"Swimming" and other things...

At this time next week, I’ll be standing at the starting line waiting to begin the long journey through Killington.  The days have absolutely flown by since I registered for the race, and we’ll see if the training that I’ve done has been enough.  The Race Director has indicated an average finish time of 4-6 hours…yikes.  That’s 10-12 miles in more time than it took me to run a marathon.  We know there will be two areas requiring lifeguards, a sandbag carry up and down a double black diamond, a whole lot of bushwhacking, and the standard mud pits, fire jumps, and gladiator pit.  It looks like there will also be a memorization portion of the race, which I hope is in the first half before my brain deteriorates into caveman mode and the only thing I can do is just tell myself to keep moving forward, up, over, under….whatever.  It seems like I should probably just carry my Camelbak and accept now that the run to walk/hike ratio is going to be very heavy on the end of the latter.  If nothing else, I’m sure that it will prove to be an incredible experience that I can be proud of for the rest of my life, no matter how long it takes to finish.  And I will finish.  That is one thing I am not the least bit concerned about, as I am ridiculously stubborn and prepared to do as many burpees as it takes.

The only part(s) of the race that I am truly concerned about are those requiring swimming.  I know that I can always just do the burpees and skip them, but that would be cheating if I didn’t at least try, so I will try.  I had the opportunity to chat with Carrie yesterday, and she eased some of my worries by sharing that even though she’s a strong swimmer, she’ll probably be taking the doggy paddle approach to keep her face out of the water.  She also pointed out what an equalizer the shoes will be…we’ll see how it goes.  I went to the pool yesterday at LA Fitness to see if I could stay afloat for the two laps that equal about 100 yards, the distance the website said to expect for the swims.  Walking into the gym, I realized that I hadn’t set foot in there since registering for the race over a month ago.  I’ve been spending all of my time outdoors and at Hybrid (who has a sweet new website thanks to my friend Cyrus Manouchehrian!)  After a whole lot of struggling, I think I decided that my best bet is to attempt the swim on my back, which will definitely keep my face out of the water.  It’s not pretty, and definitely not speedy, but it’ll get the job done…I hope.  All of my training partners recognize and joke about my complete and utter lack of swimming skills.  I got a text from Bobby later in the morning: “Hey Monster, how’d the drowning go this morning?”  You haven’t read much about Bobby because he has unfortunately been on the injured reserve throughout my training, but he’s played a major role in my fitness development over the past year, and he’s also the man behind my nickname.  Here is a picture of us from the Ohio Warrior Dash in June:

So today, we’re trying something a little different.  I figured that if I’m going to be running directly through the middle of the day next week at the race, that is also what I will do for my long run today.  So I slept in a little, and I’m going to head out for my run when my husband leaves for his 1:00 hockey game.  I’m planning on 10-12 miles, followed by the Spartan WOD: 300 lunges, 300 burpees, and 300 bodyweight squats.  I think today will be the last really tough workout before I leave on Thursday, but we’ll see what next week brings.  I’m looking forward to going to Kennywood this evening and dominating some Potato Patch fries, yum!!  In closing, I’d like to congratulate my friend Sara on successfully finishing her first 3 mile run this morning!  She’s been working very hard to train for the Great Race this fall, Pittsburgh’s largest 10K race, and the 10th largest in the country!  I look forward to running this race every year, and it’ll be even better this year when I get to see her cross the finish line!

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