Spartan Race: I Almost Gave a BJ to A Stranger

Happier times at the beginning of the race before I knew what was what.

     The title of this post will be explained later in this post.  Yesterday, I ran my first (and last) Spartan race. I can say that this was the hardest thing that I have ever done in my life.  At the end of the race if someone had come up to me and said you can either run this race again or run a marathon, I would have taken the marathon.  Now let me start at the beginning, because that is always the best place to start:  
   We arrived at the location (2 hours outside of Montreal) for around noon.  We were in the 2 pm heat, yet we wanted to get there nice and early to not be too stressed.  We parked in an area that was about 10 minutes from the race spot and they sent buses to shuttle us to the race course.  When we arrived this is what we saw.

Is that smoke a BBQ?  No my friends that is the fire pit that I had to jump over!

There were so many people I really wasn't expecting it.  Eye candy everywhere, men with no shirts and abs for days.  We got our numbers and had to write them on our bodies to be tagged in pictures.

I wore my Obama shirt -->YES YOU CAN was my motto.

We walked around and saw a few of the obstacles that would wait for us at the end of the race.

I call this the Spider Man, we had to climb up one side and down the other.  See that rowing machine in the corner?  We then had to do 15 rows. Men did 20

Yes, that is barb wire. Yes, it IS connected to a battery.  Yes, there was a charge through it.  I touched it and thought I was crazy to get a shock until I looked at this picture after.

Wall of death.  Just remember this name I will take about this later.

Who said Disney is the happiest place on Earth?  That would be the FINISH LINE!

We started the race at 2 pm.  The first obstacle was to jump over this:

Yes that is fire.  We then were hosed down by someone with a giant hose.  We then began our trail run in the woods.  At one point we were running up hill for so long I thought I was going to heaven.  I didn't have a watch, but I heard the 2:30 pm heat starting so I knew that we had been running for half an hour.  We continued up hill and all I could tell myself was to put one foot in front of the other.  My surroundings were so lush, I thought I was on the set of the Hunger Games.  Finally, things began to go downhill, but I think this was worse because it was so steep.  A man behind me slipped and I had to grab his wrist.  For a bit we were looking out for each other until he passed me.  There were rocks and it was so slippery, there was mud, tree roots.  Finally, when I was out of the woods I thought the worse was over.  We had a task to do.  There was a sack attached to a rope with a bar.  you had to hold the bar in both hands above your head and roll the string around the bar until the bag reached the bar.  Not too bad.  Then we had to lift a sand bag on our shoulders and run though a small course.

     Then it was back in the forest, the were small ravines to jump over and then came hell on Earth.  I had to crawl under barb wire in mud for about 200 meters.  My whole body was wrapped in mud.   My hands, arms, legs, covered in mud. My shirt got caught, my hair got caught.  Many guys had no shirt on so they were bleeding, cuts on their backs. There were rocks in the mud as well as branches, my shins are all bruised .  People were losing their shoes in the mud.  I saw a girl crying, her friends had to carry her out with help from an EMT.  It was hard, all I could do was tell myself that I can do this.  People must have seen the anguish on my face, because they kept telling me not to give up as they crawled by.  I had to stop numerous times.  I really did not think I could make it.  Finally it was  over at then there was a pool of water.  I tried to step in the pool to get out and I sank to the bottom, water to my chest.  The pool was all different depths.  After struggling for a few minutes I was finally out.

     Next there was a balance beam, if you feel of twice you had to do 30 burpees.  Trina, I know you hate cheaters and I apologize and all I could think of is you, but I feel twice and did 10 burpees waited a few minutes to let the crowds pass (I figured it was fair) and continued.  I don't think I would have made it if I had done 30.  We then had to cross half of a river crawling on barrels, after barrel number three I feel in the river and had to walk through the water.  To be honest it was freezing, but it felt so good and washed off some of the mud.  I then ran a bit and was met with a rope ladder to climb.  I tried and knew that I could not do it.  I had to do another 30 burpees.  This is when the title comes in,  I was so thirsty, they said that there would water stations but there were none.  I swear that I have never been this thirsty in my life.  If a man had approached me at this point with a jug of ice cold water and asked for a bj (forgive my profanity, but I just want to get it across how thirty I was), I would have done it (these are the things I was thinking of, what is wrong with me????).   Anyways, there were some older people watching the race on the side and I walked up to them and asked begged them for water.  They gave me some and I kissed their feet told them that they saved my life.  I then proceeded to do 20 burpees.

      We then had a 6 foot wall to scale and a few things to jump over.  There was a cement cylinder to lift and carry around a circle.  A plastic tube to crawl through (when I first looked at it I SWEAR that I wasn't going to fit in it).   The spider man climb, I was signing on the way down (spider man, spider man, does whatever a spider can).  I had to row, crawl under the electrified fence and then I was faced with last obstacle the wall of death (see pic above).  I got to the top of the wall, but I could not get over and I slide back down.  I took a deep breath was given some water and tried again.  Same thing I was hanging on for dear life but I could not get over.  I tried to positive self talk but I couldn't I was defeated.  I tried one more time, but this time my friend was cheering for me along with other in the crowd.  I tried, my mind was telling my body to go, but my body refused.  I slide back down and I almost burst out crying.  I couldn't believe I was going to let this get to me.  I could not do it any more.  I gave it one more and I knew that I could not do it.  Crys says that you need to know when you have to walk away.  This was my time.  I walked to the finish.  Almost 2 and a half hours later.  I am proud of myself that I did it.  But I am NEVER doing that again.


P.S They said that this was a 5k, I REALLY wish I was wearing my Garmin because there is no way that it. was.  I overheard someone during the race say that we were at 7.5 K and we weren't done yet....