I woke up the morning of race day and I wasn’t nervous at all. I decided not to rock the boat on my food, so stuck with stuff I normally eat – I ended up getting a turkey sausage, egg white English muffin from the Starbucks in the lobby of my hotel, and grabbed a banana too. The only thing I was nervous about was my blood sugar. Not knowing how long the race was going to take me, I just decided I would skip my insulin with breakfast, and just test it before my heat and just play it by ear. I had another banana and granola with me.
They suggested getting to the Park two hours before your race time – mine was 10:45 so I got to the stadium at 8:45 (literally a 5 minute drive from my hotel) and by 9:00 I had my chip, my Spartan head band and just waited. It was nice having Hannah and Jacob there to cheer me on – they pretty much had free reign of the whole stadium to watch me.
So about an hour before my race starts I check my blood sugar – 350 – nice! I know that sounds scary high, but I thought it was enough to get me to the end of the race without it dropping too much – my guess was that it could drop a good 200 points. Then 30 minutes later I checked it and it was 469! Holy bat shit! I guess with the added adrenaline, it spiked it even more, so I ended up giving myself 7 units of fast acting insulin and just prayed that I didn’t die on the course.
Just as our heat was lining up, I tapped the woman in front of me and I said “I am going to try to keep up with you!” She asked if I was doing it alone, and when I said yes, she went to her co-workers who were doing it as a group and said “Biz is joining our group!” They were amazing – they truly were a team – some were obviously faster than others, but they would wait for the rest of us to catch up before moving on. So sweet. Shawnta was really funny too and talked the whole time.
So basically since it was a stadium race, we ran a lot of stairs. A LOT OF STAIRS. Like all the stairs on the top part of the stadium. You would run down, across, then over and then after two sections have to pick up a 20 pound sand bag and carry that for two sections. We weaved all through the concourses and stadium seats on the upper level, even crawled up stairwells under webs of netting!
Here’s the deal with the obstacles. If there were obstacles that you could/or would not do, you had to give them 30 burpees before moving forward. It was funny because at one of the first obstacles a woman said “I can’t do this” and the Spartan volunteer said “it’s your race – make it as easy or as difficult as you want it to be.”
Some of the obstacles: I stole most of these images off of the internet!
JUMP ROPE: 25 jumps with a weighted jump rope, while wearing ankle bands to keep your feet together.
WATER CARRY: 45 pound container of water that we had to run outside the stadium with. (Obviously, I walked that!)
WALLS: Okay, after watching many many videos in advance of this race, the walls made me the most nervous. They ranged in height from 4 – 9 feet. For the taller ones you could get a boost, which I did, but once I got to the 9 foot wall, no fucking way I could have gotten over that, even with a boost. It even had a notch on the side to help, but since I am so short, I would have had to drop about 4 feet to the ground, and I didn’t want to risk breaking an ankle. FIRST 30 BURPEES FOR THIS MISSED OBSTACLE. The wall at my race was about 2 feet taller than this one below.
PUSHUPS: This was really cool because we got to do those inside the visitors locker room! You had to do a pushup and “hand release” at the bottom, before moving onto the next pushup. These were no problem for me.
SPEAR THROW: No way I was ever going to train for this obstacle – I asked one of the volunteers for advice, and he said “it’s all about balance, not how strong you are.” I got very close – I hit the target, but it didn’t stick, so my SECOND 30 BURPEES FOR THIS MISSED OBSTACLE.
CEMENT CARRY: Yep, that is not a typo – We had to pick up a 50 pound block of cement, carry it 40 feet, drop and do 5 burpees, turn around and carry it back. That was difficult, but once I got the cement block up, I was okay.
HERCULEAN HOIST: You had to pull a heavy sand bag up to the top and drop it down to the ground in control. If you couldn’t do it on your own, you could do it with a partner, but then you had to do it twice. That was no problem at all for me – Shawnta asked “do you need a partner Biz?” just when she saw me finish on my own. 😀
CAGE CRAWL: The only thing difficult about this obstacle was keeping your balance while other people were on this obstacle at the same time – while it was very tall, this was the easiest obstacle for me of the day.
