Race Recap: Spartan Super Fort Carson

Spartan Super Fort Carson 7/13/19 Colorado Springs, CO

Weather: 90 degrees, sunny, dry

Terrain: Desert, steep hills

Distance: 9 miles, 27 obstacles

I didn’t even know if I’d make it to Colorado. My flight from Cedar Rapids to Denver was delayed by SIX HOURS due to mechanical issues, and then I encountered a big traffic jam between Denver and Colorado Springs in my rental car. I managed to arrive at my hotel around 10 PM, which would give me a total of maybe 14 hours at altitude before my race start. Had a restless night of sleep, then drove to the venue in the morning and was allowed a wristband for an earlier wave (10 AM). Being on a military base, our bags were searched by bomb-sniffing dogs, which was definitely a first for me. Thankfully the bomb-sniffing dog was not enraged by my Fig Newtons.

Terrain description for brevity – it’s in a desert. Sandy dirt, cacti (pro tip: wear long tights at this venue), and loose rocks abound. Shade is a rare commodity, since the trees and bushes are all about 6 feet tall. The elevation chart for this race looks like a bar graph, that’s how steep the ups and downs were. The entire race I walked, taking it very slow both up the hills (resting a lot) and down the hills (tenderly creeping down so as not to twist anything). Also worth mentioning: it was incredibly hot. We’re talking 90 degrees plus, and quite sunny. The combination of altitude, hills, and heat were absolutely murdering people in general. Let’s just say there was a lot of puking going on around me.

The first mile started easy, with overwalls and hurdles and hardly any hills. I made friends with a 72-year-old obstacle racing newbie named Dean, who’s from Colorado. We went through a low (rolling required) barbed wire crawl that was, thankfully, cactus-free, although we all got covered with hay-like grass. The slip wall was not slippery whatsoever. I got over Stairway to Sparta without needing a boost, for the first time ever. Then we hit the first really big, really steep hill. I realized, all at once, that I felt exceptionally unfit. Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the altitude, but this race was taking a LOT out of me and there was a flash of “what if I don’t finish?” And I was only at mile 2.

This is not the "roll in the hay" I had in mind.

Suck it up, woman. Onward and upward, stopping frequently, until I reached Olympus at the top. It was dry as a bone and I was able to quickly work my way across using the holes and chain balls. I went at least 33% faster than I had in Ohio and never felt like I was in danger of slipping off. Next was Bender, which I usually hate, but I easily got up and over without even feeling like I would die ONCE. “Huh,” I thought. “Pretty good day.” Again, I was DYING on the hills and in the heat.

Pipe lair and the 7’ wall were easy peasy. Then I saw Twister. Calmly mounted the thing, got into my quick sideways shuffle, and worked my way across. Only this time felt different. This time felt EASY. Only two sections, and although I’d never made it to a section transition before, this time I just quickly and easily worked through the center still part to the other twisting part and kept going. And rang the bell. “HOLY SHIT” my brain was screaming over and over. I cheered on Dean but he slipped off and had to do burpees, so I pressed onward, saying “you’ll catch me on the hills!” He never did. Dean, if you are reading this, let me know how you ended up doing!

The next obstacle was The Box, which had the short ropes yet again. There was a penalty loop instead of burpees, but the folks around me and I were like “no penalty loops for us today! Let’s Tough Mudder this shit!” We formed a coalition and got each other over the wall. A Jason Momoa lookalike got up first and helped grab people. I was boosted by a lovely man and hauled myself the rest of the way by grabbing the bar, then the back of The Box, and pulling myself forward. I helped up a couple people afterward. We were all in this together. Immediately afterward was a water station that had…brace yourselves…bananas. Dear god. Bananas. In a Spartan race. We had never seen such luxury in all our days. There were literally DOZENS of us standing around eating bananas and drinking water and laughing and joking and saying “wow, this race is insane, right?!” As if to smile upon us from heaven, a giant puffy cloud went by as I was sitting and eating, creating a tiny bit of shade and eliciting an audible sigh from everyone at the Banana Luncheon. It was one of the greatest moments of our lives.

And then we went up another steep hill. Onward and upward, yet again. Passed the mile 5 marker and got to Beater, which I was able to do relatively easily. I felt super confident from completing Twister (something I honestly didn’t think I’d do in the next year) and Beater sure wasn’t gonna get me, not on today. Downhill to the plate drag, which was the first heavy carry of the day. My lane had a hump in it and after a few seconds I managed to get the sled over it. The volunteer told me I was the first woman who’d gotten the sled over that particular hump. HELL YEAH.

