one idea list: Spartan Beasts! By Andrew and Jake

Andrew brought his game face.

I was lucky enough to do the Utah Spartan Beast for the second year in a row, but this time I brought along a different running buddy to tear up the course with me. My son Andrew entered the Spartan kids race, and so we've given him the highest honor we know....we've dubbed him a full fledged Orange Trail Monkey. Or at least I have. I'll have to check with the other OTMs to get this cleared. Here's his report on the Spartan race, which is infinitely more interesting than what I would report on, which mainly would consist of how hot it was, how crowded the trail was, and the backlogged nightmare walk that made up about 3 miles of the course in which you couldn't run but had to trek along with the herd in a single-filed-traffic-jammed trail. So I'm mailing in the Spartan Race Report and instead letting Andrew tell you all about a truly awesome race day:

After the race and the showers

When we were driving up to the Spartan Race I felt excited and nervous because it was my first Spartan race. The Spartan Race is a 12 mile long military obstacle race it’s very, very muddy. The Junior Spartan is a one mile race with smaller obstacles (that are not as dangerous) for kids under 12 years old. I was excited for this race because I knew it would be hard and I knew it would be fun, and I didn’t know any other kids who had done it before. When the race was about to begin, I was so happy and scared, my heart was pounding out of my chest. I was all by myself because my dad was running in the adult Spartan Race. But I knew I could do it. And I knew it was going to be awesome and dirty.

Before the shower

After the shower

Once you start running, the first obstacle you run into was wooden towers that you had to climb over. Next were some skinny planks that were elevated off the ground, and you had to walk across them without falling off. If you fell off you had to redo it. After that you had to army crawl underneath wires, but the ground wasn’t just dirt, it was SOOOO muddy. My white shirt turned brown. My white socks and underwear were turned brown too. Then there these huge mud hills you had to climb, slide down the other side of the mounds into waist deep mud puddles. I even jumped down one of these and splashed into the mud puddle. Now you were not just muddy, you were soaking in mud. Then there was a long run up a hill, and down a hill, with some more mounds of dirt, and wooden board towers to climb over, and then you ran past the start and got to do the whole thing again. It was so cool.

After the race you had to shower with frozen water, which really wasn't a shower but just garden hoses that you sprayed your body with. Even though we tried to get clean there was still mud everywhere, even after we got home.

The hardest obstacle on the kids’ course was running up hill in the super summer heat. Like my friend McKinley says, “Oh my gosh freakin heck!” (She’s only 2!) My favorite part of the kids’ obstacle course was getting SUPER muddy. I loved running in this race because it was a great experience, it was challenging, fun, oh my gosh freakin heck awesome, and I want to do it again next year and maybe even some day do the full Spartan Race with my Dad.