My First Ultramarathon?! – Part 19 (Getting Toward The End of the Sprint)

November 6, 2014

Aurora laughing at the finish line with the DJ from the Spartan triecta-in-a-day 2014Picking up from last time

While it’s interesting to me to see how different obstacles felt different based on the day (and even time of day), I also find it interesting to see how other people deal with obstacles.

Of course, in my mind, there are obstacles that are very hard and very easy. But those opinions are not necessarily universal truths.

For instance, there’s this one obstacle with basically squares of, I don’t know what you call it, but there’s a picture of it in an earlier post.

I never think anything of that obstacle. In fact, I kind of like when it comes along because I just think “ah yes! The simplest thing! Very easy climbing with tons of places to put your hands and feet.”

But when I’d done it in the morning, there were a few people around me practically shaking with how nervous they were about it!

There were people who were sort of afraid of heights and just didn’t feel good about that obstacle. And I don’t know if it made it better or worse for them that during the Beast, the whole thing was filled (there was even a line behind us)!

(People were way more spread out later in the day.)

Anyway, I just find the differences between people and obstacles and all that jazz interesting.

Going toward the end, there was this area that was more open that the majority of the race. There weren’t really any trees around and you could see people around you – even if they weren’t close to you.

Once I got to that point in the Sprint, I was actually getting a bit of a second wind (a pleasant surprise). I was maybe ready to do some running (I mean, a teensy bit of very slow running, but still – I felt energized).

However, I was on a different energy schedule than people around me, as every person I saw was walking. I stopped a couple of times to talk with people in our last mile, before jogging (oh so slowly jogging) on. I didn’t care about my time, or getting to the finish line as quickly as possible.

There was still plenty of time to spare. I was going to finish something like half an hour before the cut off. So, I was just enjoying the moment and the people around me.

And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow.

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