Hears Different Drummer

This past weekend we participated in the Seattle Spartan race events, held in Monroe, Washington. My husband did the Beast with me on Saturday and then did the Sprint on Sunday as usual by himself.

My week before the Beast was interesting. We had just come out of a 12 day backpacking trip around Mt. Rainier. A few days before the end of our journey I was eating and bit down on something that felt gravelly in my mouth, I was pretty sure it was part of a tooth. I felt around the side of my mouth and sure enough I felt a crack-line on one of my teeth. The Monday after our trip I called the dentist to see if I could get in. They scheduled an appointment for that afternoon. After it was looked at and x-rayed, it was found that there was a large cavity under the filling. The filling had had a crack in it for awhile apparently because it was infected. So they pulled the root out at that appointment and scheduled the rest of the root canal and crown prep work to be done 2 days before my Beast event. I was given a prescription for an antibiotic for the infection. I do not like to take antibiotics because they not only kill the bad bacteria, but the good as well. So long immunity... Oh well. Antibiotics and I don't get along well, I usually have some kind of stomach/bowel/feminine issue after I take them. Sure enough it was a rough week for me. I had the rest of my dental work done on Thursday and tried to keep my Pepto Bismol handy in hopes that I would feel better before Saturday.

Saturday morning we arrived at the venue and found that they were parking us in a completely different area than usual, so we had a bit of a walk to the registration area.

My before the event photo. My stomach was still rumbling, the weather wasn't too hot, but it was a bit humid. I tend to get cramps when it's humid. I was nervous about how I would get through the day feeling as I did.

The course is fairly flat at the Monroe site, Spartan always does a good job of getting as much elevation out of an area as they can. They did a good job with that on this course. At the start chute the announcer told us that "yes, there is a State penitentiary on one of the hills we would be going around, you will hear shooting as they are doing target practice at the facility that day, but remember don't panic they ARE NOT shooting at you". Nice to know.

I was happy to see that my brother and his wife had arrived to watch us, it was nice to see them off and on as we went our way along the course.

The green line on the map below was the Beast course route, and the red line would be the route my husband would take on Sunday for his Sprint event. *the orange line is the kids course route.

I did pretty well on the first seven miles of the course and did as many obstacles as I could, but after we came up the last backside hill I just felt really low energy, my stomach was having waves of nausea and my body just kept feeling like it was going to cramp up. My husband brought a mustard bottle to help with the cramps and one of the aid station actually had pickle juice shots for us. None of these things helped my stomach but really did help my muscles feel better.

By the time we got to the barbwire crawl at about the 7 1/2 mile mark, I was ready to walk off the course. I just felt horrible. My husband tried to rally me as best as he could, he kept encouraging me to just keep going and telling me that I could do it. I felt very non-Spartan like for the rest of the course. I didn't do any of the obstacles or penalty burpees (for not completing the obstacles). I was just in a survival mode for the rest of the day, putting one foot in front of the other till I got to the finish. This is NOT how I want to do Spartan events. I really felt like I shouldn't get a medal, since in my mind I hadn't done the course as I should have. It was a real test of my mental stamina to get through the day, I felt like a failure just walking through the course. The last obstacle on the course was my favorite, the Hercules hoist. I walked over to it and completed it before attempting to do the fire jump with my husband. At the end I realized I could embrace my efforts and smile that I had kept going and didn't walk off the course, thanks to my husband's encouraging and sometimes stern words throughout the day. He knows what words work with my brain.

Anyway.....here are the "official" race photos of the day.

Barbwire crawl with his pack.

Dunk wall

Bender

As I said I walked around the obstacles on the second half of the course, just counting steps and miles off in my head as I fought off the waves of nausea & hoping I could just keep moving forward as my husband went through the obstacles.

I was going to walk around the fire jump but my husband encouraged me to jump over it for my finish.

I picked the lowest part of the fire and did my best.

A finish is always worth a smile no matter how the day went. I'm thankful for the Mustard bottle my husband brought along and that I didn't all out throw up on the course. At the finish my happiness wasn't measured by anyone else's standards or expectations, but that I had stayed true to me and my expectations and didn't walk off the course at mile 7.

My after finish photo.

I found this quote that states how I felt during the event "We love being mentally strong, but we hate situations that allow us to put our mental strength to good use". Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Garmin stats:

13 miles

1086 feet ascent

1024 feet descent

*sad note, I forgot my pack in the changing tent😢

Day 2 my husband's Sprint. As we drove down to the venue it began to rain, but by the time he started it had just become a mist off and on while he was on the course. Not too bad. I enjoyed watching him, he really had a good time on the course!