm familiar with, finish, still feeling fit to continue.
B got cleaned up a bit, and they went back to the hotel to clean up for real and check out.
My race was in like 2 and a half hours, so I had plenty of time to get changed, stretch, throw the spear a few times, and practice picking up the 100lb ball.
I forget exactly when this happened, but I think it was before I went off...
There was a wedding!
Both of them had done their races earlier that day, and they were getting married at the starting line, before the next wave!
Ha! I love it.
When it was finally getting close to my start time, I crawled under the barbed wire and jumped that little wall. Cody had us do a million bear crawls, and I'm kind-of glad, in retospect, that he did. It seems like such an easy thing to do, but it actually requires a bit of practice to be second-nature, and second-nature really helps when there's barbed wire above you.
The guy's batteries had died again, so he was just like: "You can go whenever you want..."
Ok... Go!
Valenti had mentioned that there were a bunch of loose rocks, so don't step on anything too small without expecting it to move. This turned out to be good advice. The first mile or so was in and out of little bits of woods, and there was a lot of rock back in there. Mostly big slabs, but occasionally smaller pieces, that I avoided, but saw many other people step on and shift.
I'm a pretty awful runner, so I expected to get passed constantly, but I ended up passing people the entire time. This one guy Ramsey caught me in the first quarter mile though, and ended up running with me for the rest of the race.
There were some little 4 foot walls back in the woods that we had to leap over, but other than that, the first mile or so was just running. When I came out of the woods I grabbed a mouthful of water at the first station, then started scrambling over a series of hay bales. By the time I got to them, there were some pretty deep ruts in them, so they weren't all that difficult to get over.
I could hear the ladies were cheering as I approached the cargo net, which made me feel pretty good.
The net was straightforward. Pick a line, and go straight up. Don't veer to the left or right. Use your legs.
I actually got the spear throw!
At least, kind-of. The judge said that I'd get credit if it even hit the hay. It didn't need to stick. Mine hit the red ring on the very edge of the hay and bounced off. "Did it hit the hay?" "No." (dejected) "Did it hit the red ring?" "Yeah." (still dejected) "Close enough."
Ha! They gave it to me! No penalty loop!
I ran up the hill to the hoist, and it was substantially heavier than any training I'd ever done. I guess maybe the sandbags absorbed a bunch of water? IDK. It was super heavy. I was barely able to move it using every bit of my weight. In the end, I got it, but man, it was difficult.
That dude Ramsey was still right there. I couldn't shake him, but the two of us passed everyone else.
I think the Atlas Carry was next. Pick up a 100lb ball of concrete and carry it about 100 feet around a flag and back. There is some technique to picking up the ball, and Cody didn't have an analog for it, so it was good that I'd practiced in the "training area" earlier. The way the wind was blowing, the flag wrapped all around my face, which made me laugh, but fortunuately I didn't drop the ball.
I think the multi-rig was next - 3 rings, a pipe, then 3 more rings. By that time, it hadn't rained for hours, and everything had dried out a bit, including, thankfully, the rings. I'd gone to Cody's twice in the weeks leading up to the race to specifically practice rings and monkey bars, and it paid off. The rings were easy.
I think bucket carry was next. Put a 75lb (I think) bucket on your shoulder and carry it up and down a bunch of hills. Again, something I'd never practiced. Most people put it on one shoulder, but someone, maybe Ramsey, had mentioned putting it more centered on your back. It's trickier to hold on to, but it's way less effort to carry. I tried one shoulder for a few seconds, then finagled it to the center of my shoulders, and yeah, it was waaay better. Awesome tip!
The sandbag carry might have been next. Similar thing 75lbish bag of sand up and down a bunch of hills. Slightly easier than the bucket carry.
Next was a long ass downhill barbed wire "crawl". I quote crawl because I just rolled about halfway down the hill on one side, got super dizzy, flipped over, and rolled down the rest on the other side. I ended up crawling out for the last few meters, so disoriented that it felt like gravity was coming from off to my left.
Jogging away from that one was really hard to do.
I want to say there were more obstacles after that, but I don't specifically remember them.
I did the Z wall next, and it was super easy. Cody's is infinitely more difficult. There are pics of me doing it somewhere, but I can't find them now.
The 5 foot hurdle thing was also pretty easy. It felt just like jumping over the patio fence at Siracusa's.
Next was the rope climb, and I stuggled a bit with it. B uses an S-hook, but I use a J-hook, but apparently my J-hook is a little feeble. Like, I don't pull the rope up over my other foot as well as I should. Cody's rope is bigger in diameter than the one at the race, and what I tend to do is adequate there, but it was only barely adequate on this rope.
I made it, but I was kind-of sliding back down the entire time. I'll have to work on that.
The slip wall was super easy.
I made the monkey bars too!
They were completely dry by the time I got to them, and the recent practice had paid off.
I had a marginally easy time getting out of the mud. I was apparently just the right weight to scramble out without slipping back in.
The dunk wall was a little tricky. B recommended reaching under, finding the other side, then dunking and pulling yourself through. I did that, but when pulling it just pulled the bottom of the wall toward me a little before it slipped out of my hand. I ended up kind-of swimming under it, which was fine. Some people, apparently, get kind-of disoriented, but I didn't.
Lord that mud. I don't have the words to really explain how awful it was. It immediately gets in your eyes, and there's nothing you can do to get it out. Try wiping it out. You're wiping with muddy hands, and more just pours back in from your hair, over and over. It's really difficult to see at all. Climbing out of that pit was tough just because I couldn't really see where I was going.
The fire jump was difficult because it was nothing but deep, slippery footprints all the way up to it. I could barely run. I was just trying not to slip and fall the whole time.
But, after the jump, the course was clean for the hundred feet or whatever to the finish.
Done!
I feel like this is the most unflattering photo that's ever been taken of me.
Just look at it!
This one is marginally more flattering, I guess.
The race wasn't all that bad. I was definitely well prepared. The average workout at Cody's was substantially more difficult. An average mountain bike race was infinitely more difficult. Not that I wasn't tired - I ran as fast as I felt that I could without blowing up, but I recovered really quickly. I feel like running faster is the key if I want to get better at these, kind of like how climbing is the key in a mountain bike race.
I got 15th out of like 150 in my age group, but I raced "open" rather than only with my age group, so I didn't really get 15th. No idea how I did overall in the mens open category.
There was this big group hose-off area, so I got hosed off, dried off, and changed back into some normal clothes before we hit the road. I wasn't 100% clean, but I was definitely clean enough.
Before we blew town, we hit the local Whataburger, and sent this photo to our buddy Scott, who's from Texas, and loves Whataburger.
So far, the entire trip had been fantastic. We'd all had a blast. Nothing terrible happened, and everybody was good company. Most of the trip back was equally good, but we ran into some construction-related traffic in Chattanooga that added about an hour of backroads to the drive back. That was really the only bad patch though.
10/10 would do again.
Spartan! Aroo!
