Tri State Super Spartan Results & Lessons Learned

Results:
Time: 3:34
Overall: 2746 out of 6588 (41%)
Males: 2192 out of 4661 (47%)
Males Age 40-44: 284 out of 600 (47%)

This was not my best race. I can pat myself on the back for finishing strong and really conquering some obstacles that I thought may give me a more difficult time, but on the whole there are things that I need to change in preparation for the Beast in two weeks. 

To hit on the few highlights first I knocked out the sandbag carry, log carry, atlas carry and bucket brigade no problem. All except for the atlas carry were up and down the mountain and while others were stopping to rest and looked like they were going to die (especially the bucket brigade) I cruised right past them and only rested once at the top of the hill before going back down. I will take pride in this.

What I did not like was that I felt overweight and sluggish especially at the beginning. I attribute this to my workout schedule and diet leading up to the race. I cut back on my workouts considerably in the previous week and went carb heavy on my diet. The thinking was to make sure that I was rested and carb loaded for energy. The result was that it took my body a long time to warm up and get ready for the challenges. I missed the monkey bars when I shouldn't have. I also needed help over a wall that I shouldn't have needed help over.

Going forward I will not be engaging in periodization and continuing my workout routine with one day rest before an event. I will also keep my diet consistent. The gel packs and protein bars came in very handy and I will rely on them more in the Beast as sources for additional energy. 

Another thing that I will change is what I put in my hydration pack. I filled it with 2 liters of green tea with honey. This was in addition to the liter of green tea with honey I drank before the start of the race. During the race there were certain points that I needed water but couldn't drink from my pack because I felt like my heart would explode out of my chest due to all of the caffeine that I had already consumed. Going forward I am sticking to water. 

My strength is strength. I had no problems with the herculean hoist, the tire pull, the bucket brigade, atlas carry and other obstacles requiring absolute strength. I do have a problem with relative strength so the rope climb continues to be a problem for me. 

Weaknesses continue to be anything technical and relative strength. I have problems with the rope climb, traverse wall, spear throw and going over the stumps. There was a burpee murderer's row for me with the traverse wall, rope climb and spear throw within 100 yards of each other.  I failed all three. I did make a personal record of making it 3/4 of the way up the rope and I did stick the spear throw until it fell out. I guess that I may have failed on these while others succeeded but was successful on other obstacles that killed those same people. We shall see. 

The summary is that I have my strengths and weaknesses. I will continue to work on my weaknesses. I will not change my diet or workout too much coming up to a race. I also need to do a little bit of warm up for a better start to gain confidence that I can stretch through the race. Now through November I am going to switch to body weight exercises for strength with the next day being conditioning and then yoga for active recovery.