Super Spartan Accomplished!

Goal accomplished in 2 hours and 38 minutes. Last year I was not up to the challenge of finishing the Tri State Super Spartan and this year I did it in 2 hours and 38 minutes.

There were some differences in the course this year as compared to last year:

• Last year was 11+ miles and this year was 8+. Eliminated was some of the obstacles, one more time up the mountain and some flat terrain.

• The two significant obstacles they eliminated were the cliff jump (disappointing since I liked that one) and crossing the river by climbing on the rope above it. Everything else was pretty much the same.

• They changed the course so that we didn't have to climb the double black ski trail climbing up the mountain on the back end of the course. This was the death of me last year. Also, they switched up the obstacles so that the tire flip and the sandbag carry up the hill was not  immediately before the last mountain ascent. Last year it was and those obstacles took a lot out of me before another challenging climb.

This is a view from the bottom of the hill last year. The nail in my coffin.

View from the top.

I kept a good pace. When the official rankings come out I am sure that I will find that I was not challenging anyone who was competing for time but that I did better than all of the people who walked the flat parts of the course and took a minute to rest here and there. I kept a good, consistent pace with my jogging/running (I did not waste energy by running up hills) and I did not hesitate at any obstacles. I saw them and conquered. Also, no sitting down to rest. I kept moving forward.

Writing this the day after I am sore. When I finished I felt like I could have gone longer and was actually contemplating signing up for the Spartan Beast this year. Probably not a good idea but I am definitely on pace for next year. Once I got home, ate some pizza and drank some beer (as a reward for my hard work) everything caught up to me and I was exhausted. Probably to be expected.

Looking forward, I need to rest from this event and then get back on the training routine so that I can rock out the Tough Mudder. Also, I need to immediately get back to the diet as I have slacked off on my discipline and consumed many too many carbs lately. It will be interesting to get on the scale again and weight myself. I wonder what resting for several days, having a big event and then my carb binge did to my weight loss results. Whatever it did do I need to get back to my proper diet and get to 195 for the Tough Mudder in a little over a month. To guess, I am probably about 7 pounds away.