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The Beast Diaries: day 59. STFU.

Thursday, August 23, 2012 11:21

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(Before It's News)

Somewhere in the deep woods of VerHampshire (because lately I’m never quite sure if I’m in Vermont or New Hampshire) there lies a sacred Spartan training ground. What may appear to the untrained eye to be some sort of Boy Scout nature-project-in-progress is actually an obstacle course where men come to push their physical and mental limits…

…and Heather comes to realize “holy crap, this obstacle racing stuff is so much harder than I remember.”

59 days. 8.5 weeks until I face the most epic challenge of my athletic career thus far. The Spartan Ultra Beast. 26.2 miles (yeah right, you know those crazies at Spartan HQ will find a way to make it longer) of obstacle course, that rumor has it will take the WINNERS somewhere around 8 hours to finish. (Rumored, because no one has done this before.) Mere mortals like me will like be out there 9,10 + hours, traversing up and down all 4,235 feet (no idea if that’s an accurate measurement, but let’s go with it) of Killington mountain, and through obstacles designed to break us.

I think I’m starting to panic.

The irony here is that I’m likely hovering close to the best shape of my life. Not “the” best , but I do work out 2-3 times a day almost every day, thanks to my job. Yet, I’m still not near enough ready for this race. In fact, I’m not sure how anyone could ever be “ready” for a crazy feat like this. But whatever this measure of readiness is, I feel like I’m not there. Not even close.

Spin class will only take me so far, even if it feels like I’ve been teaching twice a day, EVERY day (my legs are so angry). So, with only 59 days to go until race day, I’m in serious beast mode, and that’s not just twitter hash tag talk. Everything I do, I wonder how I can make it more “beast” like. Quick just over 1 mile hike through the forest with my kids? Add a weighted backpack. AND carry a kid (who needs a 40 lb sandbag when you have a 40 lb 3 year old). I take FULL advantage of the 2 hour time limit at the gym child watch, squeezing in my own WOD before teaching a class. Push ups, squats, burpees…whenever I think of it. In fact, I think I need to do some right now…

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Sandbags in the backpack make this way harder than it looks.

My awesome Geoff took it upon himself one day to traverse through the woods and build a training obstacle course. Complete with log carries, rope climbs, hurdling things (which turns out, I’m not very good at ), tunnel crawls, sandbag around-the-worlds (so HARD!) and more. We raced the course for time, and while it only takes a total of just over three minutes each lap (for me, the guys are way faster), those 3 minutes left my lungs screaming. It was perfect, and I need to do it more.

(these pictures are horrible. We need a GoPro.)

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The Ultimate Sandbag gets put to work in the woods…

I have no earthly idea what to do for the next 59 days. I keep telling myself “you have a degree in exercise science, come up with something!” then I remember, everything I was taught in exercise science says this race is utterly ridiculous. And everything I’m about to do to train for it is likely a giant contraindication. Or if nothing else, I probably should have started training last year…you know, before I knew this race even existed.

Half of what I am loving about this race is the fact that there is nothing set in stone. There is no marathon training plan where I dutifully check off each training day as I put in the long boring miles. The truth is, I have no idea what I’m going to face out there on the course, and thus, I need to be ready for anything.

So what will the plan be for the next 59 days? I have no idea. Hike. Run. Climb. Lift. Roll around under some barbed wire. I think I’ll go put on my weighted vest, put the kids in the wagon, and pull them up the giant hill by my house a few times while I think it over. All I know is there is no time left for excuses. Time to Spartan the f*%# up.