My first Spartan race was just over a year ago. By my second Spartan, I was hooked. By the third, I started wondering if I could qualify for the World Championships. By my 6th raced, I had qualified (!), and spent the summer training fairly intensely for this race. Back to back weekend Spartan races, along with in-depth study of the best nutrition ideas that I could find.
Finally I got to Tahoe for my longest back to back races yet. A Beast on Saturday of about 14 miles. An Ultra on Sunday of about 30 miles. I was most scared of the cold swim atop the mountain, in a pond with water barely above freezing. To that effect, I had been taking cold showers and ice baths for a month beforehand to prepare myself. Brrr.
The start of the Beast was at 8:15 Saturday morning. I was one of the few to start without a pack, as I had been streamlining my gear and was confident I really didn't need much. No dry clothes for the swim, nothing but a bottle of drink mix, some supplements and electrolytes, and a pair of gloves. I wore my normal Gypsy Runner shorts, and a bright yellow bumblebee shirt.
The start corral was crowded as all the weekend races had pretty much sold out. I was a few minutes late crossing the wall and ended up at the back of the corral. We started our heat a few minutes early, which was fairly odd (if anything normal is a few minutes late), but after shouting a few AROOs we were off up the mountain. Luckily the path was wide and I didn't get stuck behind anyone starting ahead of me. In fact, almost everyone was quickly back to power hiking as the first 3 miles were a slow climb up the mountain. Everyone had the cold water at mile 3 on their minds. The Herc Hoist seemed a bit heavier than normal, and I passed a women with cold hands who just couldn't get a hold of the rope to pull the sandbag up.
The temperature on the mountain was somewhere in the 40s when I hit the pond. The water was even colder as I grabbed a lifejacket and plunged in. Brrrr. All I could do was swim as fast as I could and then keep running. My time in the water was perhaps 5 minutes, and the winds were howling across the peaks. I was almost grateful to start the bucket carry as it would help warm me up....although I still had cold hands when I finished. From there, it was a quick run to a gauntlet of Atlas carry, plate drag, and barbed wire crawl. The barbed wire seemed lower than normal, and with a shirt on to snag on the wire, the easiest way to get through the long crawl was to roll through the rocks and sand. I closed my eyes, grunted and rolled. I got the beginnings of what would be really nasty bruises on my hips and forearms, but rolling was indeed faster and a bit easier than low crawling. Next, a few mud humps, and a (once clean) dunk wall to wash the dust and mud off my bumblebee shirt.
Freshly cold and wet again, it was downhill to the spear and the twister. I hit the spear to my great delight, but as my hand touched the Twister, I realized that my hands were too cold to grip very hard, and 3/4 of the way across I slipped off. At least the burpees helped me warm up. So did a fast run down the mountain, where it got almost balmy back in the valley. Luckily for me I had warmed up before I took my third dunk of the day on the Ape Hanger. Sort of like swinging monkey bars, it was built over water in the parking lot near the festival area, giving all the spectators a great view of people falling off this obstacle. I made it almost to the apex, then slipped off and did a very spectacular belly flop into the water. More burpees.
By then I was 2/3 of the way through the race and thought the last loop would be easier. If anything, this shorter hill seemed longer and steeper than anything else. The people around me were groaning and whining. In the back of my mind, I kept thinking that for the Ultra Beast tomorrow, I would have to do this loop again twice! I tried not to let that thought slow me down, as today's race was for the World Championship and I wanted to do as well as I could.
Once the trail turned downhill, it was fast easy running a couple miles to the finish. I made quick work of the rings and didn't jump the non-existent fire (let's not burn down beautiful Lake Tahoe) to finish in 3:37. I had no idea how I had done and was afraid to look at the results. But I couldn't help myself, and saw that I had finished 5th in my Age Group. Just off the podium, but then again I was competing against the best in the world who had also qualified to run this race with me. Or so I rationalized to myself! I knew that there was no way I could have made up the 10 minutes it would have taken to get on the podium, and I had raced the best I could. Perhaps I could hang a swinging monkey bar in my backyard to practice for next year....
Time to eat, rest, rehydrate, and get myself ready to do the Ultra in less than 18 hours. I immediately started dreading the swim again (twice!)
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