BARBED WIRE CRAWL: After carrying around the water, we had about 100 feet of barbed wire that you had to crawl on. It was on this “grassy” area – I use the word “grassy” ironically because it was mostly dirt and very hard ground. This took me quite a while to get through – I was so nervous I would catch my shirt or hair on the barbed wire!
SEAL CRAWL: Not exactly sure how to explain this, but they had wooden boards with four wheels on them – you had to put your feet on the board, then hold like a push up position – but your object was to pull yourself across the parking lot with your feet on the wheely thing and you had to go there and back. That was really hard and I had to take several breaks before completing it.
ROPES: This was another obstacle that I couldn’t really train for, other than to train and get more upper body strength. I thought I would have had a chance if the knots on the rope weren’t so far apart, so that was my LAST 30 BURPRESS FOR THIS MISSED OBSTACLE.
BOX JUMPS: Shelly, as soon as I saw the box jumps I totally thought of you! We had to do 25 of them, but they had two sizes, so I chose the shorter of the two. 😀
MEDICINE BALL SQUATS: For the women, we had to do 25 squats with a 20 pound medicine ball – this was the very last obstacle right before the finish, and when I started to run to the finish line, my quads at this point felt like tree trunks! (link to video)
Sadly, Hannah and Jacob tried to find me at different obstacles over the course of the 1:54 minutes it took me to complete it, but they would have had no idea when I would get to an obstacle, obviously because everyones pace is different. Right around the hour and thirty minute mark, they decided to park themselves by the finish line, and were able to see me cross the finish line. They said some people would get to the finish line and start puking, so I am glad I had enough strength and stamina to not finish like that!
I got some water, grabbed a banana and checked my blood sugar – all was well – down to 227 so I still had some reserves left in me had I needed it – nice!
We ended up eating at The Milwaukee Ale House. When researching places I thought it could have been fun to eat at a restaurant on Lake Michigan, but turns out there aren’t that many to begin with, half weren’t open at lunch and the two that were, were very pricey.
So we sat by the river at The Ale House and I anxiously waited for my large ice tea and pulled pork sandwich. Surprisingly, I only ended up eating half of it, because I knew that I’d soon be having my meet up with blog reader Kris in just a few short hours. You’ll have to stop by tomorrow for that recap!
We then walked around and of course ended up at The Public House – I wanted to buy all the sausages!!
So the number 1 question I’ve been asked? WOULD YOU DO IT AGAIN? And my answer? Absolutely!
Thanks Shawnta for pushing me through the race!
But I have to tell you, as I was running up and down those stairs, it crossed my mind more than once that this would be a lot easier if I were 40-50 pounds lighter! So while there are no other Spartan races near to me, I may just make this Milwaukee one an annual trip and hope that I can beat my time.
BIB # 3287
AGE: 47
GENDER: F
OVERALL: 2904
IN GENDER: 1048
IN AGE GROUP: 75 out of 89
TIME: 1:54:45
The fastest female did it in 48:17 – the fastest male did it in 40:12. The fastest in my age group (45-49) was 45 years old and did it in 57:05. Wow. And I noticed that it took a 47 year old woman 6:02 – that’s six hours and 2 minutes – what determination to keep going – I wish I could have met her to congratulate her!
And the last competitor to cross the finish line? A 52 year old woman – who did it in 7 hours and 22 minutes – amazeballs to not give up until she got across the finish line!
So this proves that you are never too old or too out of shape to do something you never thought you could do – BE SPARTAN STRONG!
This is SO motivating! I am so proud of you and now I can say I know a Spartan!
So once again I’m pissed at myself for not checking on on blogger more often! I live 20 minutes from the stadium and I totally would have come and cheered you on! I would have loved to meet you and the kiddos.
Aaaaargh!
That aside, congrats on doing something so scary and awesome! You totally rock.
Aw, rats! That’s okay, it won’t be our last trip up there – I’ll give you a heads up next time!
