Race Recap: Spartan Beast Chicago

Spartan Beast Chicago 9/8/18 Attica, IN

Weather: 60 degrees and raining

Terrain: ATV park - 80% gravelly sand, 20% muddy forest/streams

Distance: 13+ miles, 30 obstacles

This is it. My A-race for the year. The A-race of my LIFE. I did the Spartan Obstacle Specialist training on Friday and was very pleased, not only with the training itself (which was fantastic! I got such good practice and advice!) but with the preview of the course. It rained all throughout the training, which was another sort of preview. I was happy to see that the course's high volume of wet sand was fairly easy to navigate and that this race wouldn't be Chicago Super 2.0 with deep mud throughout. Feeling confident!

Showed up Saturday morning bright and early to find dark, cold, and rainy weather. I was in the first Open wave at 8:45 AM. Parking was fairly smooth and I had a pleasant 5-minute walk to the festival. Check-in had a bit of a line but went very quickly once I got to the front of it. I had decided to wear my jacket because the "real feel" was in the mid-50s and I was legitimately concerned about hypothermia. I really wish I'd brought a better light long-sleeve with me. Despite being tech fabric, my jacket gained a couple pounds when soaked. Lesson learned. Checked my bag (which I stowed inside my own garbage bag from home! Never check your bag on a rainy day without one!) and got into the corral where everyone was in great spirits. Off we go!

Well, the first mile of the course took us through some real mud. I was having Chicago Super flashbacks and I felt terrible for telling all the nice people on The Internet that the course had almost no mud. There were also tons of rocks, puddles, and streams to trip us up. Eek. First obstacle was a 6' wall that I barely managed to get over by myself, using a technique I learned in my SOS training because I hurt my back a couple weeks ago (now THAT was a terrifying couple of weeks pre-race). We came out of the muddy woods near the start line for obstacles 2 and 3, Olympus and monkey bars. Of course, I immediately failed both of them. Two sets of burpees. I did every set of burpees unmodified because I did NOT want an asterisk by this finish. This is the Beast, dammit. (Spoiler alert: I did a lot of burpees.) Also I got hot, so I took my jacket off.

The fourth obstacle, Hurdles, was roped off with caution tape so we weren't allowed to do it. Apparently it was structurally unsound, constructed in the middle of a sand pit. We moseyed over to the vertical cargo net, which is generally a total gimme obstacle, but this one was very stretched and loose netting. People struggled a bit, and the struggle was real. After getting back down I realized I had somehow pulled my left hamstring right above the knee. I tried to jog but every step with that left leg hurt. Walking felt fine, but running didn't. SHIT. It was only 1.5 miles into the race and I am a lot of things, but I'm not stupid, so...the plan became to walk the entire Beast. Fortunately I am a well-trained and conditioned walker and I wasn't limping. The situation could be worse.

O-U-T was next and went smoothly, as did the A-frame cargo net (which I already knew from SOS was another loose net). The barbed wire crawl through muddy puddles was the best barbed wire crawl I've ever done. At least I had butt clearance with the higher wires. Unfortunately the wire caught the bottle in my Camelbak and punched a hole in it, but it still held MOST of the water inside. We passed the mile 3 mark and I realized I was already counting down how many miles were left - never a good sign. Next was a 7' wall that I got over in SOS training, but I needed a boost today. My back issue felt alright but I didn't have great shoulder mobility and I didn't want to press my luck on tall walls. On the next wall, which was a 9' behemoth, I got my boost and made it to the top, but then coming back down I hit my wrist awkwardly and landed pretty abruptly. Thankfully my lower body was totally fine, but my right wrist was bleeding and felt swollen right away. I washed the sand out of it at the luckily-nearby next water stop, and fortunately it stopped actively bleeding immediately but I definitely banged my timing chip against my inner wrist and bruised myself, scraping the plastic bracelet holding it against my skin. Ouch. And this will NOT be clean for hours.

At the top of a gravelly sand dune was the multi-rig, which I got nowhere on. I did ask the photographer to take a picture of me swinging on the first ring and he was kind enough to oblige. A+ service! 

Serving you Failure Eleganza

Third set of burpees. There was a woman doing single-arm squat thrusts with her other arm in a cast. There are some bad ass folks at these events. We went back down the sand dune (let me just say, most of these sand dunes were deep, loose sand. Way churned up since Friday's SOS, eeeek) and found the Atlas carry, which I did without too many issues. After the mile 4 marker was an 8' wall where I got a lovely boost, then a sandbag carry with a small bag (but still heavy) through the sand dune. It was fairly brutal, not gonna lie. It was long, on tough terrain, and the bag wasn't a nice long bag so it was harder to carry. Normally heavy carries are my jam, too.

At the top of another dune stood Bender. I had a really bad feeling about it even as I was approaching. I got a boost up to the first bar and tried to stand up. NOPE. NOPE. I did NOT feel safe. The metal bars mixed with the rain and the sand were so slick I felt like I could fall off at any second, from a not-insignificant height. I had to ask a very kind man to help get me down ("safety first!" he said, bless that man) and I did my fourth set of 30 burpees with the other folks who didn't feel like dying today. 

