Picking up from last time –
So, I brought my tons of stuff up to Cumberland Ohio. Spartan recommends to get there 2 hours early. At my last one, I saw that was definitely a fabulous idea. So, I dutifully complied.
They hadn’t actually transferred my race entry yet, but they’d given me an email promising they’d do it the day of. So, I started the morning (before the sun came up) in line at Race Day Registration – where I was hit with some possibly scary news.
Some people were saying the Beast course was 16 miles long. Uh, what? I said I thought it was supposed to be around 12.
See, online, Spartan says the Beast is 12+, Super is 8+, and Sprint is 3+. I thought 12+ means 12 point something, but they don’t give it exactly as it may be slightly different based on where they are. But oh no. On this day, I learned the + just means plus whatever they want.
It was still in the air in the morning what all the race lengths were. No one seemed to know for sure. I was getting different answers depending on what group I stood with talking about it. The only thing all the groups had in common was that everyone was talking about it. How far were we going to go today?
Once I got up to the table to do race day registration, the man up there asked me if I’d like to run the Beast elite. At first, I thought, “uh, no way. The elite corral is going to be all these super svelte amazing-looking people. And I’m gonna be the one pudgy one in the back feeling all out of place.”
But then I thought, “Elite starts 15 minutes early. Since I have no idea how many miles I’m doing today, forget it. Let’s just go elite, Holmes!”
So, I signed up in the elite field.
After that, I went back in the car to put on my bib and timing chip in the warmest place available. After the sun came on, and I put on more layers, it was time to leave the precious warm safety of the car.
I turned my bag into bag check. The trifecta racers had to check in at bag check between each race to get their bibs for the next one. There was a special lane just for us, and they let us set our own bags so we knew where they were and could trade things out between races.
Once in the corral, I did stand in the back, ’cause I didn’t want any real elite people to be affected by my slowness. However, I was pleasantly surprised by how not incredibly out of place I looked in that corral. *gives nodding approval to self*
I heard the whole “We are Spartans” speech before we got on out of there… And go!
This is where we’ll pick up next time.