Spartan Sprint Part 2 - Wall to Wall

Part 2 – Wall to Wall

Continuing from my previous post...

My next encounter was the traverse walls.  I heeded earlier advice from my wise boyfriend:  always keep at least three points of contact, and keep your body close to the wall.  I chose to take my time with this obstacle and it paid off!  About 2/3 down the wall I wasn’t sure how to continue.  I didn’t seem to have a good place to reach without losing my balance.  But I decided I wasn’t going to do burpees without putting in my best effort.  So I tried carefully… and made it!!  The last few steps weren’t so bad and I rung the bell at the end really hard!  I got a nod of approval and “Nice job!” from the monitoring volunteer.

Off I went to the next obstacle:  sandbag hoist.  Men went to one side (heavier) and women went to the other.  I chose to do hand over hand instead of walking away from the platform to pull the sandbag up (I didn’t see anyone doing that so I questioned if it was allowed).  Done and I moved on.

This time a stretch of running past the 2-mile marker and a water station.  I guzzled a cup of water, thanked the volunteer, and took off feeling slightly refreshed.

Here’s where my memory gets a little fuzzy.  I THINK the next obstacle was the mud and barbed wire.  I tried another valuable tip:  roll instead of pull.  SO much easier to just keep rolling (pausing if dizzy) than to pull/drag my body along.  This obstacle was probably my favorite and I just kept laughing!

Here a jog, there a jog.  There were some muddy, slippery sections that were no match for my special mud run shoes (but I’ll write about them in an upcoming post).  Then there was a very short obstacle where we had to pull a cinderblock attached to a chain.  We dragged it a short distance, around a marker, and then back to the beginning.  We had to make sure we didn’t drop it off too early or we’d pay the price with burpees.  Not a problem at all.

Immediately following that obstacle were some high walls.  I saw some guys vaulting it somehow (I guess like the first wall where they had to jump high and pull themselves over).  There was a guy helping people over by letting them step on his bent knee.  But I spied some rungs that made climbing over a cinch.  When I got to the ground on the other side I saw another wall of the same kind.  I started to head over but heard a woman at the top of the first wall saying she couldn’t come down – she was afraid.  So another woman and I went over to her and encouraged her saying, “You’re already halfway!  You’ve got this!”  We reached up to give her support so she could ease down.  At the bottom she saw the next wall and almost cried saying she couldn’t do it.  I said, “Yes, you can!!  You already did it once; you can do it again!”  We helped her over that wall too.

There was another section of running and I think that’s when we came to another water station.  I accepted the offering, thanked the volunteer and she said she thought it was close to the 3-mile marker.

At least half-way done!