As I jumped (or more like flopped) over yet another muddy wall, hand aching, knees throbbing, and my entire body trembling from the freezing rain, I contemplated the psychology behind the wild success of the Spartan Race.
The amount of money people will pay to torture themselves, just to be able to say they could endure the pain. It seems idiotic, really, but at this moment, I’m quite proud to call myself one of these idiots.
The course was 14.7 miles at Squaw Valley, starting at 6,050 feet and going up to 9,200. It was the world championship this year, and as we waited for our heat to start we can hear the announcer call out the winners of the elite heats. 3:15 for both men and women. I can’t even hike that fast.
Our group of 19 had decided long ago to just hike the course. Yet when the gate opened up, we couldn’t help but rush out with the crowd. The first obstacle was over a couple of walls and jumping into some muddy ditches. Of course, they wouldn’t want you to stay dry too long. I slipped as I came out of the second ditch and pounded my hand on a rock and quickly swelled up into a lovely purple bump. Combined with the scrape I sustained while learning how to climb a rope right before the race, my left hand was going to be mostly useless the rest of the race.
For better or worse, the obstacles were far apart given the long distance of the course. I discovered to my pleasant surprise that the altitude didn’t affect me much and I could run at a somewhat normal pace. Well, normal for climbing a rocky mountainous trail anyway.
The first obstacle I failed was the monkey bars. I simply didn’t have the upper body strength to hold on, and didn’t want to risk bringing back my old habit of shoulder dislocation this early. This was when I realized how much a bruised hand hurts when doing burpees.
Well, there were many obstacles to fail from then on, and I gradually gave up on the burpees. I mean, I never did the full 30 to begin with, and after a while the number just started dwindling in direct correlation to my energy level. I was lucky to have an awesome team who were always there to help me over a tall wall, and there were many of those. Not only that, our spirits never dwindled, even when it started to hail.
Yes, it hailed during the course.
Our group had split in two by then and I was thankfully in the earlier group that just got the freezing rain. This was after we were completely soaked from swimming in the lake, so the chill effect was less dramatic. I was running as fast as I can for no reason other than to keep my body temperature up and stop shaking uncontrollably. We had heard someone getting treated for hypothermia after the swim, and I certainly didn’t want to fall into that category.
My right knee started hurting around mile 6, which I expected due to the lingering tendonitis that never wants to leave. By mile 10, the other knee also started to hurt, along with my right foot. At this point my entire driving force was the desire to get out of the cold without breaking something. We had passed quite a few injured athletes on the side of the trail, and at one point I saw a girl limping down a muddy trail with the support of her boyfriend, sobbing in the rain. It seems that true to the Spartan spirit, help did not come easily.
“With it or on it.” Supposedly that’s what Spartan mothers said to their warriors before they went to war. “It” being the warrior’s shield. A myth of course, but not backing down in the face of adversity has become known as the Spartan spirit, and it is certainly what the Spartan Race is trying to imitate. In challenging our physical limits, we strengthen not only our bodies but our minds. Hopefully one day when we face obstacles that we are not prepared for, we can stand up to them just as well.
Or, in my case, walk away from the things that I know can hurt me 😛
There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect. – Ronald Reagan
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