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.

Sunday Ride

We wanted to venture north on the tandem bicycle today before we had to check out. We were allowed to check out at 4pm instead of 12pm (like normal) because no one was coming in our spot after us so we took advantage of it. We rode to sunset beach which was about 14 miles north on the pacific coast highway. The scenery was pleasant with the view of the ocean the entire time.

On our way back to the campground we stopped at Balboa Island to check out the beautiful homes and big boats.

We had a great time in Newport Beach Campground! We are now ready to conquer 2012!

Tandem Bike ride!

After the run we showered and ate some turkey sandwiches...




.... then we took the dogs out to get their exercise with the tandem bicycle!



The dogs did a great job staying with the bike.

We tired them out!

10 mile run!

We woke up on Saturday to a beautiful sunny last day of the year. We planned to run 10 miles because Nicole has a half marathon coming up in January and a 10 mile run was on schedule to run today. So we got on the computer and mapped out an awesome run. We ran around the entire Upper Newport Bay. The campground is on the west side of the bay, so we ran counter-clockwise around it. The first six and a half miles we had a view of the reserve. Here are some pics of that.





The last three and a half miles were full of multi-million dollar homes that sit on the edge of the reserve. Here is a link to the loop we ran:

http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/fullscreen/62304544/

We were worn out after the run... but not enough, because we went on a bike ride with the dogs!

Biscuit and Zoey

This is Zoey! She is the watch dog of the two. We have something in common, which is eating. She can't wait to eat when she wakes up and knows when her meal is coming to her in the evening.

This is Biscuit! He is the tougher one of the two. He likes to find places to hide under, so the only place he could find to hide under was our dinette table. He also likes to run! He runs up to 7 miles with us.
This is their beds. They look really comfortable.
Meal time! They are really good dogs. They are not allowed to eat until Nicole says its ok. So they sit patiently waiting until she says the magic words.

Happy New Year!

I am ringing in the New Year at the Newport Dunes Waterfront Campground Resort and Marina! I have company this time... my girlfriend Nicole and her two dogs, Biscuit and Zoey! We got into our campsite at around 8pm on Friday December 30th. We were pleasantly surprised by the high class of the campground and the big bay that the campground wraps around. Here is a map of the Campground.

As I was setting up our campsite Nicole was busy making dinner. We ate Salmon with spinach and sweet potatoes. It was really good!





This meal got us ready for our 10 mile run the next day.