Spartan Sprint - Arizona
Saturday, February 8, 2014 @ 10:30am
Fort McDowell Rodeo Grounds, Arizona
The husband took off from work for a day to travel and participate in his first (and possibly his only) Spartan race. Too bad I was coming off an injury and we both hadn't done any real training. This was going to be a brutal trip...
Friday, February 7, 2014 - Travel Day
This was a trip we had just taken in December...a nice 10+ hour long drive through southern New Mexico into Arizona through Tucson and finally into Phoenix. We had planned originally to get a hotel room because my usual Spartan Race partner in crime, Jeff, was supposed to come with us but he had to cancel out so we ended up staying with the son and his fiance instead. We arrived at their apartment around dinner time and they were out to dinner so we stopped at Jack in the Box and picked up some food and sat on their stairs (they live on the 3rd floor) while we waited for them. Once they arrived we settled in and spent the rest of the night visiting and went to bed relatively early to rest up for the race the next day.
Saturday, February 8, 2014 - Race Day
We got up early and headed over to IHOP for a light breakfast. The hubs ate a full breakfast while I basically had the equivalent of one pancake. The nerves were running high because we both knew we weren't ready for this race, but we had come all this way so there was no way we weren't going to do it. We headed out to the venue around 8am and finally arrived on site at about 9am. We found some other Weeple Army members and hung around with them for awhile before departing to look around and check out some of the obstacles near the finish line.
Our wave came up pretty quick and we lined up with the rest of the Weeples knowing that we were going to be falling behind since we weren't ready for this. The chant of "AROO! AROO! AROO!" came up at the start and then the smoke bomb went off and we were on our way.
22 Obstacles in order of appearance:
- Under - Over - Under - Over - Under - Over
- Over - Under - Through - Over - Under - Through
- Monkey Bars (assisted each other)
- 6' Wall
- Stone Carry/Burpees
- Hercules Hoist
- Rope Climb (FAILED, 30 burpee penalty)
- Barbed Wire Mud Crawl
- Inverted Wall (FAILED, fell 8' flat on my back about 1' away from a brace, 30 burpee penalty)
- Sandbag/Pancake Carry
- Block Wall/Rope Climb (FAILED, 30 burpee penalty)
- Tractor Pull
- Mud Pits
- 8' Wall
- Cargo Net
- Traverse Wall (assisted each other)
- Spear Throw (FAILED, 30 burpee penalty)
- Barb Wire Mud Crawl
- Dunk
- Slippery Wall (FAILED, 30 burpee penalty)
- Fire Jump
- Gladiators
This was by far my worst showing at a Spartan Sprint. I still had fun but the hubs...not so much. He doesn't think he'll do another one. So I walked away with a 150 burpee penalty for the first time (max prior had been 120) and a bruised ego. It took us 3:04 to finish this blasted race...about 50 minutes longer than it took me in 2013.
After this beating we took our cold water shower that is so kindly provided by Spartan (a hose with a spray nozzle) and changed into some clean clothes before heading back out to the son's place where we nursed our bruised egos and went out for some Hawaiian BBQ as a post-race treat. We spent the rest of the afternoon/night just hanging out with the kids playing board games, watching TV and just relaxing for the trip home the next morning.
Sunday, February 9, 2014 - Travel Day
We left the kids place around 8am and again grabbed some breakfast at IHOP before heading home for an uneventful trip. Surprisingly there wasn't too much stiffness from the brutality of the day before so that made for a fairly comfortable, albeit boring ride back to New Mexico.
What I liked about this race:
I do enjoy the Spartan Races. They're challenging but a lot more fun if you're in somewhat decent shape to participate which we were not.
What I didn't like about this race:
My arch enemy obstacles as usual: monkey bars and traverse wall even though we both did them by assisting each other, the inverted wall (now my most hated obstacle) and the slippery wall (I always get halfway up and then lose my footing and slip/fall back down).
Would I do this race again?
I'm seriously considering giving up OCRs after 2014 so I don't know. I just feel like I'm too old and out of shape to compete. We'll have to see what happens.
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