Spartan Beast Central Cali, 14 Dec 2019

My dog broke my nose the night before the Beast.   We were playing on the floor, Spot tried to run through me instead of around me, and my nose met his head.  My nose lost.   I did one of those slow motion collapses onto the floor, after hearing my nose crunch like a bite of cereal, and Spot started barking hysterically as I curled into a ball.  Jim found me there soon after, crying.  It was embarrassing.  I could never make it as a boxer.

Somehow, I never got a nosebleed, and my nose was crooked enough to begin with that another misaligned bit of cartilage wasn't noticeable.   It's still painful now, a week or so later, but as long as I don't try to bounce a soccer ball off my head, it won't be a big deal.

On to the Spartan the next morning.   It was just down the road from Jims' mom's house in central California, so we didn't have to wake up in a strange hotel room.   Turns out it's my new favorite Spartan venue, bar none.   Right off the 101 in Los Olivos, it had plenty of parking, beautiful California Oak trees, and a nice fast runnable course.   So fast, in fact, that I took 45 minutes off my fastest time for the 13 mile Beast course.   This was my first Beast of the year, and it was nice to not have to do a second lap of the course like I had been on my Ultras.

Jim was doing his first (and perhaps last) Spartan Beast as well, and the weather cooperated.  It was cool and foggy, but dry, and he also finished much faster than either of us predicted.  He also finished 1st in his age group, as usual.  He wasn't unhappy about that either!


The next morning I took on a new challenge, the Spartan 10k trail race.   This is Spartans' first year doing plain Jane vanilla trail runs, I guess to give some spouses a race to do that doesn't involve dunk walls and barbed wire.    Speaking of dunk walls, as I waited for my race to start, I kid you not, I saw a couple of people put goggles on their heads to go through the dunk wall.   Seriously.


Anyway, the Spartan Trail 10k was a very fast, runnable course.   I did miss the dunk wall and the obstacles but it was nice to do something different.   Anyway, I needed the trail medal to fill out my collection as home. 

Cue Jim rolling his eyes.   

I didn't think I would do very well in a pure running race, but ended up 4th in my Age Group.  That finishes off our last race of 2019.   Next up, the New Year's Revolution run on, you guessed it, January 1st.   And then I've been roped into the Rock n Roll marathon on January 19th in Phoenix.   After running 4:01:36 on my first road marathon in 15 years, I have a vendetta with my legs to see if I can break 4 hours this time.  Stay tuned.