I am Spartan! Aroo!

Last Saturday I completed my first Spartan. My brother, his son, my daughter and I all got free races for volunteering so we raced during the volunteer heat (the last one of the day). We were literally the very last people doing the race....and were the very last people on the course for a long time. We ended up passing quite a few people once we got past the dreaded hills.

I will be honest...I was scared of doing the race. I was scared I wouldn't be able to physically finish it. I figured I would end up doing many, many, many burpees (you have to do 30 burpees for each obstacle you don't finish). There were 23 obstacles and I only had to do burpees for one. The last obstacle before the finish line; the rope climb.

Here is me doing my burpees... haha



The race stared out going up a very steep hill. We decided that we would run up it because we figured one of our spouses was videoing us so wanted to look good. Once we were out of their sight I had to slow down because my tachycardia kicked in and so did my arrhythmia. The first part of the race (a huge part of the race) was a lot of steep hills. We went to the top of a small mountain. I slowed down, but kept going. I finally got my tachycardia to slow down, but then I started getting calf cramps. I had to stop and stretch my calves out, but kept going.

I kept pushing myself. It felt good. I was determined that no matter what, I was going to finish. Thankfully they encouraged team work. So on some obstacles we helped each other. The ones I needed help with were things like the monkey bars because I just didn't have the upper body strength to hold myself up that long.

We got to the barbed wire crawl. This race is done on a motocross course. The barbed wire crawl was done on the "whoops jumps" area. So was a series of mini hills in a row for about 50 yards. It is muddy and long. It wasn't easy to crawl/roll under the barbed wire. My arms are pretty bruised up from it! But what really made it hard for me was that both my calves seized up. The cramp in each calf went from my ankles up almost to my knees. Solid, hard as a rock, cramps. It was incredibly painful! I kept trying to crawl through the pain and it just kept getting worse.



I finally decided to try one of the honey energy gel packs I brought that happened to have some potassium. Thankfully that wiped out the cramp! I was able to finish the crawl and move on to carrying a bucket of rocks up a steep hill. (side note hint: one of the workers told me that to prevent calf cramps in a race like that to take a couple Midol pills before the race. He swears by it!)

My daughter hit her shoulder blade real hard during the barbed wire crawl so was struggling to do much. I had her take a bunch of her rocks and add them to my bucket. It was so heavy and hard to carry since there wasn't a handle. It took us a while, but we were able to complete that challenge (course on the way down the hill, I slipped and fell... hit my bum hard on a large rock and spilled my bucket everywhere. Had to pick up as many rocks as I could and continue on)



After we got done with carrying the buckets of rocks up and down a hill, we had to climb up an insanely muddy hill! It was hard, but pretty fun too. I don't know why, but I do love challenges like that.



Completing this race is a very proud moment for me. I get to check it off my bucket list! :) It was challenging and I didn't give up. I pushed through the pain, I pushed through the challenges, and I did it. It may have taken me 3 hours and 43 minutes to complete, but what matter is that I did finish! I may be bruised...

....But I came out feeling better about myself and my abilities.

It is worth it to push past fears and challenge yourself to complete something you never thought was possible!