Another nice long walk to Tyrolean Traverse, which we'd also covered in SOS training but I got nowhere during that because the water on the rope was blinding my face whenever I grabbed the damn thing. This time the rope was less drippy and I tried to just go without thinking about how far I'd gone or how much farther was left. Unfortunately I had to hear the guy next to me tell his friend how far along HE was, so it blew that plan! I made it about 75% through, then my left foot started cramping up. I tried to stretch it while keeping it on the rope, but my calf wouldn't let me. Again, I'm no fool, I'm not out here trying to screw myself out of a finish at the halfway point, so I let go. Thirty burpees for the fifth time. But this time I did them on a door-sized piece of wood that was near the burpee pit. So comfortable! I will take whatever comfort I can get after 5 sets of burpees, dammit. Then was a plate drag, which was easy despite being uphill in sand. I love being huge. :)

Mile 8 marker, then the Z-Walls, which we'd also seen at SOS. One of the tips we'd gotten is to do some recon and see which lane has good blocks that are nicely positioned, so I already knew I wanted the left side of the middle lane. Went through it slowly but surely and rang the bell with a very patient guy waiting right behind me on my lane! He was very nice about it. I really didn't want to do burpees by the Z-Walls, this was a brand new adventure in terrain with a sloppy Wet Clay everywhere. Somewhere around here I started to feel cold so I put my jacket back on. Long walk to Stairway to Sparta, which I got a boost onto (by a VERY strong man who just literally picked up my thighs and lifted me straight up like I didn't weigh over 160 lb with wet gear on! Kudos, sir!) and easily got up over. High structures are a breeze in this weather and sand when they're made of WOOD. Not metal. Bender. *cough*

Just past mile 9 was the bucket carry. The weight was fine. The terrain was rough. I was one of the few people I saw who did NOT take a rest on this obstacle. I knew if I stopped I might never get going. Having sandy hands and buckets hurt the grip a bit even though I turned it upside down, too. It was a long bucket carry and I was glad when it was over. 

This bucket might as well be GLUED to my hands.

But then we climbed a steep dune and did the Herc Hoist, which was another heavy obstacle that was affected by sand! At this point between all the sand and the burpees on rocks/gravel/sand, my hands felt like hamburger meat. After mile 10 we had a second barbed wire crawl (a bit tougher than the first but still not terrible), followed by rolling mud (with no water) and dunk wall (with DEEP water). The dunk wall went about 15" under the surface of the water. It was intense. I just held my nose with one hand and the bottom of the wall with the other and threw myself underneath it. At this point I was glad I'd put my jacket back on, because some protection is better than none.

Walked past the gawking, excited spectators to easily do the inverted wall, then I attempted the rope climb, which I'd also learned how to do at SOS. Sadly, today my hands basically went numb and stopped working when I was about 75% of the way up. Dang. Time for the 6th set of burpees! I wised up and did them with my hands in a puddle for rock protection, plus I pulled my jacket sleeves down to cover most of them. Went down another sand dune to the slip wall, which was very easy and in the middle of a giant-puddle-filled valley near the parking lots. It was a really long walk (with a random photographer in the middle of it, nice) past the 11-mile marker to the second sandbag carry, which was way more pleasant than the first one because it had the long sandbags that are easy to sling over the shoulder. The terrain was the same loose sand, though. At this point I was really thanking god that my ankles were strong and that I wasn't getting leg cramps like everyone else. Seriously. If you are susceptible to leg cramps, you might want to avoid this venue like the plague.

Long walk past mile 12 (I gave away a Nutter Butter to a very excited man) to the finishing gauntlet. Twister. My archnemesis. I of course immediately failed and began my 7th set of burpees, which were, frankly, getting a bit tiring at this point (YA THINK?). And I knew the last real obstacle was spear throw, which I never hit, so I was bracing myself for a bad finish. Walked up the hill and around the corner. Saw the festival. Saw the finish line. Saw the spearmen. I went to the second station which had the spear laying on the ground, never a good omen. Got it into position just as I'd practiced at SOS when I threw the thing about 30 times (and stuck it 3 times, for a whopping 90% failure rate). Three deep breaths. Throw. And a perfect stick. I YELPED. I SCREAMED. The people coming up to the spear stations let out a mighty cheer. It was an out of body experience. I'd missed every spear throw in every Spartan race I'd ever done. I'd only ever stuck three spears in practice, when there was zero pressure. But I hit this one right when it really counted. I would not have to do an 8th set of burpees today. With that stuck spear, I became a Beast finisher. Sixteen months of training, over 30 pounds of body fat lost, several pounds of muscle gained, proving myself TO myself that I could do obstacle races. In one stuck spear.

I ran (hamstring be damned, my adrenaline was riding so high I didn't feel it now) over the fire and across the finish line in 6 hours and 10 minutes. Yes, I cried. It was the race of my life, comparable only to my 46-minute-PR marathon in Chicago in 2012. Got my FitAid and my checked bag, enjoyed the cold wash area (which was actually WARM water, which felt freaking amazing), bought a venue t-shirt, and hit the road for leftover pasta and the hotel hot tub.

GLORY! GLORY! GLORY!

Pros:

-Course. The obstacles were nicely spaced and, between the hills and the sand, the terrain was so uniquely challenging and awesome.

-People. From volunteers to participants, just an awesome camaraderie.

-Challenge. This was just such a huge challenge, and I love it. I felt like a Navy Seal with all the "wet and sandy" we had. Going through such a challenging race is a great way to learn new techniques and tricks.

Cons:

-I would have liked at least one more photo spot.

-Weather. Obviously this cannot be controlled, but the active rain really put a damper (LOL puns) on the grip obstacles!

-Body Armor, where are you? You are delicious. FitAid is fine but I was craving that Body Armor.

Race Grade: A. Another great, tough event.