Well,
My son and I just completed some pretty hefty races. His being the Spartan one, mine the Trail Marathon.
Both were challenging for us in different ways...in the end, finishing was the goal.
Below are some pic highlights of both races.
Sparta Race - 4.5 miles with 29 "obstacles"...or should I say "torchurcles". Anyway if you decided not to do one, or failed one...30 burpees!
Tanner and his friend Sam, don't they look "Squeaky clean"? Not for long..he he he
Umm yeh, watch out on this one...2 ankles and broken ribs on this jump from earlier heats of the day. Yikes!
Dead start leap...he made it!
"90 lb fun"
Followed by a fun game called "How to sterilize yourself"
Oh please don't let me ram my face into this guy's foot!
Oh boy that was fun! 2 more miles and about 15 obstacles left!
Not so clean anymore...Tanner had to throw that shirt away.
Ah MAN!!! I missed..more Burpees for me! Yea!
Here we go! This was a big bottleneck...easy 15 min of hanging out.
Tanner doing his fair share on this one.
WHATTTT????? Another mud pit? 2 to go and he's done.
Home stretch...whats a little bit of fire anyway to burn the mud into the skin.
DONE! Nice work guys!!!!
Trail Marathon - 26.2 miles, 3,500 feet of elevation loss and gain.(base elevation 4,600 feet) In Fruita, CO(AKA the desert).
I bit off more than I could chew(run) on this one...being my first marathon, but I love trail and hate cement so I made it work. I did ok, but really blew my time. I was running good training runs but 3 weeks out, my right T-band on my knee begin to bug bad. It didn't disappoint me, around mile 15 it really started to kick in. Any down hill, I start limping in my stride. Bummer. Mile 19.2, was the last aid station right before the last 1,000 foot climb. I was really starting to get concerned since I would be up on this rim trail out in the middle of nowhere once(if) I made it up the hill. Lucky, I like to climb hills and it didn't bug really while climbing...but I knew eventually I'd have to come down. Up on top, the views were amazing, but my time was not. I was already past 5 hours which really bummed me out. But I had to tell myself, this was no ordinary marathon. Good times on this were 3.5 hours, that's a lousy time for a street marathon. On top I prayed and just when I opened my eyes I found a stick that would come in handy on the downhill, which at any moment I would begin. I used it to leverage and take some weight off my right leg and I hobbled down the very steep trail. I ran into a co-worker, who was head back the other way...why do you ask was he doing this??? He was doing the 52 miler!!!! I was telling him about the knee when an "Angel" come striding by, saw me in pain and handed my 2
vitamin "I".(Ibuprofen) Not even 5 min later I was turning and burning down the hill onto the flats towards the finish line. 5 hrs and 40 min was the grand total.
Some pics of the course and event...
All the trails below at some point I was on....
My companion on the last 3rd of the journey
Even though its the desert....it has such dreamy moments...
Home Stretch...almost there!
The run was nice, but the real journey was the many months prior that I trained- running in the dark before work, freezing runs(low teens), long runs that beat me up, highs and lows in one run, stomach issues..you name it...it happened but through it all I kept running.
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