She thought she could, so she did.

Several months ago, I signed up for the spartan sprint obstacle race.  Since they do not publish what the course will look like, how long it will be, or what obstacles to expect, it is very much a surprise.  

The week leading up to this race I found myself having nocturnal nightmares about what the race would be like and during the day avoiding even addressing the fact that I had signed up.  The week before I was in complete denial that this race was even happening until the morning of when I woke up with a feeling of deep down dread. And, it didn't help when signing the pre race paperwork which consisted of this statement:

 I checked with my fellow racers, and they were feeling the same dread.  I pondered if this feeling was a *warning sign* for me not to race.  And, through my pondering, I realized that nope, this was just good old fashioned fear.  Fear that needed to be faced.

They publish that the sprint (the easiest of all the spartan events) is 3+ miles with 12+obstacles.  

3 miles my foot.

The course was over 5 miles with 15 obstacles.  The course went up Blue Mountain to the summit and back down.  

Some of the obstacles were:

Climbing over 8 foot high walls

Carrying a bucket full of rocks through a small course

Carrying a 20 pound sand bag down and back up a double black diamond ski slope.

Climbing a knotted rope.

Pulling a cement block attached to a chain through a retention basin.

Swimming under barrels in that same retention basin.

and more.

If one cannot complete an obstacle, then 30 burpees are to be performed.  Every obstacle had an area next to it where people were counting off their own burpees.  

The race is designed to shake up your notion of what your physical limits are.  And, I admit, my notions of what I can and cannot do needed a little shaking.  Lately, I have been thinking a lot of these:

I can't handle this heat.

I can't handle my kids.

I can't handle this or that.

You know that self talk?  The great thing about doing really hard physical challenges is that it is just an allegory for doing hard mental, emotional or spiritual things.   

Before the race I had guessed that the barbed wire obstacle would be...say, 50 feet at the most.  This thing was actually 100 yards, A FOOTBALL FIELD, it did not stop.  My first technique was to roll but after a while that gets really dizzying.  So, here was my final tactic a reverse army crawl (the female friendly army crawl) on my back over sharp rocks.  This, my friends, is why by the end of the race it looked like my hair was some place a small woodland creature would call home.

The final obstacle is running through quite intimidating, shirtless, sculpted gentlemen who happen to be brandishing...gladiator sticks.  Just go for it!  (notice the onlooker...gladiator taking a break).

Yay, they really were gentlemen, and only gave love taps to the females.

From left to right...
Beast (finished in 2 hrs), Amber Price, Lori, me, Shake and Bake
Shake and Bake's parents were there as spectators.  Chrissy had accidentally called Autumn "sister price" earlier that day.   As spectators you can ride the chair lift as many times as you want and watch the people race.  Chrissy then called Autumn Amber Price all day long and yelled it from the chair lift "Go Amber Price and Shake and Bake".   Chrissy and Brett were also waiting for us at the top of the mountain right when we needed some added encouragement the most!  thank you guys!

One final piece of advice, you may want to remove the previous day's mascara before racing.