Rather unwisely I had put off any sort of training for the event until I realised any good intentions were completely out the window, I'd just show up on the day and see what happened. It turned out I'd be having a fair bit of a warm up though just to get to the venue. I'd made sure I'd checked all the train times the night before but was pretty peeved when I got to Tilehurst station to find my train wouldn't be showing up. A quick jog around the corner also saw the only bus for 1/2 hour go whizzing past which meant the strong chance of getting to the venue an hour later than planned. There was still a possibility of catching my Reading train so I jogged home to get the car. Thanks to the law of sod I was stuck behind a Sunday driver for most of the journey, slowly seeing my time to my train leaving dwindle. Where to park to get the best chance of making the train? After losing the caravan club member I whizzed into the short stay car park at the station for the second warm up jog of the day. Ticket to Redhill, which platform, WHICH PLATFORM?! Gatwick, train, same platform to get to Abz's, all the ticket gates were open so through and around the corner I sped. Saw the train, checked with the dude with the flag it was the right one and got on just in time, pulled away 10 seconds later. I sat, covered in sweat and laughing at saving myself an hour's wait for the next train.
Time on the train to cool off, 11 stops to get to Redhill. I was sat next to a blind woman with her son. How anyone can live with such a disability has always amazed me, but with a young son it must require a hell of a lot of trust from both parties. The little bugger put this trust on the back burner for a moment as he kept hiding his toys when his mum was trying to pack them away. Close to Redhill we came to Dorking Deepdene, everyone's eyes where fixed at the top of the hill over in the distance where the Olympic rings stood proudly at the top, a reminder of what we were all about to look forward to the following week.
Arrived at Redhill with plenty of time to get to the venue. Despite a slightly dodgy map and even dodgier map reading skills, A gorgeous spartan girl and a big queue of cars was the key i'd found the right place. I had over an hour until my 12:30 start time so made my way to the registration bit. Unlike the other races where you have race numbers to pin on, this one required you to write your number on your forehead, anywhere else that was visible and any additional smiley faces or body art you wanted to add. I remember looking around and seeing a lot of seriously buff men and women, most of which were head to toe in mud. Started to get slightly panicky, I'd winged all the other assault courses, this one looked as if it had the potential to break me. The one at Battersea had the odd 6 pack show off in attendance but was mainly Joe Public. This one really looked as if the Spartans were back, and even they were looking shell shocked after their experience.
After a second visit to the joy that is the porta loo it was almost time to start. Despite my Gandhi-esque figure I'd decided to strip off myself. Word was you want to wear as little as possible. I wandered over to the finish to see one of the obstacles, it looked like an ice bath with barbed wire over it, on closer inspection the wire didn't look as vicious so didn't seem to worried. That changed after hearing a fair bit of cursing from those going through it. Yep, the wire had a rather nasty electric current going through it, touch it and chances are you'd be swearing like a sailor. One of the girls going for it needed all the support of her mates to have a second crack at it after being shocked in the head. I began to see why we'd needed to sign a death waiver at the start!Once the 12:00 wave had started it was my group's turn. Knowing I was no where near fit enough for the race I wanted to be near the front so I wasn't left behind. After a chin wag with those around we were greeted by 2 army instructors (Probably the sadists who designed the course) and a guy dressed as a Spartan holding a megaphone. The army guys warmed us up and the Dude in the skirt with the shield fired us up. The call was "AROO" for all the Spartans among us who would be expected to give everything out on the course. All theatre of course but this would feel more genuine the further through the course we got. The Spartan's sword fell and off we went. I'd overheard the first 1 1/2 miles were the hardest jogging part of the course, they weren't kidding. Uphill and downhill all the way, not a snip of flat even ground. Looking around, the consensus seemed to be the same. if we're finding THIS hard then what can we expect later on?
