Watered down fitness advice

My new favourite lunchtime workout lately has been swimming in the river outside my office.  I used to occassionally swim at lunch at my old office (mostly to do with trying to pass random military swim tests), but it was a complicated affair of driving to the closest indoor city pool and then getting back in reasonable time.  At my new office, I step out the door and am faced with the glorious Ottawa River.  A few months ago, in the peak of summer, I couldn't resist any longer and decided to go for a dip.  Since then it's become a weekly habit to go at least once.  And despite the temperatures getting a bit cooler now, when I went last (earlier this week) the water was still quite pleasant.  

Each time is a little bit different.  There's a little rocky island about 150-200 metres offshore to which I often head.  There's nothing much on it but a few shrubs, seagull bones and shit.  There's a lot of wild purslane all over the place, which makes a nice lemony snack.  I usually am still fasting at that point in the day so it always feels like a treat.  I've even discovered two scraggly tomato plants, with some green tomatoes on them, which i can only figure grew from some seeds that wafted downstream in the breeze or from compost drifting ashore.  It doesn't look like another soul has been on the island for years, which is kind of nice because it gives a person that sort of Robinson Crusoe, 'undiscovered country' feeling when you step ashore, even though it's in the midst of the city.

Other times I just swim around randomly.  This past week, I swam out along some rocky bluffs that skirt the edge of the river and climbed up into some of the little overhangs and caverns that have been eroded by the river over the years.  Pretty neat area.  Even found some interesting patterns in the rocks that look like little fossilized worms or vegetation of some sort.  All in all much more interesting that a chlorinated indoor pool.

I have to admit I get some weird looks from passers-by on the shoreline.  There's a nice walking trail along the river so there's a lot of foot traffic during the lunch hour, especially on nice days.  I've never seen another person in the water here, or anywhere close by.  It strikes me as a bit strange. There's no beach or anything, but it's not like the water is hard to access.  It's rocky, yes, but you only have to get in about 10 feet or so and it drops off very deep and the water is clear and free from weeds.  I can't figure out what the reason is.  A lot of people I tell seem a bit shocked at first, i think because they think it must be dirty.  Admittedly, there have been a few cases where the city has allowed raw sewage to dump into the river during heavy storm overflows, but it doesn't seem to discourage people from the beaches in the summer.  And while I certainly would rather there was no untreated sewage going into the river ever, it's a big, deep river and I'm sure it's pretty diluted by the time it gets to me.  Besides, I fully agree with George Carlin's very Nietzschean bit about how swimming in raw sewage strengthens the immune system.  Same reason I get about 10-20% of my calories from food that's fallen on the ground (actually no, wait, that's because I have young kids).  Of course Carlin is dead....but so far I'm not. Part of me really wants to rebel against this whole notion that we can somehow wall ourselves off from pollution by avoiding the 'dirty' places.  If ecology teaches anything it's that there's no hope in that...everything is connected to everything else and the fences we try to put up just serve to make us feel better.  We need to take better care of the whole place, not just try to avoid the nasty stuff.  We're all downstream so to speak.

We're well into October now and I'm hoping I can at least make it into November.  I met a very cool Swedish guy when we were vacationing in Cuba last winter, and he was telling me about how he was on track to swim in the ocean every month of the year.  Now I think he was from the southern part of Sweden but that's still pretty bad-ass.  The river here freezes over by December/January so I think November is probably the best I can hope for, but you never know.

Speaking of Swedes, you know else was a fan of open water swimming - a dude named Beowulf:

Unferth spoke:  
"Are you that Beowulf
who struggled with Brecca
in the broad sea
in a swimming contest?
The one who, out of pride,
risked his life in the deep water
though both friends and enemies
told you it was too dangerous?
Are you the one who hugged
the sea, gliding through the boiling
waves of the winter's swell?
You and Brecca toiled
seven nights in the sea,
and he, with more strength,
overcame you."

