I've been trying to get in better shape with diet and exercise over the past 2 years. I ended up losing 30lbs by running and switching to a (mostly) plant based diet so I've been feeling pretty good about my health. That all changed yesterday when I did my first Spartan Military Sprint at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs. That thing kicked my ass and I'm not even ashamed to admit it. I had a blast though, and was just wondering if anyone else had ever done a Spartan, Tough Mudder, or anything similar here and what their experiences were?
My friend who suckered me into it had me train up in the foothills for trail runs at places like Red Rocks and thank God he did because that whole damn course was one big hill. There were some things I was good at like the rope climb, cargo nets, and barbwire "crawl" (which I just rolled under) and I even did pretty good at the Atlas stone event. The whole course was just under 6 miles with about 22 obstacles and they ranged from "not too bad" to "Satan ripping your heart out through your kneecaps".
The ******** designed the course beautifully meaning that if you sucked at one obstacle you could be damned sure the next one played up your weakness even more. For example after the rope climb when your grip strength was already gone the next thing was a sand bag pulley that you had to raise all the way up and THEN it was time for monkey bars. The one that really got me was the sand bag and rock bucket carries up and around hills. My legs were fine during these things but there was just no elegant way to carry a bucket of rocks with no handle up a hill. And if you failed an obstacle, you had to do 30 burpees mandatory. I didn't really know what a burpee or hell was until I had to do about 90 of those ******s over the course of the race.
Long story short I way underestimated how hard this thing would be. I figured 5k obstacle course? Psssh. Hour tops. I think I finished in about 2 hours or so, we get the official times soon. He is already asking me if I want to do another one in a few months which is 10 miles with 35 obstacles and I am already looking for excuses to get out of it! I'm mostly kidding, but I'll be damned if that thing wasn't one of the hardest things I've ever done. Anyone else have experiences with these races?