My last blog was all about my interview with Dan Tuffnell, Director of Spartan UK, the British branch of one of the major obstacle course race providers in the world. My reward for my interview with Dan was a free race entry to a race in 2014. Now in terms of my recovery from injury and also fitting in with a triathlon i already have booked for next month then i decided for the race in Edinburgh, a sprint race, which took place on 21st September…trust me to pick the race the furthest away…442 miles one way driving!! However, i decided to make it a mini-holiday by taking a few days off work and making it a long weekend so I could enjoy Edinburgh and boy did i enjoy! My prep for the race…8.5 hrs of walking on the saturday, sightseeing and then shopping, lol!
As i have said previously i have always fancied obstacle course racing but only recently started to think of doing them, given my recent focus on triathlon. However, given my strength, my previous rock climbing, and my decent pace as a runner, then i was quietly confident that I would enjoy and do pretty well at the obstacles. Saying that though, when i decided to enter the first wave, the "elite" wave, i did start to worry that perhaps i would be shown up & left lagging behind. My reasons for entering the "elite" wave were to test myself competitively against the best in the race, given that later waves would have to contend with a bottle necking at obstacles and therefore times being affected by queueing for obstacles, but also because i wanted to make the most of the day after the race in terms of sightseeing back in Edinburgh, so it was a practical reason as well as a competitive one, lol.
The morning of the race the weather was decent so i was happy to race in a sleeveless top and my favourite lycra running shorts. basically as little fabric as possible to get wet and weigh me down. I also wore for the first time my new Inov-8 Talon 212s which had been recommended to me by a OCR/triathlon friend in Karen Rees. They were like slippers on my feet, i hardly knew i had them on, other than they were rock solid on all slippery mud banks and i felt secure under foot throughout the race.
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| Event village behind me…race number head band! |
Getting to the venue was a little troublesome in that the supplied postcode took us in the wrong gate to the grounds of the country estate where the race took place, so that was something i think quickly got sorted given the number of drivers it affected. The registration was quick and easy and then into the event village. My only comparisons are from running races, triathlons, duathlons, etc. so the village was a good spread of tents with nice freebies to competitors after the event…whey ice cream which was delicious! a can of Coor's Light which i couldn't have as i was driving, dried fruit pouches, a fab tshirt, brilliant heavy medal, and coconut water which wasn't as foul as i expected but still not my cup of tea!
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| Didn't realise my face was filthy until after i'd been to Tesco! |
There were plenty of portaloos, i didn't have to queue at all! Also, there was a "spearman" warm up area which was quite addictive…the aim was to spear the hay bale with the spear without it touching the floor or dropping out. Hardly anyone achieved this as the spike was about 4 inches and the spear handle about 3 foot!! I hit the target every time, which i had hoped for given my tennis background and the accuracy of my serve, but i just couldn't get it to stick. On the race course this was the only obstacle that i didn't achieve, meaning only one set of 30 burpees, so i was well happy with that as it meant i nailed the monkey bars and the rope climb :)
At the race village was a music system with good music going but when it got to nearing my wave start time the music system packed in and it meant the start was delayed, not good when you've already warmed up and now need to keep warm surrounded by hundreds of other Spartans! Then a spartan warrior came out to give us our race briefing only the fixed sound system was poor so you couldn't hear what he said. The only other negative i'd say is that there was no information as to how to get race results or race photos and when i asked at the race they couldn't accurately tell me either! As it was the facebook site posted the results 2 days later (far longer than a triathlon) and i only found out about the photos being on the photographer's website through a Facebook friend telling me! All things that can be improved definitely.
On the plus side though, there was lots for spectators to see, with at least 5 obstacles in the centre for the spectators to get easy viewing access to. This meant that you could always hear people shouting for you, even though they didn't know me, and the marshals on the course were also encouraging and giving hints to obstacle completion if you needed them.
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| Trust me to pick the rope with the bell set higher than the others! Took me 3 swings and readjustments to finally hit the bell :) |
I wouldn't have liked to have fallen from the rope climb given there was only some hay beneath you! Just prior to this i had emerged from a stream where i'd had to wade for about 1 kilometre, initially shallow meaning you could jog through it but then it was slippery under foot, large boulders ready to bruise you, and then the water went up to mid thigh height and a slip took me right up to my neck which certainly took the breath away! After the stream you had a pyramid cargo net to go up and over with spectators able to walk underneath! Needless to say i didn't see any when i was on the cargo net as i was aware that one wrong placing of a foot would mean i slipped through possibly hurting myself badly. I could have been quicker on both cargo nets but this was my first time on these obstacles so i took the cautious route where as others, as the guy in the final one below went down front facing.
