If you've been around me lately then you may have heard me complain about Montana. We spent about a week up there last summer, and not only did it rain almost the whole week, but all of the hiking trails were closed due...to COVID. The ultimate irony that doing something healthy in the outdoors would be closed because Montana had maybe 10 cases in the entire state. Anyway, I didn't really want to go back up there this year for a Spartan race, but I needed an Ultra to qualify for the 24 Hour Ultra this October in Telluride, Colorado.
Well, Montana redeemed itself. Not only was the weather perfect for this race weekend (it DIDN'T rain!!) but people were ditching masks all over and opening everything up.
The Spartan course was on the NE corner of Flathead Lake, not far from the Canadian border. It had, as the course director implied before the race, lots of bushwacking through the forest. Thankfully, most of the dense undergrowth was not multiflora rose, but there were a few thorny, spiny things along with the rest of the bushes which just felt like switches on my shins. It was the first time I regretted not wearing those knee high socks which might have saved me quite a few cuts and scrapes.
The first section of the Ultra, which we only did once compared to the 2 loops of the rest of the course, was the most runnable. I always like to get a few fast miles in at the start of a race. There was a guy sticking at my pace who seemed to think he needed to continue running up all of the hills even as 99% of people around him were walking....all of that extra effort would get him about 10 feet in front of me, which I would make up in about 2 steps of the downhill. It annoyed me. So I passed him.
About 7 miles in we came to the "water crossing". Lol. It was a chest deep wade through a pond in the middle of the forest. With submerged logs that caused not a few people to fully dunk. Did I mention it was dank, murky, black water....the type of thing that not in a million years would I stick a foot in if I wasn't forced to in a race. The first time I waded through, it actually resembled water. The second time around, hours later, so many thousands of people had been through it that the bottom 3 feet was mostly mud. I came out fairly black the second time, like refried black beans run through a strainer. Not to mention what other things were in the water that I couldn't see! But it washed the blood off the cuts of my legs.
It took until mile 14 of 32 before I got to do any overhead obstacles like the monkey bars or the twister. They were really stacked on the second half of each loop. Of course there were plenty of other obstacles like heavy carries, steep hills, and more bushwacking, though.
I have been working on my strength training this year, a little more than normal. I could tell it was helping on the walls, and I didn't fail any obstacle on the first loop. On the second loop, I skipped the Olympus wall because the word on the street was that the penalty loop was shorter than the obstacle itself. It didn't take much to convince me of that, the Olympus takes maximum strength for me to complete.
By the second loop, the virgin forest looked like 1000 people had created a trail through it. There's something to be said for hiring Spartan to created an event in an area just to create new trails! The undergrowth still beat on my shins, though...not my favorite course just because of that...and the never ending hills. Almost 8,000 feet of climbing over 32 miles doesn't seem like much but it started to add up.
By the end I had passed a few women and figured not many more were in front of me. Turned out no one was! I finished 1st overall in women's age group, which was really cool, in 8:54. Best part of the day, as always, was a nice hot shower and the chance to scrub the mud off my feet.
Getting out of bed the next morning was the hardest obstacle of the day! Jim and I were doing the Super this morning, which was another 7 miles around the same steep hills, stacked with all the obstacles. I had almost signed up for the trifecta, which in the moment, I was glad I didn't have to go around a 4th time in the Sprint. The trails, on my 3rd time around, now looked like superhighways compared to how they had started. But the bushes, when they hit my shins, now felt like Cat O Nine tails. Ouch.
I felt like I was running fairly well again after I warmed up, but actually not that fast. Jim had a great race and felt great at the end, finishing 3rd. I was well down the pack and just happy to be done this time. I missed the spear right at the end and had to take a last penalty loop bushwack up and down a steep hill right by the finish line. If I had had to do burpees I might have thrown the spear more carefully. The course had the last laugh, though....I slipped in the a ditch of mud heading to the finish, and added a layer of black goo all the way up my right side. Ooops.
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| Photos of elites added for interest :) |
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| Yup, Elk on course! Photo courtesy of Race Director Steve Hammond |
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| Photo courtesy of Race Director Steve Hammond |
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| Mud. Called a pond. |
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| Definitely cleaner on this first round than the second! |
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