Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Spartan Race: Sun Peaks September 26, 2015

I was registered for the ultra beast spartan race in sun peaks sept 26. Ended up going there for the weekend, the whole village was filled with positive spartans! The Ultra beast races are 42+ km long and have 30+ obstacles. We started at 7:45am, it was already sunny out so we didn't need head lamps. There was a severe long incline, the worst i think was the barb wire crawl with frozen water and of course the constant uphill. There was also roughly a 2km extended path separate from the beast that the Ultra Beasts had to complete during both laps. The cut-off time for the first lap was 12.00pm but has been pushed to 1.30pm and the final lap has been pushed from 5pm to 6.30pm (i believe they changed that to 6.45 or 7 after). All was good until the 20th km, my knees were giving up, and was hard to run downhills. By the end of the first lap i was walking backwards on the down-slopes in pain. There was many moments where i had past racers and they past me, and i past them again, etc. When i finished lap 1, I ate a banana and a wafer before heading back up the mountain. Found a walking stick to help me, it still didn't reduce the pain i had on my knees when i was walking downwards. After a dozen racers had past me, one offered me some isopropyl which helped tremendously. I started to jog again. After a few more kilometers I was asking the racers and volunteers for more advil or isopropyl which basically gave me the strength to overcome the knee pain and complete this course. I knew the cutoff time was getting close. Most of the second lap consisted of me doing burpees as I completed them a lot faster than other racers completed the obstacle. I ended up doing those burpees for the double sandbag carry, UB burlap sack carry, 3rd barbed wire crawl, hobbie hop, and bucket brigade. I ended up sprinting the last 5km, passed my friend Al on the double sandbag carry hill. Sprinted in the second UB extended lap, passed batman who was carrying the burlap sack, basically passed anyone doing any of the carry obstacles as burpees was the faster way to complete. I was always asking the volunteers for the time as I had only a few minutes left, basically crying until I reached the finish. I completed the course in just under 11 hours at 6:35pm. The course was approximately 52km (included both UB extended paths) and 11,000ft of elevation. Total UB finishers was 55/209. I'm proud to say i completed the Ultra Beast! :)