My First Spartan Beast! – Part 9 (Comparisons to My Other Mud Run/Did I Learn Anything New?)

October 3, 2014

Picking up from yesterday –

I thought I’d do just a little comparison to this and my last mud run. ‘Cause in my last (aka first ever) mud run, I did some posts on what I learned or took away from the race.

Also, I got new advice before this race. So, let’s just lay it all out and see how things stand.

1) Towels – after the last mud run, I told myself to bring a trillion towels because I’d be soooo muddy. Well, in the 104 degree heat, mud dried practically as you were climbing out of any muddy area. I didn’t even shower off this time around! I just jumped in the car and drove back to my hotel.

I did put one towel down on the seat, and basically no mud got in the car. ‘Cause again, I was so not wet at the end.

2) Last time, I lamented that there were no pictures of me. I wondered if it was because I couldn’t see the photographers, and therefore wasn’t positioning myself to be all in the frame and everything. So, this time I went in way more aware of the cameras. And yet, I only got pictures in 2 spots. Granted, there were only cameras in 4. But I only got half?

The two I missed – One was in the barbed wire, I really wanted to try to get a picture, but the photographer on the side moved just before I got him, and with the woman yelling behind me, I wasn’t able to get toward the center to get in that guy’s lens – no matter how much I wanted a super cool picture of me crawling in the barbed wire. Sigh. Next time.

The other one was at the finish! I didn’t realize there was a photographer (didn’t even see her or him), until I went to look at pictures from the event! You can see my leg being cool behind someone. But that’s it. I feel like it would’ve been a cool shot. I didn’t realize I needed to wait for someone to pass. Aye, aye, aye.

3) This was advice given to me for this race:
A) I was told to stay in a hotel – that the race was going to take every bit of me and I’d be way too exhausted to drive home. I did not find this to be the case. I love hotels. (And I’d planned on doing the sprint the following day.) So, it all was fine (and made sense if we assumed the second race was actually going to happen).
But I was totally not tired enough to justify a hotel room purely for recovery. (Though maybe all that means is that perhaps I didn’t work as hard as I should have.

b) I was advised to bring gloves – that I would sorely regret not having them.
I did not bring gloves. I hate having things on my hands, or having generally anything extra that I don’t need. (Of course what you “need” can be debated.) I was totally fine with not having gloves. I think it probably made things easier to grip. And I assume the heat would’ve felt even worse with gloves on.)

c) I was told to bring that camel pak. For the same reasons, I did not – I hate having anything extra that I don’t need. Of course, considering I drank out of someone else’s, you could argue that I did need it. So, that one I’ll think harder on for next time.

And that concludes my adventure/learning experiences/and generally all of my first (or almost-but-one-mile-shy-first) Spartan Beast. I am so very glad I get to do it all over again in Ohio (during a trifecta-in-a-day!) and I look forward to telling you all about it!

I'd love to hear from you! So whaddya say?