Spartan Sprint in Tuxedo, NY

	Plc O	Plc G	Plc A	Athlete	Sex	Age	Bib	Pace	Final
Claim	1196	968	161	Levi Smith	M	37	11422	28:29	1:53:58

Race Statistics

	Pace/Speed	Final Time & Place (O/G/A)
Place (A/G/O)	28:29	1196 5631 21%	968 3391 29%	161 605 27%

Ahh, where to start...

Took about 4 hours down.

Then it was mainly just trouble figuring out where to go.  First problem was I found the location, but there was just a sign saying "lot full" and then I was off in the middle of nowhere again for some distance...  But thankfully I happened to pull into the next driveway and accidentally found out this was actually the place to park and there was another entrance to the area.

Tried to get mostly ready in the car, but had a little over an hour before my heat and wasn't entirely sure how long it would take to get my wristband, etc and back or if I should just take everything and use the bag check or what exactly.

Headed up mostly ready, found my entry line and got my packet.  Only took about 10 minutes each way.

Back to the car, got ready, took my spibelt with a couple loksaks, one for my disposable waterproof phone with runkeeper, and the other for my carkey, fitbit and some cash.  They all survived just fine!

Also attached the bib to the spibelt and just tucked my shirt in that spot under the bib, so it was mostly visible for most of the race.

Oh, and had my spartan headband on.

Figured out how to get across the road and then realized that was more of the festival area.

Still looking around trying to figure out what's where.  Found the finish line in front of me.  Not obvious where the start was...

Wandered around, finally found a spot where I looked down the hill and around a corner was a sign saying starting line.

Stood there for a bit then heard someone say the starting line was actually farther up this road.

Headed up there, and saw the start line and a "warmup" section, but didn't think I wanted to do warmups.

Time was running out, and I realized, no wait, you have to jump over the warmup wall to get to the starting area.

Think I got there with just a couple minutes to spare before my heat.

Never did find the other New England Spahtens I might theoretically be running with.  

We started out and it was up the ski slope.  Nicely this is only a 400' hill that we'd be constantly going up and down for about 4.5 miles.

I don't know that I remember it all.  It was a ski slope, lots of rocks to climb over and we went up and down the entire time.

Most of the people seemed to be walking it, so I was actually faster than a lot of people even uphill, and as usual, faster than almost everyone going down.  It was a bit slippery going down as it was steep and lots of fine loose dirt on top.  It was generally better to go to the side where there were still some weeds to step on.

There were some like 5 or 6' walls, they were easy enough, and under and through a couple walls...

Later on we had 8' walls and I could jump up and grab the top and pull myself up about a foot.  I had to get a lift from others to get to the top so I could get a leg over.

There was some sort of stone/boulder carry. They seemed to be something like basketball sized, Dunno, 80lbs maybe?(nope, later found out it's about 110lbs)  Hard to tell, they weren't too bad to carry the maybe 15', do 5 burpees, then carry them back again, but getting them off the ground was rough without worrying of killing your back!

There was a cement block sort of weight with a chain on it you had to drag through a path.  Again, waiting for others.  The only hard part of that was when I tried to take pass someone and caught my block around a tree so i had to stop for a second.

Got to the monkeybars, WAY bigger than I had imagined.  Wasn't real sure I was going to do those at all, but surprisingly, it was just swinging the legs like a monkey and made it across without a problem!

Later was the same thing, but with a cargo net, more or less horizontal.  I thought for sure I would fail that one.  Not sure if it was actually tent shaped or just with weight on it, but once I was on it, I realized I was climbing up and the worst was the middle because it was attached to a bar, so I either had to REALLY stretch open my hand to grab the bar as well, or wasn't sure I was going to make it.  Took a couple extra swings, but I did manage to get my hand around just the net and on through and rang the bell!  WOOT!

There was the herculean hoist, not sure how much those bags weigh, but it was a matter of technique, thankfully the staff told me how, grab as high as you can and then let your weight pull it down.  It took some effort, but I got it all the way up and just as bad was getting it back down without dropping it, I took my time there cause I could tell it wouldn't take much for it to slip.

Right after that was the inverse wall where it angles back towards you like 45 degrees, so you have to like get your feet in front of you, then grab above you and then climb up a rung or two like that, and I got about my waist up to the top of the thing, but I was trying to get myself over it forwards and the lack of arm strength I currently had just wasn't cutting it.  I think I just switched to trying to get a leg over sideways and boom I had that too!

