Spartan Race 2013

Shelly & Mark Ewell, Travis & Meredith, Gary & Cara Smith

About a year ago all these husbands signed up all of us for a Spartan Race without any of the wives permission (8.5 mile race in mud with crazy obstacles).  Needless to say I have been mad at Travis for this past year for signing me up!  I had dreaded everyday up to it(and I made sure Travis knew it)......but the day arrived. Read the tag below and it will tell you what a hard course this is and they mean business!!!

First of all it had been raining the past 2 days prior so the whole 8 miles was in mud, half of the 8 miles was so steep it was like hiking.  The obstacles were really hard, a couple times I was really close to crying and had to stop myself.  It was all individual obstacles, there were some I had to have Travis's help on like climbing over 8 foot walls & dragging tractor tires(so heavy). I did things that I would have never done in my life! Here are some of the obstacles: Climbing walls, carrying sandbags up hills, climbing rope nets, carrying a 5 gallon bucket full of dirt (3/4th full for girls and totally full for boys) up a steep hill and down was probably one of the hardest for me, flipping huge tires, dragging a chunk of cement around a course, rope climb (I didn't even attempt so in place of skipping an obstacle you have to do 30 bur-pees), jump over fire, get hit by gladiator men, javelin throw, drag a huge tire with your hands one way and by a rope for the way back, monkey bars, rock wall, balance on wooden beams,  roll in mud under barbwire all while a huge fire hose is drenching us (seriously we rolled forever) sliding belly first into mud holes to my waist, jumping into a lake in the middle of winter and swimming (Ummmm I barely even get into my pool in 90 degree weather).  The water was so cold I could barely breathe and couldn't even speak for a minute into the swim.  A lifeguard had to ask me twice if I was ok. Travis had such bad cramps he was told to walk in the shallow end of it, but ended up falling in anyway. 

At about mile 5 Travis hurt his knee and was limping on and off the rest of the way. From all the mud puddles we had pebbles in our shoes with wet socks for the most of the run.  I ended up having to roll up my pants because with all the mud and water they seriously weighed like and extra 8 lbs! We came in at 3:18hrs and 3:19hrs between the mud and Travis's knee I think we would have gotten a better time, but ultimately I was just happy to say I actually finished it AND I didn't break anything! That was my kids first question when I called "Did you break anything?!" 

I have to say I am happy I did it, but I won't promise I will do another one! The endurance was fine for me, it was the obstacles that was hard.  It's the type race where you not only just need endurence, but also strength. That night when I took a shower, I had dirt and gravel EVERYWHERE!  After we were all clean, we slept that night like a baby! We were all joking that we were going to wear our metals to church the next day!

Summary: Glad it is done, but I have to say it felt pretty cool to be called a Spartan Chick!