Picture of the week ~ 46 years

"To have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part."

Portland Sprint Spartan Race 2017

The Spartan are coming!

This past Saturday we participated in the Portland Sprint. The race venue was at the Washougal MX park in Washougal, Washington. Our wave start time was 9am.

Course map and obstacles, some of the obstacles we can have help with but others we cannot. For every obstacle failed there is a 30 burpee penalty.

I was off to a good start this year. I was able to get over the start wall by myself, Hurray!!

The course began with a nice forest trail with blackberry bushes along the way. Yes, I did stop and pick a few. Yummy!

The first obstacle was the 2 over walls. They are shorter walls like the start wall. I got over those again by myself, that's a huge improvement from the other races I've been in. The course went up and down quite a bit in the next section. We had 2 hurdles to climb over.  Up and over, thanks to the boost from my husband. Next was our first water obstacle. A moat: mud slide down and back up the other side. We then came to the 7 foot wall. I always need a boost up and a spot coming down the other side. After that we had the inverted wall. For some reason this one always freaks me out. I was determined this time to not be so fearful when I got to it. I still needed help on it, but my attitude was much improved and I even think I may be able to get this one by myself in the future. The next obstacles were: the altas carry, the bucket brigade, the sandbag carry and the plate drag. When we got to the sandbag carry I told the photographer that we were married (this is our 46th wedding anniversary week).

The next obstacles were the monkey bars, olympus, rolling mud (in and out of water from steep banks - in and out) and the slip wall. My first 30 burpees were at the monkey bars. My husband succeeded in doing them. I was able to get help on the olympus, so no burpees there, whew!

The slip wall came right at the end of the rolling mud obstacle. We had so much mud on our shoes, the slip wall and rope were also covered in mud. We both tried it but we decided it would be unsafe for us to attempt. As far back as I had to lean to keep from sliding down, I felt like I would fall headlong backwards if I lost my grip on the rope, so we both bypassed the slip wall and did our 30 burpees. 

Next came the vertical cargo, hercules hoist, the twister, multi rig and the barb wire. 2 more sets of 30 burpees for me from the twister and multi rig. My husband almost finished the twister before he fell off, but he did complete the multi rig. So he only had 30 burpees from that section of the course. The barb wire was a crawl up and slide down low rollers (like an otter for me), while they sprayed water on us. I don't have any pictures of us going through but here's one from Spartan of what it looked like.

We then got to enjoy a nice part of the course through a park like setting. I really enjoyed walking through this area. It was nice transition. When we got to the A frame cargo net, I heard our friend Gretchen call out to us. She thoughtfully took some pictures of us going through this obstacle. Thanks Gretchen!

Next the tire flip. My husband hadn't been able to flip the tire at the Seattle Super in April, but this time he did! I flipped mine too, but no photo ☹

Three obstacles left: the rope climb, spear throw and dunk wall.

I failed the rope climb and the spear throw, my husband only failed the rope climb. So 30 more burpees for him. At this race, the starter gave us a different speech at the beginning. He said that if we can't perform our burpees we could substitute 30 of any other exercise we wanted, but we still had to do 30 of them. Burpees at the end of the event are huge leg cramp inducers for me, so after the 125 (5 were mandatory with the atlas carry) I'd already done, I decided (after getting approval from the obstacle supervisor), that I would replace my last 60 burpees with 60 jumping jacks. 

Finally the last obstacle - the dunk wall.

We didn't get any pictures of the finish water jump. 

*They didn't have a fire jump because of the fire hazard.

Again, A Spartan finisher!

I really enjoyed my free beer at the end.

We were part of the biggest team at this event, "The Beast OCR" team. As part of the biggest team perks you get the tent, free bag check, and a free spectator pass. They are a really great group, very supportive and encouraging.

Such a fun day.

Obstacles - 25 counting the start wall

penalty burpees for me - 185 (60 of which were jumping jack substitute): monkey bars, twister, multi rig, slip wall, rope climb, spear throw

penalty burpees for my husband - 95: twister, slip wall, rope climb + 5 mandatory at the Atlas carry

Garmin stats;

total miles - 5.04 miles 

(the course was around 4 miles, but my garmin kept tracking distance while I did my burpees 😁)

total ascent - 1781 feet