Monday, December 16, 2013

I Conquered The Beast

My muscles are screaming and I'm still reeling from exhaustion, but I did it. I finished the Spartan Beast yesterday.

This was without a doubt the single hardest thing I've ever done physically. The race itself was approximately 14.1 miles long and it took place in the rocky, unforgiving hills on the outskirts of Glen Rose, TX. 

The race was interspersed with obstacles and challenges designed by sadistic people- things like 200 foot army mud crawls under barbed wire, climbing wet, muddy ropes 50 feet high, dragging heavy blocks of cement through forested creek beds, and carrying 100 lb buckets of wet gravel up and down +100 foot hills with deathly steep inclines.

It transcended brutality.

The experience was also very emotionally draining for me, and it's hard to pinpoint exactly how I feel right now. I'm happy I stuck to my word and I'm proud of my achievement, but I'm a little razzle-dazzled right now, & my brain fuses are still trying to make sense of everything that I went through.

I know I'll look back on this experience with more fondness, but for now, I just want to get things back to a state of normalcy...then maybe start preparing for next year's Dallas Spartan Beast. Who knows....


Thanks to JD & Lisa Thompson for supporting me early, and thanks to Carol Harney for making a BIG donation to the mudrun literally the day before I did it. Thank you so much!

Here are my actual results- out of 3668 contestants, I got 569th overall, finishing in the top 15.5% of participants. Not too shabby, but I can do better. ^_^



 I was also wearing a GoPro HD headmounted camera during the race, and I'm going to be editing together a nice little video for you guys to see soon!


Once again, thank you all for following this stupid-yet-passionate pursuit of mine! I may try to do it again, albeit a little differently next time around.

Take CARE

Derek

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