My First Ultramarathon?! – Part 16 (Starting the Precious, Precious Sprint)

November 1, 2014

Aurora, at night, with her back to the camera, aiming at the Spear Throw at the Spartan Ohio trifecta-in-a-day 2014Picking up from last time

Once I started the Sprint course, this incredible, lovely, wonderful calm fell over me. With only 5.5 miles to go, and 3 hours to do it in, I was golden!

I found a friend along the route, and we did most of the race together. He does Spartan Races all the time. I didn’t even know there was a Spartan yearly pass until he mentioned it. We had a grand ol’ time on the course.

The Sprint had the least amount of time through the woody woods (and more time out in open areas). In the first two races, of course we ran by the Sprint turnoff both times. It always seemed to come oh so early. And this time – we got to take it!

At a place where all 3 courses intersected, there was this area where you could choose to go right or left. (I hear that’s a thing in most Spartan Races.)

On the Beast, I went right. I figured one thing that would be nice about doing the course multiple times is that I could try each side at least once. Well, apparently the right side was the “right” side, ’cause we didn’t have to do anything! Everyone on the left had to burpee along.

On the Super, I think a super cool person would’ve gone left no matter what left and right brought you – as the point would be to try everything you could out on that course.

Aurora about to throw a spear at the Spartain Ohio trifecta-in-a-day 2014Alas, when I got there on the Super, yet again, I was concerned with saving time. (I always had to save time!) So, I took the wussy (smart?) way and went through the no-burpee area… Though, I do think that area may have been longer… But easier. So, I dunno what the technically “correct” decision was.

And on the Sprint, once we got there, there was no choice anymore. Everybody went left – but they cut the burpees. I’m sure if we’d really, really wanted to, we could’ve gotten down and done some burpees. But when the volunteer said, “No burpees on this one, just go through,” I was all about it.

Later, as we kept moving through the woods, there was this kind of net thing that was hung up the way a wall would be. And you had to climb over it. For some reason, this surprised me every time. I was always hitting some kind of stride when I noticed – agh! That net wall again.

And I’ll pick up with the net wall next time.

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