Well, after my last Spartan in CA, the week after I woke up with a muscle spasm in my left hip. At 3 a.m. Sleeping is dangerous, evidently. I had been nursing a nagging right hip strain, so perhaps my left side was compensating for a while, and finally gave up. While I was sleeping, luckily, and not while I was in the middle of a Spartan race.
Anyway, I limped for a few weeks, couldn't even walk the dog. Finally I got a few manual adjustments from a chiropractor, and it starting getting better. But leading up to the Boise Sprint, I couldn't even walk much less run. I ran about once in six weeks leading up to the race. I was very happy to be regaining mobility and mostly pain free by race time.
So race day was a bluebird day, hot and sunny. Luckily our start times were in the early morning at 8 am and 10 am so it wasn't blistering. Those metal obstacles can get really hot in the full heat of the afternoon sun. The race area was a dry plateau with forays up and down the hills , similar to the Ft. Carson Spartan a few months back. But without the cactus in burpee zones!
As usual, the course wound around a fairly small area and up and down as many hills in that area as they could squeeze in. The Sandbag carry in particular was super steep, and I passed a guy with no legs at all, doing the race, shuffling with his arms, and carrying the darn sandbag too. It made my race seem fairly easy in comparison. I wondered as I ran on, how he possibly did the bucket carry, walls, etc. Any why. Why?
In a nice change of pace on a hot short race, the rolling mud pits were in the first mile, so my feet were cool for a while. My running form definitely wasn't up to speed, and women I recognized from other races seemed to float by me. Oh well. I made all the obstacles and remained burpee free. I really love passing people doing burpees.
Jim was really happy with his race and conquered both the rings (multi rig) and the rope, among other things. Having a spear throw in our backyard for practicing has really helped with our accuracy, and we are starting to hit it more often. For such a painless obstacle, it is really painful to have to do burpees if you miss.
That's about it. Heat, sweat and mud, which seems to be what city dwellers crave to find on the weekends.
We are off now to explore a bit more of Idaho and do some mountain biking. Next Spartan coming up in a month in Utah, close to home!
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