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| Slippery wall…rope climb to top & then hang on to top and hoist self over |
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| Cargo net down after the slippery wall the other side. Finish line in sight after the fire jump. |
The race instructions said 5k with 15 obstacles, however, i counted nearer 30 obstacles, so bang for your money in that respect! There were also plenty of natural obstacles like down mud banks into a stream and up the other side, also they'd pulled brush from the forest across the trails to make it more difficult to run through. We had wooden gate hurdles, which after the first few became more tricky as your legs tired and started to catch on the top…people started to walk over them which meant you had to also, there was a cargo net on the floor to crawl under, a number of different wall obstacles which have given my cracking bruises on the inside on my thigh as i used my heel to hook on top before pulling myself up using inside thigh. There was an inverted wall with 2 steps to help you beat gravity as you were basically about 45 degrees to the floor when you started off…we had a sand bag to carry - easy one for the girls, a tyre drag, again, very easy for the girlie one, we had monkey bars which must have been about 25 foot across? There was a wall traverse with foot and hand holds at points across the wall set at angles…if I'd failed this one I would have been gutted given my climbing skills. We had a barbed wire crawl which started out hands and knees, but then the wire got lower as the ground rose into a hill…stones on the floor meant this was painful and bloody…turned into a bear crawl/military crawl and it was longer than i had expected…nasty ;)
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| The most painful event…crawl under barbed wire on forest floor… plenty of stones under elbow/knee! |
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| Finished the crawl, now off to run again :) |
We had to climb a rope, no knots, not sure how high, maybe 25 foot again…with wet hands from the stream i wasn't sure how this would go, but once i had secured my feet using the J method i was on my way…I was aware of people from the crowd watching and think i had heard my mam shout when i first got to this obstacle. Then when i got to the top the bell was still out of reach, a few hand swings missed each time so i had to re-set, get my legs higher, drive up, and finally i hit it. I would have hated to have fallen from there though, that was have been one serious winding! I was careful going down, again, maybe losing some time, but rather that than rope burns!
There was a large ball (atlas ball) to either carry or roll…I opted to roll as first attempt let me know it was seriously heavy, but other lasses lifted it so knowing my strength i know if i had tried properly to lift it i could have gotten it up to my stomach to carry…the grass was super long so rolling it took time, lol. The last but one obstacle was a slippery wall with a rope to help you climb it until you got to the top when you grabbed the top but then had to clamber over…think next time i might try climbing further up before grabbing the top and the down on the cargo net again i took my time and the guy next to me was much quicker. All areas i could improve on but given this was my first attempt at all obstacles baring a little practice on a tiny rope in the gym then i did ok ;) All the strength ones i felt more than happy with, it's more about the technique on the cargo nets, and wall completion, that watching videos alone doesn't quite give you the experience. However, i was as prepared as i could have been with watching all the videos i could of obstacle completion and then doing the trx work, pull ups and bar hangs etc.
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| You could certainly feel the heat! |
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| I've always wanted to fly :) |
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| Finish line beckons :) |
After finishing i had no idea of my time, i had estimated between 1hr - 1:30 and my mother thought i was about 10th…we estimated my time to be 1:15 but this was a very rough estimate…as it turns out, i was 10th female, 5th in my age group, 137th overall in a time of 55:48 so happy, happy days, and yes, i was more than comfortable in the elite wave :) what this also means…I have qualified for the Obstacle Course Race World Championships next month in Cincinnati, Ohio!! I had to have placed top 20 age-group to qualify, so it seems a bit generous to be honest, but top 10, and 5th age-group isn't bad for a complete novice ;)
My decision is now whether i go or not…do i cut my teeth at more events, varied, as there are so many different types, and get more experience on these obstacles given there are no facilities locally that i can train specifically on, or do i take the opportunity (& expense) & then be able to say i have represented wales at tennis as a teenager, and then GB as an age-grouper in both triathlon at european championships, and then obstacle course racing in the worlds!! Would look good on a CV no?!
I also now have to consider next year…I love triathlon and duathlon, i love the speed element, i love my racing steed, i love riding my bike and running…but i'm also pretty good at this obstacle course racing and i wonder what i might be like if i shifted the weight i need to shift and train more for it rather than a few weeks of doing trx stuff?? I'd like to think i can juggle my season and fit a bit of everything in, but then there's the whole OCR world of UK champs, world champs, etc…might i be better at OCR than tri?? Also…i was not nervous at all about this race, maybe as it was my first one, but the swim part of tri still makes me nervous. However…when i crossed the finish line on sunday i knew i had more left in the tank, it didn't feel as big as an achievement as my first tri…does that mean i could have run faster? Does that mean tri is more of a challenge therefore means more? Does that mean that i need to pick tougher OCR events?
Spartan do three different race distances, sprint, which i did, super, which is likely double what i did, and beast, which is 20+k and more obstacles again…if you do all 3 in a season you get a special trifecta medal…that challenge is one that appeals to me for sure…but can i fit that in, around the tris i want to do?? However…other than the cracking DOMS i had in my upper body and core and the corker bruises i have on my legs, my calf and tibialis posterior are sound, no pain during, and no pain after…so maybe this can be cross training for tri??
Anyways, there are still a few events left this season for spartan and if you fancy one you can get 10% off by using the promo code of: youcanyouwill the atmosphere was great, everyone was friendly, i was in the zone, but still chatted to people and encouraged them during the race, plus the t-shirt is the best event t-shirt i've had, the merchandise stall was too tempting, and the goodies afterwards were well worth the trip!! #AROO !!!!!!!!!!!!!