There was a big cargo net climb that was fun and easy, and something similar just made out of wood like a large ladder.  Also the slippery wall where you walk up a slippery incline with a rope and then down a ladder the other side.  No problem there either.

The traverse wall was about what I expected, difficult, but just keep your body tight against the wall, and be very careful placing your hands and feet one at a time.  The fivefingers may have helped with grip, dunno.  Biggest worry was my weak arms at that point and the guy behind me jumping right on and bouncing it a bit.

They had an option to pick your own way, which simply said this way is shorter, this way is longer single track.  I was daring and went the shorter way which the guy said was just tires.  Had no problems high stepping through the tires.

The spear throw which I had practiced for a couple days beforehand and was at a maybe 60% success rate... Well, this time it was with weak arms and UPHILL AND the bales I think start at about 6' off the ground which was about where mine ended, so I wasn't sure.  In the end I wasn't far off, but it was burpees for me.

The rope climb was the other big burpee failure.  I picked the one with the most/closest knots, but I didn't realize they were still too far apart to be able to just put your feet on each time.  And again with the arm strength at that point...  Well, I tried for a few minutes, managed to get my crotch up on top of one of the knots, but I didn't have the hang of the foot grip and definitely didn't have the arm strength to pull up, barely enough to hold my weight for a few seconds, and I just looked up and realized I wasn't even out of the water, let alone the next 15' or whatever and I had already used up what little arm reserves I had just trying to get to where I was that was maybe a few feet off the bottom of the pool.

And of course the burpees sucked.  I did all 30, but not with the pushups, there was no way I had the arms for that.

Oh, the 40lb sand bag carry.  Yeah, that didn't seem too bad at first.  Then about 15 seconds in after climbing about 10' up a ski slope, "yeah, this really kinda sucks."  About 30 seconds in, *I* almost came to a dead stop, and that's one thing I'm good at, is to just keep moving.  I may not run for all of my runs, but I never have a need to stop walking.  I switched to locking my hands in front of me and carrying it down there for part of the way instead of my right shoulder. eh.  Then tried the left shoulder, but that seemed to be worse.  Back to the front for a while, then the last bit of uphill I switched it to behind my neck with a hand on either side, which *might* have been the least bad...  But then it was downhill and while I hadn't had trouble running down the hills before, it was not a fun time while trying to hold 40lbs and realizing that if I DO fall, I don't have free hands to help catch myself!  But I made it!

Oh, there was a log carry as well.  I just picked the first one, which I think judging by the staff comment may have been the largest one there.  It was heavy, but not too bad.

Not sure what else I'm probably forgetting...

Of course there was the fire jump at the end, but that was even a bit scarier than I thought(cause I wasn't worried about it) because it was of course on a ski slope and the way it was angled I was running downhill at it, but couldn't see the other side!  But I figured, "hey, I've seen these in plenty of pictures, it's gotta just be a step to the other side, right?" And sure enough as I got close to it, I could see where I was jumping to, so no problem! (:

Then the AWESOME medals.  They did both the full and the trifecta piece on one strap.  You could tell the finishers cause they all were clanging around as they walked.

Have to say these are the best medals and most earned of any race I've done!

They also had a good amount of water on the course I was happy to see, and water at the end along with bananas, clif Builder bars and CorePower milk.  YUM!

Then I  found the shower section which was nice because I had heard the showers were usually a trickle of water, but these were nice powerful garden hoses(with a high pressure option).  So I just hosed myself off, then picked up my finisher shirt which I also quite like.

Then back out to the car, I just changed clothes there and then headed on home as I was already a good hour later than I was hoping to be!

Oh, and it was nice to see by the results that I'm around the top 25%!

Hopefully some good pictures soon, we'll see!

And yes, I feel a bit crazy about the Super and Beast, but we shall see!

Oh, yes post race...
Didn't feel too bad that night.
Next day, the bruises and scrapes on my knees and elbows were hurting.  I think a bit of muscle soreness.
2 days later, the scrapes and bruises aren't hurting but the muscle soreness kicked in!  Yep, definitely used the pecs, back and arms!  It hurts to flex my arms!