The nearby sandbag carry was long and challenging, but I made it through without stopping. Mile 6, followed by A-frame cargo, then Z-walls. Up another hill back past the festival area, where we enjoyed the energy of the spectators and were greeted immediately by the dreadnought spear throw. The woman in front of me nailed it dead center so I got that good juju from having to yank the spear out of the target. Geared up, deep breath, threw. STUCK. I fell to my knees with relief. Only my second spear ever. (A mile later, a dude complimented me on that spear throw, and I thought “…are my obstacle skills becoming…LEGENDARY out here?”)

After spear was the rope climb. Got out my dollar gloves and worked my way up. My feet were not locking in very well. It took a lot of upper body for me to hold myself on rope just enough to scoot up. My scoots were small. But I got closer and closer to the top until I finally rang it. My hardest rope ever that I was still able to clear. By now I was so overwhelmed by both the difficulty and by this personal success that I sat down and rested for another few minutes. Who cared how long it took to finish? I was running CLEAN. For the first time ever. Went to the vertical cargo net, which had a platform. This time I vowed to get up onto it by myself, so I hauled myself up, got my ribcage up, and pushed myself forward on the platform with my hands until I could grab the back of it. Done.

Downhill to the bucket carry past mile 7, which did not go well. I tipped over my first bucket to grab the bottom, only for all the rocks to spill out about 10 feet into the carry. Went back and got another bucket, this time keeping it upright and grabbing the harder part. I needed to rest half a dozen times. I have never rested on a bucket carry in my life, and I’ve done some toughies. I wasn’t the only one, either. Saw a photographer coming up so I rested one last time and went in guns blazing.

Oh, hello there! What a surprise! (cough)

Water stop with more pukers. When I dumped a cup of water over my head, all I could taste was salt. Tons of salt. I knew I was losing a ton of electrolytes even though I was mainlining Tums. Oh well. Sauntered over to the multi-rig which was in Super mode (4 rings, a bar, 2 rings). Got through it pretty easily, although the transition to the bar took a bit of time because it was a bit high up. We then had rolling mud and the dunk wall, which was particularly disgusting on this occasion. Tons of stuff floating in the water. We’d spent the whole race clean as whistles and now we looked like the Swamp Thing family reunion.

The Creature From the Filthy Lagoon

Atlas carry (I was struck by the realization that we were at mile 8 and these were the first burpees I’d done all day), then up the very last hill to the Herc hoist, which was heavier than usual. Used my gloves, thankfully. Then a quick inverted wall which was boiling hot from the sun, followed by the last obstacle, monkey bars. Although my entire race had been clean to this point, I felt zero pressure. It’s not like I ever expected to run a clean race today. In fact, I was even more okay with falling off the bars because I hadn’t done a billion burpees like usual. I made it about 2/3rds of the way across before my left hand just slipped right off the forward bar. And I ripped my hands in three places. Ouch.

Am I too old for this shit?

I did my burpees in sets of 6 (I had a surprising amount of energy) and got them done fairly quickly, then jumped over the fire to finish in a bit over 5 hours. By far my worst Super time ever, and probably my worst pace in any race (although the course was definitely longer than 8.2 miles or whatever Spartan officially claimed). But only failing one obstacle makes it also, by far, my most successful race ever. What a confidence boost that my training is going in the right direction. Everything clicked and came together, and despite the heat and the hills and the altitude, this may have been my best performance yet.

Hip hip hooray!

Pros:

-Difficulty. I had no idea what to expect with the altitude, but that ended up being the least of my worries. The hills are no joke. All the native Coloradans I spoke to were freaked out by the steepness and frequency of hills in this race.

-Dry conditions. The fact that there was almost zero mud and fairly low humidity made all the obstacles much easier. Sweat evaporated easily from our hands, and a dry Olympus is an easy Olympus.

-People. The heat and hills brought everyone together in such an incredible way. I had a legitimately GOOD TIME out there, and that’s because of all the awesome folks who joked together, commiserated together, shared resources and assistance, and gave out awesome high fives.

Cons:

-Heat. July can be a crapshoot, even (especially?) in the Rockies, and most participants were really struggling in the 90+ temps.

-Uneven/treacherous terrain. I enjoyed it, but it could be a con because it requires a lot of constant diligence to not sit on a cactus or roll your ankle on a rock. I recommend that people with weak ankles avoid this one.

-Obstacle spacing could have been a little better. I don’t mind that the course was somewhat backloaded, but it took us over 5 miles to get to a heavy-carry obstacle, and I would have preferred one a little sooner.

Race Grade: A. Challenging, fun, well-rounded, great people. Couldn’t ask for much more. (Maybe cooler weather.)