Picking up from last time –
As I got close to the end of the Sprint, I was elated.
I’d made it through rain and hail.
I totally forgot to mention it rained and hailed during the Super – as all of that was barely on my radar. All I could think was, “time, time, time, time. Oh, it’s hailing on me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. How long did that mile take?”
And not to over-dramatize it or anything. It was tiny hail. We were fine. We were cold. But we were fine.
While I’m going back to the stress of the Super, I have one more small story I forgot to put in there. I was going along and passing the barbed wire, getting down for my burpees, when this really nice woman who seemed to be some pretty in charge person was walking from the opposite direction checking in on people.
She looked at me and asked, “Are you doing the trifecta?” My heart practically stopped as I said, “Yes.” I was terrified she was going to say I’d missed some cutoff time or something and I’d have to make a huge scene begging for my life. I was also afraid she might say something about being disappointed about already burpee-ing out of things in only the 2nd race.
However, she just said, “Great job, Spartan.” The kindness in her voice was lovely. Since Spartans/Spartan Race people are super hardcore and all, I think I always expect them to be a little more judgmental than they actually are. Sure, they want to push themselves and others. But I’ve seemed to gather at these races that if you’re trying, people will not get on you about being too weak. They’ll just give you a boost and be supportive. It’s interesting.
Anyway, back into the Super. While, sure, those of us left were walking, that was not the case for some. Faster people had finished all three probably hours ahead of me. When I was on the Super, I saw some people on the Sprint.
So, surprise, surprise, I was not fast. However, I did it! (So, yay.)
Once I was coming up to those final mud obstacles, I actually thought this time around about just going in. At the end of the Super, there wasn’t enough time to get warm all over again. But at the end of the day, what did I care how cold I was? I was about to go in the car and warm up.
However, the choice was not mine to make. A volunteer was there to say it was too cold and too dangerous in the dark to be submerging in that water. I was kind of relieved not to be having to make any decisions at the end of such a tiring day.
Finally, I came to the fire – the precious, precious fire – the last obstacle of the race.
And this is where I’ll end tomorrow.