SPARTAN RACE!

Today I competed in the hardest race I have ever done. I had an idea of what I was getting myself into when I signed up, but I really had no idea what to expect. It consisted of an 8.5 mile run with 28 obstacles including crawling under barbwire, jumping over walls, climbing rope, throwing spears, long stretches of deep water crossings, dragging cinder blocks, carrying buckets of sand and even car tires, and best of all... fire!

Nicole came to spectate and take lots of pictures, so thanks to her I have many pictures to share with you.

This was our parking spot. We got a VIP spot because we were in the RV. Someone else had a great idea with the RV so he was parked next to us.

Here is the rest of the 10,000 people that were coming and going throughout the day.




This is us walking to the event.
This is of course me relaxing before the event.
This was the spectator area.
Nicole was having a great time!
This was my starting group. I started at 9am which was the first wave of people. There were many waves of people starting all day every 30 minutes.
I am strategizing my race. I wanted to stay strong and finish in one piece!
We are off! If you look close you can see people on the top of the ridge on the left side of the picture. This was the first of many hills to climb.
Again, we are small dots on the top of the hill running for our lives.

Here I come! I am running up on the left in the red shirt. I am thinking, "how am I going to throw a spear into a hay bail?"

I only had one shot...
and I missed! haha

I had to do 30 burpees because I missed. (Burpees consist of a push-up, then stand up and jump, then repeat.) I didn't feel so bad because many people missed this one. The burpees were so grueling at this obstacle I made sure I completed all of the other obstacles because I did not want to do burpees again...and I did complete all the others!


Off to the next obstacle...

I had to traverse along this made-up rock wall.

The next obstacle (below picture) I had to jump over this 8 foot wall. The catch was that I only had one chance. So I took a running start at it and made it over so fast that this is the only picture Nicole caught of me.

Now I am off to the hills to run many miles and conquer more obstacles.

I am almost done! This was the rope climb.

I had some doubt about this one, but I made it!

Ok, so these are the mud pits. If you can see, there are large pits with water at the bottom which you can not see that I had to jump into and then climb out.

I am in the pit now, that is why I am not in the picture.

I am in the pit again...

And now I emerged out!

And I came out of one again!

Last one!

Then it was right into the barbwire, which was way longer than I thought.





Then jumped through FIRE!

Then climbing!


The last, but not least, there were rowing machines that I had to row 200 meters.

And you can't forget about the spartans at the finish line attempting to hold me back from finishing. But at that point it would have taken a lot more to hold me back from finishing!


I FINISHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
and then I died... hahahahahahaha

There were many more obstacles in the hills, but I don't have pictures for them because they were so remote than only the competitors witnessed first hand.

Did I enjoy it? YES!

Would I do it again? YES!

I am now a Spartan.