Congratulations on finishing this race. But I have to ask, what are “burpees”.
Burpees are a bitch. Just kidding, well, not really! I’ll post a video link below this comment for you to see – basically getting down into a pushup position – then jumping back up – 30 burpees for each missed obstacle – thanks for the congrats!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZQA08SlJnM
So proud Whow. love you. AC
Thanks Aunt Cele – love you too! Can’t wait to see you at the Family Reunion! 😀
Amazing! Great job! It’s funny how they call this a race when it is really an event 😀
That is true – it was an event – I loved the loud DJ music that was playing the whole time!
What an accomplishment Biz!!! Congrats!
Thank you Laura! 😀
You are absolutely amazing. Congratulations on your finish.
Thanks Kathy – I appreciate it!
You.Are.Awesome!!! That is all….
Love your short and sweet comments Roz!
I haven’t done a box jump in several years but I’m laughing that my name is still synonymous with them! 🙂
Glad you had such a good time at the race and how nice of that group to include you! Honestly, the stadium race sounds a little nicer than the Austin one – no mud! Fun idea to make this an annual tradition…wonder if you inspired Hannah and Jacob to want to do it next year?
Yep, to me box jumps=Shelley! And I agree, Joe was telling me that at the trail Spartan race, once you got wet or muddy, it was pretty impossible to keep your footing.
I can only hope I’ll have companions next year!
HUGE Accomplishment Biz! I am beyond impressed!!!!!!
Thank you Jan – it was a tough one, but I am glad I finished 😀
great job Biz you rock!!
Thanks Marcia 😀
Really awesome job Biz!!
Thanks Amanda!
Color me incredibly impressed! I can’t imagine completing ANY of these challenges at this point in my fitness, let alone all of them. Congrats!
Thanks Rachel – I think it helped that I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into!
Way to go. I would definitely like to try this. BTW, we almost had my son’s rehearsal dinner at the Ale House. They were booked so we choose Rustico Pizzaria next door. Loved having it on the River and we were able to “spill” out onto the Riverwalk after dinner. Someone even had fireworks for us that night.
That is so cool! Yes, very interesting place – tons of people walking with beers and wine along the river front – and some really big boats too! We also so paddle boarders and a bunch of kayakers too 😀
Congrats Biz! Sounds like a tough race, what a great finish!
Thanks Jacky – maybe we should do a race together someday! We need to schedule a meet up soon – I am pretty much wide open spaces until the last week of June – I’ll shoot you an email!
Way to go, Biz! What an amazing feat. I don’t think I could ever do a race like that. So proud!
P.S. We love the Milwaukee Ale House!
Yep, all three of us got three different things and we each loved everything – although Hannah and I thought their tots tasted more like hush puppies – nothing wrong with that though!
Thanks for sharing your amazing story! You have a lot to be proud of…and those ladies that finished even though it took several hours – Remarkable. Also, thank you for all of the details of your experience – I had no idea what it was all about and your story-telling abilities really shined. Have a great day!
You are so sweet Lynne – I appreciate it 😀
wahoooooooo! way to rock it!! Sounds like an amazing course. I would love to do one of these some day! Glad you found a group to hang with (makes all the difference)
It did help having people “in my corner” and yelling my name “You’ve got this Biz!”
Wow….how awesome!!!! What an accomplishment! Congrats! Love the Public Market. LOVE the fresh juice stand. Lots of good places to eat by the river! A lot of beach by the shores of Lake Michigan. Next time hit up the Safe House restaurant. The foods not that great but it’s fun.
Yeah, that’s what I discovered about Lake Michigan restaurants, they want to preserve the land, and that’s cool. Do you think you’ll got back to Milwaukee since your daughter has already graduated?
Congrats on your race and finishing so well! All the strength training you have been doing paid off in spades and saved your bacon so to speak. Again congratulations and keep up the great workouts.
Thanks Susan, I do believe the strength helped me get over the walls I normally wouldn’t have been able to do!