On the 6th of October, my sister Laura, best friend Amee, husband Chris and I journeyed out to the Brisbane ranges to run our second Spartan race this year. This will add a pretty blue medal to our red one! It also means we have finished 2 thirds of our trifecta! That was really exciting! And I had missed obstacle racing, since the last one was our true grit course back in May! It was a long time coming for a good mud run!
Of course we first started with some healthy omelettes for breakfast and chopped some orange wedges for our post race pick-me-up.
When we arrived, we were shivering as we walked to the course. Not quite sure if it was shivering from the cold or sheer adrenaline pumping as we approached 14km of torture!
As you can see on the map to the right, we had good reason to. Plenty of mud, sweat and tears (well, for me at the end). We hit a lot of walls, all different heights of 4ft, 5ft, 6ft, 7ft and the big 8 footer!
Among the walls we had huge creek runs through thick mud, water and squishy creek beds. It was treacherous because you would be running along and suddenly become thigh deep in thick mud because you have stepped in a ditch! As you can see in some of the pictures, we had a bit of fun in the mud. Amee lost her shoe in one pit when she jumped in!
While we trekked up and down the rolling hills we balanced over beams, pulled ourselves up walls of mud, climbed ropes, dragged concrete blocks, carried sandbags and all in 5 hours of work!
The picture of this hill just did not do it justice. It was epic, as we approached it our jaws dropped and our hearts pounded. It was just massive.
The picture below gives you an idea of how vertical it is, people have to basically crawl up it! It was really, really tough!
Laura conquered the 8ft wall all on her own!
I smashed the Hercules hoist! We had to hoist up a 20kg kettle bell to the top of the rope which was maybe 4-5 metres high. I was happy with how easy I found it!
We crawled across cargo nets, slid down muddy hills, even swam through the mud at the bottom of these hills! There was a surprise dead lift challenge where females had to lift a 35kg dead ball and males had to lift a 55kg dead ball. By 2 thirds of the way through the course I was so tired and weak I couldn't even squat down and roll it over my knees to TRY and lift it! It was impossible to do! And so many people copped burpees for it!
Unfortunately I begun to fatigue quite early, my muscles were already sore from running around the CBD of Melbourne the day prior doing the amazing race! I could barely jog any of the flat ground, I felt like my muscles were bruised each time I bounced! I struggled about halfway through the 14km. I was cold and tired and just wanted to push through to finish.
All up I wasn't surprised with the burpees I had to do for missed obstacles. I missed the rope climb, monkey bars, spear throw, dead ball carry and the traverse wall.
Unfortunately I begun to fatigue quite early, my muscles were already sore from running around the CBD of Melbourne the day prior doing the amazing race! I could barely jog any of the flat ground, I felt like my muscles were bruised each time I bounced! I struggled about halfway through the 14km. I was cold and tired and just wanted to push through to finish.
All up I wasn't surprised with the burpees I had to do for missed obstacles. I missed the rope climb, monkey bars, spear throw, dead ball carry and the traverse wall.
Finally, we jumped the fire pit and tackled the gladiators for a spectacular finale!
Was it all worth it in the end? Hell yes!
Can't wait til we get to the 21km to complete our trifecta in Sydney!!!
