So let's kick this off:
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| Chicago bound!!! |
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| Meet the Funk's |
This marks stop #2. Could have kept going, but thought what the hell, I need to stretch a little. I knocked out my 25 burpees, refilled the coffee and I was on my way.
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"My kind of town, Chicago is." - Sinatra |
You would think I would be close enough to say I was almost there. I think I spent another 45 minutes in traffic from here. There's something to be said about trying to navigate Chicago with all these cars around. It's more dangerous than Fran!!!
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| Fancy... just don't as me how much it costs |
A lot was going on this weekend, and made it very tough to get a room... especially if you're trying to find one on the fly (like this guy). Apparently it was Oprah's last show and there was conventions galore. So I'm told anyway.
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| I'm so glad swimming was not part of the race |
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| At least I got a room with a view |
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| Breaking bread with other Urbanathletes |
I will throw myself under the bus on this... Paleo on this trip? Not so much. It's kinda difficult to eat Paleo in an Italian restaurant, everything comes with pasta! Hard to use that as an excuse, I could have just not eaten it. But hey, it was a fun time anyway. A lot of the people at this table had actually done this race before. I was listening to them talking about 7 mile training runs (not my cup of tea), and I expressed my "training" of running 1/4 mile at a time... Thanks CrossFit!
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| Dreaming of the day to come |
It was hard to get too nervous about the race. I didn't actually know what to expect. The only time I looked at what we would be doing was when I signed up for this in June. Since then I didn't want to see what was coming (I guess I like the "Unknown and Unknowable"). I got a good (loose term) 5 hours of sleep and I was ready to take this on!
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| Bring it on! |
I really wish someone was there to talk me out of running this thing in that "get-up"... I really do. But no better way to learn your lesson than a blister the size of a cell phone.
Now on the the meat and potatoes:
I met up with a few CrossFitters from Ohio before the race so we all walked over together and tried to figure out where exactly we needed to be. After wandering around and finally finding the place to stow my bag I was ramped up to go. I was fortunate enough to bump into both Natalie and Kelly as we wished each other well on the race that was getting ready to start. With a nervous pee out of the way (TMI) I found where I was going to start from and got my warm-up on.
At 7:51 our wave started off! Got to a good pace, and tried to hold that for as long as I could. We didn't hit our first obstacle till about 2 miles in, which was jumping over some HUGE tires and making our way through a sea of tires we then had to run through. We battled our way through the next mile or 2, hitting water stations on the way. At this point I was feeling pretty good.
I'm not going to go on to explain each obstacle, but as a brief overview there was:
- "jumping" over 5 foot hurdles
- hoping over and under barriers
- low crawling through nets
- making our way across some monkey bars (my favorite)
One thing I am going to touch on was the worst part of it all... at least for me. at about mile 6 I was really starting to feel a blister growing on the bottom of my right foot and my left ankle was starting to swell (thanks boots!). I still kept pushing though it all, with no stops at this point. But then came the most dreaded part, at about the 8 mile mark... The Stadium!
We ended up going up and down 2 to 3 floors at a time, either on stairs or on ramps. Now I'm really starting to hurt at this point. This continues on for what seems to be about 15 minutes, but that's just a taste of what's to come. We work our way inside the Stadium where we work our way up, over and down the isles inside the stadium. I can't remember if we did this twice or three times, it was just horrible! However, after the last set we left the stadium with just a little over a mile to go.
Now, I really had to get inside my head on this last push. My legs muscles weren't even cramping at this point... they were literally spasming! Every step I took my muscles screamed to stop, the blister and swelling now unbearable, I've had to stop and massage my legs at this point a few times. So I had to dig deep and find that place to push myself to the limit (which I had reach about 2 miles ago).
I was wearing my Life as Rx shirt that has the name of every Hero that has a WOD named after him. I thought about those guys, and people that are currently deployed. lastly my thoughts went to Marcques Nettles, he was a corpsman I worked with when I was stationed at Whidbey Island. I took over his job when he left to deploy with the Marines in Iraq. During a mission his team was hit by a flash flood and the entire team was killed, they didn't even find Marcques' body for over a week! He left behind a wife and young child. I thought about him, and how I had to push through this pain, because in the end... pain is temporary.
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| RIP |
With the race over and my body thoroughly beat I immediately was on a hunt for food. There was free snacks and drinks and I consumed the following Paleo Un-friendly post-WOD meal:
- 2 bags of chips
- 2 bagels (with loads of cream cheese)
- 1 banana
- 1 Powerade
- 4 energy bars
It was a hell of a race, and a hell of an experience. It's one I would do again and recommend to anyone in a heartbeat (except I wouldn't wear boots). Unfortunately I had to hit the road almost immediately and make my way home for other obligations. So that about sums up the past 2 days, very busy and very fun! So I hope all my follower and closet followers (I know you're out there) enjoy my version of the Urbanathlon. Whether you laughed or cried or felt nothing at all, thanks for reading. Hit those WODs hard and hit life even harder.
3,2,1 GO!
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