So Cal Super Spartan 8 Mile Obstacle Run – Jan 28th 2012
Vail Lake Resort, Temecula, CA
Run: 2:05:03 ( 15:37 per mile avg)
Run: 2:05:03 ( 15:37 per mile avg)
Up until this race I had always been hesitant on signing up for a mud run. In my mind I had images of running through mud for 8 miles, having to climb over things that are wet and slippery, and likely falling, twisting my ankle and hurting myself. However I'm always a sucker for a challenge. So, I made a deal with a friend that if I signed up for a mud run than she would sign up for a triathlon. A couple days later there was a groupon for 50% off Super Spartan and we got a nice little group to sign up.
Unfortunately everyone in the group bailed but Stephen and I, so we had to do this one alone. I tried not to treat this as a race but just as a fun run. However as soon as the gun went off and after sizing up everyone the competition, I figured there was no reason why stephen and I couldn't be the first two to make it up the first hill. We started a little more aggressively than we probably should have. That plus a night of drinking before the race took their toll on stephen. A couple stops later on the hill climb stephen told me to just go ahead and meet him at the first set of obstacles. The first set of obstacles was ~ 2.5 miles away. I ran off to try and catch the leaders, and almost succeeded, but instead of found a nice place in the shade to wait for stephen. At this point it was heating up, and the dry air and lack of water was really getting to everyone. Once we met up he told me to just go ahead and finish the race by myself.
I had been waiting for about 15 minutes, and was pretty well rested so I took off sprinting to try and catch the leaders again. The circuit training I had been doing was perfect for this. The race was basically a giant trail run through the mountains of Temecula with some strength training exercises every mile or so. I killed it. I think I passed about 500 people or so during the race, and didn't get passed once from behind.
I only had one mishap during the race where a group of us got lost and started going down the wrong trail. The worst part was the way back to the original trail was through a bunch of prickly bushes and we all ended up getting cut up.
I finished the race in 2 hours 5 minutes 10/100 AG and 49/2339 OA. I later found out that the winner had finished in 1 hour 49 minutes. I also found out that the winner got a week long trip to greece. Not that I would have won, but if you subtracted the 15 minutes of waiting off my time then it would have been pretty darn close. This just fuels the fire though. I'm definitely going to try this again next year.
