The lovely people at Spartan gave me a free race to check out their brand. (Thank you!)
Turned out, the race was in 104 degree weather!
There were all sorts of warnings before the race about how hot it was going to be. I made sure I hydrated well and really fueled up.
And yet, by the end of mile 1, I was already hurting!
Before we started the race, the announcer made a big speech as we waited to start, “Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Take care of yourself. If you die, I’m gonna go to your funeral and say, ‘she didn’t pay attention.'”
So, he reminded us (in a loving, funny way) that we really better take care of ourselves.
I thought to myself, “Okay, okay, okay. Got it. I’ll be great. Thank you.”
The first mile was uphill – a big, steep hill. Sometimes in some of my past half marathon posts, I’ve said I was really going uphill… I had no idea what uphill was until this race. Ow! My head was hurting. I was feeling gross.
I thought, “How can this be happening only 1 mile in?! I cannot be someone who has to quit this race – or who dies out here. But how can I possibly make it another 11 miles?! Wah wah wah”
Then I looked up.
“How is there even more uphill after this?! Where the heck is the water station? Ow, ow, ow. Okay, let me take a rest.”
I sat in the shade for a bit (as I did a few more times during the race.) Thankfully the elevation calmed down (at least somewhat). And I got some precious water once I made it to the first stop.
Yeah, yeah, I could’ve brought some with me. But I didn’t want to carry anything on the obstacle course. So, forget that.
Even though it did feel (in my desperate state) like 100 years before I got water, the Spartan people were actually fabulous in how much they took care of us. They had many stations, even with Gatorade at a couple of them. They were staffed well… unfortunately, not quite well enough – which we will get to a little later in the story.
But first, we’ll talk about how wonderful parts of it were, and what a nice addition it was to my life.