The clouds weren't too low or thick, we did manage a view of Lookout mountain.
As we warmed up the rain lessened, so we stopped to take off our rain poncho's.
We didn't get far and the poncho's came back on. We found a place out of the rain for lunch, our view was a large plastic black plastic culvert pipe. Not worth photographing, but we were dry. Perhaps these holes were made by a Pileated Woodpecker? The holes were very large.
We turned off of the gravel road we'd been walking on and turned to hike on a trail beside the mossy Maple trees that led to Mud lake.
My husband walking along in front of me.
Our destination - Mud lake.
I spied a tiny mushroom and put my hat near it so you could see just how small it was. The mushroom is just below the brim of the hat.
Another "damp" Trillium near Mud lake.
A heart rock on the gravel road❤
Another tree with large woodpecker holes in it.
We passed by many side trails and old roads, I was drawn to this one. Perhaps another day's adventure.
A pond we passed along the road walking journey.
The weather did eventually get better, no sun but much drier and some warm air blowing towards us off and on that felt nice on our skin. We were able to continue without our rain poncho's and rain hats for the rest of the day. I found a nice little log to sit on under this fallen tree. Thankfully I didn't need the fallen tree as a rain shelter, I don't think it would've helped much.
Spring's new growth and colors are really making an appearance in our forests now.
A patch of Bleeding Heart.
The clouds stayed high enough for us to get a few views. A Currant bush in full bloom in the foreground and North Butte in the distance framed by two tall trees.
We even had a small peek at the bay beyond the old logging clear cut.
The trees had very thick moss sweaters on.
Another sign of Spring, "baby ferns"❤
The lake view had much improved on our return, the lake was so still there was a nice reflection.
The rain wasn't too bad for our day, just a few showers. Thankfully the rain really began falling hard as we drove home and it's pounding on our roof as I write this post. I'm feeling very thankful that we were able to get out and enjoy the forest and some views without getting soaked in the process.
Last year we did an exit tent registration at one of our races for a greatly discounted price for all of our 2019 season Spartan races. It really paid off for us, we saved $100's of dollars on the registration prices. One catch for us though, as we were registering our credit card services sent me a security text asking if it was me making these purchases. I answered back that it was indeed me. The purchases went through, but when we got our Spartan registration code emails for our races we had an extra Sprint code....probably because I had assumed that our first purchase didn't go through because of the confirmation text and submitted it again. Anyway it was either correct the error or I would have to (er "get" to) do a back to back weekend, something I had always said I would "never" do. My husband always does the double weekends where they are scheduled. So I "Spartan'd" up as they say and used my code to register for my first back to back weekend - our first event of the year, the Seattle Super and Sprint weekend. Way to kick off the season. This year's weather and my case of Shingles didn't help with our training intensity for this event, but here we are - Spartan Season 2019!!
We could hear the rain pounding on our roof Saturday morning and thought O.K. it's going to be another wet and muddy course just like LAST YEAR.
The event registration cost absorbs the parking and bag check fees now, so no long lines getting to the event or for checking our bags, Yay!!
Day one the "Super" - ready or not!
The map below shows the courses for the Super, Sprint and newly added event the Trail run along with the obstacle list for the Super and Sprint days. I scanned through the photo gallery and collected all of the photos of us that I could find.
I really liked the course this year, as with last year the weather was it's own obstacle. I was alot colder this year than last. I forgot to wear my Merino wool layer under my clothes and completely forgot my Tyvek jacket. First of the season jitters I guess. I'm a quick learner, so I'll probably have those items packed first off weeks ahead for my future events. My husband had another coat, so he loaned me his grey jacket for the day. He wore a coat he hadn't planned on wearing on the course. I owe him big time for that, it really helped although the pockets liked to fill up with water. Too funny. I really wasn't too cold until the barbwire crawl, the mud and water made my hands very cold quickly. You can tell we were getting cold by how red our faces are.
The Bucket brigade course was like a W, we walked downhill and uphill and downhill and uphill.
I really got cold after the Rolling mud/Dunk wall obstacle though. I couldn't find a photo of us in the photo gallery, but I'm sharing these so you can see that we had several mud rolling mud hills to slide down and cold water troughs to walk through. Then we would crawl up the other side and repeat until we got to the dunk wall.
This dunk wall was new to me this year, I've only gone under the wood wall ones. This one was a little wider which freaked me out abit until a man beside us explained how to go under it, you can pull the bottom towards you and shoot your head under. So he and my husband pulled on it as I dipped my head under, it worked o.k.
Then the crawl up the last bank.
As I said earlier this is when I got really cold and stayed cold the rest of the day.
The Slip wall was right after the Dunk wall, I was worried that it would be too muddy and slick to navigate but I succeeded in getting over it without any help. That is always a highlight for me.
As we made our way through the course they took us in a zigzag pattern through a big field, this was where we felt the wind. When it was at our backs it wasn't bad but when it was at our faces it got pretty cold. If you scroll up and look at the map you'll see the Blue line (the Super course) and the zigzag of the course in the open field area.
Many of the obstacles were just too slick to hold onto or our hands and feet felt too cold to feel safe for climbing. As we walked along, we heard this was the prevalent thought for the day: "Do our best, focus and finish". We did the obstacles we felt we could and did our penalty 30's on the others. We stopped and warmed our hands at the Fire jump before jumping over, it felt so nice an warm.
Day two The "Sprint", my first back to back Spartan weekend. Strangely, I wasn't nervous. I was however, VERY overly excited. I hardly slept either night before the events.
It wasn't as wet or windy on Sunday, as it was on Saturday. It was a better weather day even though the starting temps were about the same each day, in the low 40's.
Here I am ready to go.
The Barbwire crawl. Today my pack has extra clothes in it: hat, gloves & tyvek jacket. I snagged a hole in my pack during the "Super" Barbwire crawl so I thought hey, I'll just wear my pack on my front today. It worked great, no snags or getting hung up in the barbwire! I did acquire some Nancy Sinatra (ala "These boots are made for walking") type "mud" boots in the Barbwire crawl though, they stayed with me all day hee hee.
Bucket brigade, the course today only had one downhill and one uphill.
A new obstacle "the Helix". I liked this photo below because that's us in the background holding hands and walking towards the obstacle.
My husband on the Helix.
At about the 2 mile mark? I came across a woman crying at the Atlas carry, I asked her if I could help her with the obstacle, she said no. She was upset because someone had told her she would be disqualified if she didn't do the obstacle. She explained to me that she had had knee surgery a year ago and that she had twisted it on the bucket carry and had been limping her way through the course. I told her "no" that rule is just for the "Elite" participants, and that her job for the rest of the day was to just get to the finish line and that I would stay with her and make sure that she made it to there. She hugged me and said that she had been praying that her mother would come and help her through the course, I said I guess I'm your my mom today. Talk about tears flowing. She waited for me as I made my way through the rest of the obstacles or penalty 30's. As I was on my obstacles she would tell passersby "See that woman in the pink top? She's helping me finish my first Spartan race." It was important to me to hold her hand, let her drape her arm or over my shoulders for support or just walk along and give her encouragement, because that was how I was treated at my first Spartan race. I wanted to give her an example of how Spartans treat one another on the course. The Spartan community is what I like about the Spartan events. Unfortunately the official photo at the Fire jump was cropped, I couldn't find one of her beside us. That smile on my face is for the woman I had helped as she was approaching her first Fire jump, with my final words of encouragement "land on you good leg"!
Hand warming time again!
Finishers!
Good bye Seattle Spartan race venue. It was a wonderful "first" back to back weekend for me.❤