After the many ups and downs the jogging became much less of an issue, the obstacles were starting to come thick and fast. The final up and down made way for the jog through the woods and the first of many trails. A quick abseil down the muddy slope and a quick jaunt led, for me at least, the trickiest and most hated obstacle. A crawl under barbed wire and over mud. A few comments from behind about getting snagged and catching Tetanus made dam sure I wasn't going to get cut by the wire. After the energy sapping crawl over solid ground it got down and nasty with big pools of mud. I'd had to jump ankle deep in the stuff before in Henley during the night run but this time I was up to my shoulders in the bloody stuff. After crawling out of one of the pits it was straight into another, deeper one. I wish I'd pushed the smug looking official into the stuff after he gave me a knowing look as to what was still to come!
Climbing ropes, pulling a weight up one, rolling a stick with a rope and weight attached and lowering it again. Climbing an A frame, climbing various walls, carrying sand bags, carrying tyres, balance beams, throwing a spear, under a cargo net, crawling through a narrow muddy tunnel, more ropes and balance beams, jumping over fire and dodging Spartan gladiators.
Despite hating the mud obstacle under the barbed wire it actually galvernised me for the rest of the race. Before that point I still felt seriously unfit and weedy but after that I felt so used and abused I remembered how fired up it got me once i'd done it. In a way I was so pi$$ed off by the experience I was determined to let nothing beat me in my quest to finish, not even a pulled muscle in both thighs. On the largest of the wall climbs I felt pretty confident with my height and weight advantage but was soon brought down to earth. I put my foot on the side about to launch myself up and felt my leg go. The gut at the wall brought a medic over, I managed to get up on the 3rd attempt and it felt OK after a while. He had a quick fidget with my apparently knotted muscles (who knew?) and off I went, over the wall and onto the tyre lift. Eventually I came around a corner and saw on obstacle which looked familiar as I'd seen it before the race, I'd almost finished! This meant I was close to the dreaded electrified ice pit. After skipping through some tyres I came up to the edge of the pit and quickly planned a route through. Some guys behind were bundling through like imbeciles and getting the odd shock or three, I was determined I'd be getting through jolt free. Being skinny was coming to my aid again as I stayed low and snuck under. At the end I pulled myself through, quite happy as the ice had managed to clean off a lot of the mud still clinging to me. That soon changed with the very next obstacle, the crawl through the tunnel. A long and low slog which I know where the cause of my delightful war wounds on my body at the finish. After reaching the end it was onto the Gladiators, nice enough blokes dressed as Spartans giving everyone a token whack with whatever those pole things are called. One final obstacle which I took great pleasure in nailing despite a little reminder from my final muscles. The sloped bit with the rope had troubled many people but I was fired up and nothing was going to stop me whizzing over. Around the corner to another gorgeous looking Spartan girl armed with finishers medals.
I felt amazing, not quite as pumped as Battersea and no where near as knackered as Llanwrtyd Wells but seriously fired up at completing something so delightfully mental. The Spartan Race, despite being half the distance of the Survival of the Fittest and the Night Run, was way more extreme than the pair off them. In those two the obstacles came more of a break from the jogging which I always found hard but this time they proved a real challenge, especially if any mistakes were made. If you failed in any activity you had the pleasure of either 30 press ups or, even worse, 30 standing burpees. For the unknowing a standing burpee is going into a push up position, doing one then standing up again, I ended up doing 90 of these works of Satan. I think 3/4 of the course had to do at least 30 as I'd like to see anyone conquering 3 narrow balance beams going uphill covered in slippery mud. My other 60 came from a failed rope climb and an ability to throw a spear. The perils of pacifism I guess.
At the end of the race, everyone who was everyone ended up in the lake. There was a guy armed with a hose but it was much more fun going for a swim in the lake to wash off all the mud. After the final challenge of everyone getting out of the lake without getting caked in mud again it was time to go home. I'd come away feeling ever so slightly broken with a couple of great looking bruises on my chest, another great looking medal and best of all more fantastic memories to come away with. The Spartan Race had well and truly done it's job, another page of the PB turned, bring on the next chapter.
Rossifer x
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