Spartan Race

Ok, this is my first non-food post.  I eat a lot.  I figured some exercise might help keep me in shape after all that eating.  So I went and signed up for the Tri-State Spartan Race on Saturday.   For those of you unfamiliar with Spartan Races, click here to see what this is all about.

The above picture is our “before” shot.  Look how happy we look.  Totally oblivious to the reality that awaits us.  I mean how hard could it be?  I have done Tough Mudders, could this be harder?

The race was held at Mountain Creek Ski resort in Vernon New Jersey.  It was classified as a Super Spartan which means 8+ miles and 20+ obstacles.  At least that is what we signed up for.  On Friday, the day before the race, I get an email saying the course has been extended to 10 miles.

That is 10 miles of running on a ski mountain!  Up and down.  Up and down. Up and down.

Ok, we trained for this, whats another 2 miles?

So in the above picture we still hadn’t heard the news that it wasn’t 10 miles, but actually 11 miles.  Great…

Here I am carrying a sandbag up a hill.  This is about 9 miles into the race.  look how happy I am.  Still smiling. 

That smile didn’t last long.  Here we are crawling under about 200 yards of barbed wire about 10.5 miles into the race.  Where’s the smile now?

Calling the race hard would be an incredible understatement.  It was brutal.  If it was on flat ground, it might have even been fun.  But climbing up and down those mountains so many times really took its toll.   You know things are hard when the only thing I could concentrate on was taking that next step.  Then another.

Well the good news is the three of us finished the race.  We are sore.  We have cuts and scrapes.  We have rope burns.  But we finished!

Here is the “after” shot.  We are only smiling because we are done.  Luckily the truck is not parked too far away… From left to right, Keith Licata, David Jaronsky, and me (Chris Jaronsky)