Spartans for a Day

We are a gym family, although anyone who knew me when I was younger probably wouldn’t believe that. Nik and I go to the gym daily. Our daughter, Zoe, has been coming with us on weekends, in addition to her 3 evenings of karate during the week (sometimes I feel like a chauffeur and am glad I have only one child to haul around town). She has started loving becoming stronger and more active, so how could I say no when she asked if we could run a Spartan Race? I asked Nik to run the race with us and he (very unenthusiastically) agreed to come. I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t want to run the Spartan Race…he’s done a few already. Of course, we are several years older and our bodies are slightly more destroyed now than they were then…at any rate, Nik signed us all up for the 2025 Spartan Sprint in February.

Zoe previously ran a couple of the kids’ races, but this year she wanted to run the “Sprint,” which is the smallest adult race. I admit I felt a little guilty when I lied and told them, ‘yes, she is the required minimum of fourteen years old’ when she has another four months until that’s true, but I also made a mental promise not to sue them if she got injured because it would be my own fault.

If you haven’t run the Spartan Sprint in a while (or at all), this particular race is about 3 miles long in Arizona desert terrain and contains several obstacles. There seemed to be a few less obstacles this year, but I was pleasantly surprised that, instead of a 30-burpy penalty for not completing an obstacle, you could take a small “penalty walk” of about a tenth of a mile, which was MUCH easier and did not make me regret signing up for the race.

Zoe started the race both anxious and enthusiastic but she jogged on a few paces ahead of us. I remember how daunting the race felt to me the first time I came face-to-face with obstacles I had never attempted before, but my daughter didn’t look half that nervous as I watched her scale what looked like a 20-foot castle wall holding on to a rather large rope with her hands while her feet crept to the top. 

We had to travel a “Z Wall,” which is a wall with obtuse angle corners that has 2×4 wooden blocks nailed sparingly near the top and bottom of the wall, which you use for handholds and footholds. You have to travel from one side of the wall to the other balancing on the edge of 2x4s without touching the ground until you get to the end and ring a bell. Despite my disproportionately large feet, I was able to hug the wall just enough so that I didn’t fall off. Of course, I couldn’t walk one foot in front of the other because the front of your body is clinging to the wall and you have no room move one leg past the other. So, I could either balance on my toes (which was less stable that I thought) or turn my feet out so that my toes were pointed to either side like I was duck-footed, and shuffle sideways very carefully. I opted for the duck-foot walk and am proud to say that I was able to do at least one obstacle that Nik could not…although it had not so much to do with strength as flexibility.

When we came to the Barbed Wire Crawl (it’s exactly what it sounds like) we all crawled along our bellies and got a healthy coating of mud all down our fronts. Nik was toting our CamelBak (backpack for water) and got caught on the barbs a few times, but we all made it through relatively unscathed. 

Not long after that, we reached the Multi-rig, which is basically a huge monkey bar set. I remember from my previous attempts that the adult version is nowhere near as easy the childhood monkey bars from my memory…my adult weight and (lack of) upper body strength may have been a factor. At any rate, I was not looking forward to the multi-rig. Zoe got in line in front of me and since we hadn’t practiced this exercise, I had no idea how hard or easy it would be for her. I watched as she swung from one ring to the next with white-knuckles. The further she swung, the louder I cheered and I found myself willing her to hang in there and keep going. When I saw her reach the bell, I was sure I was loud enough to embarrass her, but I was too proud not to make a ruckus. After all, parents are supposed to randomly embarrass their kids. Then the moment after she rang the bell, her other hand slipped and I saw her fall with both her feet out straight in front of her and land hard on her hind end. I heard the thud of her landing and knew that had to have hurt. If I had been in her shoes, tears would have been streaming down my cheeks before I caught my breath. But my little warrior stood up with a dry face and slowly limped to the side. After she gave me a nod that she was okay, I was almost optimistic that I might complete the obstacle…until I grabbed the first two metal rings and realized that I, indeed, did not have the upper body strength nor shoulder stability to make it more than three or four rings. I did consciously try to make sure I landed on at least one foot when I fell. Zoe’s strongest critique of the Spartan Races was that they should have pads under the obstacles in case people fall because she limped away with an injured rump and wrist, having landed on both. 

Zoe limped along to the next several obstacles, all the while apologizing for getting hurt. She insisted that she wanted to stay in the race and after a while we were able to distract her from some of the pain. Unfortunately, because of her aching derriere, she was unable to complete some of the more strenuous obstacles (like carrying sandbags and buckets of rocks), but she tried and walked with us while Nik and I carried her sandbags and buckets. She also discovered that hiking up steep hills and jogging did not help the pain in her posterior. Note to self: everyone should take Tylenol or Ibuprofen before starting their Spartan races.

Call me weird, but I always look forward to the dunk wall. Picture a square ditch with a sloping floor that goes to about four feet deep. Then fill it with cold, muddy, murky water. Once you are in your muddy pool, you have to dunk under a floating wall – completely submerging your head – and come up the other side. When I first entered the ditch, I was the first one to slip and went from being only wet up to my knees to suddenly neck-deep (literally) in a mud bath. Zoe and I stepped up to the wall first holding hands. She said she was scared so I told her we would dunk under the wall together on the count of three. We dunked and I don’t think either of us were prepared for how wide the wall was because we stayed under a few seconds longer than we meant to. Luckily, once Zoe’s head went underwater, Nik pushed her forward under the wall. When we came up for air, we were covered in leaf litter and blinded with muddy water, but now we were laughing.  Nik emerged with a bloody nose and it turns out that someone (um…me or Zoe) had accidentally kicked him in the face. By this point, I was now the only one not injured and felt a bit guilty about it. 

We got through the remaining obstacles without incident, like the cargo nets and Hercules hoist. I still couldn’t complete the rope climb, although getting halfway up the rope was an improvement for me. I had to take a penalty walk for the spear throw as well, but thank God there were no burpees for me this year.

When we finally came to the end of the race, Nik and I watched Zoe jog ahead to jump over the flaming coals at the finish line. Her only request was for strawberries covered in melted chocolate. I figured she showed enough grit for one cup of (insanely overpriced) strawberries and asked the vendor to pour on some extra chocolate.

There is a hosing off area where you can power-spray the bulk of the mud off after your race with very cold water, but it’s in the open and you (and your clothes) are still quite dirty afterwards. Luckily, I am married to a very ingenious man who set up a little “shower” station at the back of our car, complete with rubber foot mats, blankets for privacy, towels, and some warm water to rinse off after stripping off our race attire. Just because I’m okay walking around in wet, muddy clothes, I would prefer not to have to wash mud out of all the seats in my car.

Despite her injuries, Zoe wants to do another race. I think I had more fun than either of them and told her I would be happy to…but Nik opted out. Apparently, being in proximity to a couple of accident prone females is bad for your health.