Beowulf spoke:
"Well, my friend Unferth, you
have said a good many things
about Brecca and that trip,
drunk on beer as you are.
Truth to tell, I had more strength
but also more hardships in the waves.
He and I were both boys
and boasted out of our youth
that we two would risk
our lives in the sea.
And so we did.
With naked swords in hand,
to ward off whales,
we swam. Brecca could not
out-swim me, nor could I
out-distance him. And thus
we were, for five nights.
It was cold weather and
the waves surged, driving us
apart, and the North wind came
like a battle in the night.
Fierce were the waves
and the anger of the sea fish
stirred. My coat of mail,
adorned in gold
and locked hard by hand,
helped against those foes.
A hostile thing drew me
to the bottom in its grim grip,
but it was granted to me
to reach it with my sword's
point. The battle storm
destroyed that mighty
sea beast through my hand.
And on and on evil
things threatened me.
I served them with my sword
as it was right to do.
Those wicked things
had no joy of the feast,
did not sit at the sea's
bottom eating my bones." (translation by D.Breeden)

Now that's some really bad-ass shit.  Dude swam for 5 days in a full suit of armour and a carrying a sword, and killed a bunch of sea monsters at the same time.  The least I can do is go for a little dip on my lunch break and carry back some tomatoes and fossils!

Another swimming contest I like to think about is the one from the movie Gattaca.  It's a great scene from an ever greater movie.  Serves as a good bit of admonition for those times when a person feels like they're a slave to their genetic limitations or that somehow other people have it easier.  Goes to show that it's most often the people that work the hardest and want it the baddest that succeed, not necessarily the ones with the most natural talent or advantages.  A good reminder at all times, especially for those of us in the fitness realm.  And swimming always makes me think of this scene, and the message therein - a good mnemonic kick in the ass!

Well, that got a little more philological and philosophical than intended.... 

All I'm really trying to say is that I'd encourage anyone who has access to a river to ignore the strange stares you might get and just use it.  Swimming is killer exercise.  I'm not even that great at it but it always leaves me feeling like I had a good workout, especially in open water with a decent current (this spot is downstream from some crazy rapids at Chaudierre Falls).  I'm always starving afterwards, which to me is a good sign that I worked hard.  Plus, I used to pay 5 bucks a shot to swim in the public pool, plus gas to get there.  This is free for the taking.
So dive in.  
 

Benchmarking - Special Ops style

Some of the most useful free resources that I've found over the past few years have been a series of military fitness training manuals and guidelines.  The ones that I've found and used are Canadian, but I'm sure that there are also good examples from other countries' militaries. I don't think it could be argued against that military special forces personnel are among the very elite level athletes in the world.  In contrast to professional sports where a drop in physical performance might mean getting cut or traded, poor performance here could be the difference between life and death.  And while I might not necessarily agree in all cases with the ideology and politics behind the specific conflicts, I have a great deal of respect for the people who choose to put their lives at risk in this line of work.  I also think that at some point in every little boy's life (and no doubt some girls too), the dream arises of what it would be like to be a Navy Seal or Black Ops commando.  Carried forward into adulthood, I think there's a little part of everyone (certainly me at least) that likes to think of how they would stack up, on a purely physical level, against these elite role models.

The most valuable aspect of these resources, for me, has been the fitness check components, much more so than the actual training programs they prescribe.  I like to set my own training program and regimen, so I've never been very successful at just following programs dictated by others.  That's probably been a positive in terms of generally avoiding silly bodybuilding mag routines, but a negative in terms of not strictly following the programs set out by others who are much better or more experienced than I am.  What can I say, I just can't seem to do it.  That's not to say I don't use aspects of routines created by others (e.g. Starting Strength, Leangains RPT, Rookie Journal 8x3, etc.) - which I certainly have and still do - but I always seem to find a way to personalize them, adding and subtracting things as I see fit.  I find that I need to do this to take ownership of my training...to actually motivate myself to continue with it.  The idea of taking a program or course of action verbatim from a trainer has always struck me as completely untenable, for better or worse.

But I am a huge fan of continuous and structured self-evaluation, and these manuals provide an easy way to do so.  Not to say they're the be-all end-all  of fitness - I don't even know who developed the specific fitness standards therein or any of the actual physiological underpinnings of the specific measures - but, regardless, they're a convenient way of quickly assessing one's overall state of athleticism and physical readiness.  I've kept a pretty meticulous training log, recording every rep of every workout, since I was about 17 years old. But sometimes I find that it's hard to measure broad-scale fitness over a longer time horizon.  Sure, it's not that difficult to track progress on poundages for key lifts...or capacity in bodyweight exercises like chin-ups, dips, muscle-ups and handstand push-ups.  Even times for key running distances aren't that hard to track.  But sometimes it's hard to see how all of those pieces fit together into a more comprehensive self-assessment of fitness, writ large.  For instance, maybe you're getting stronger in absolute terms but added bodyweight is hurting your aerobic capacity or bodyweight/gymnastic performance... or vice versa. These military testing protocols provide a convenient wage to gauge general fitness across a wide range of activities and components. 

The other advantage that they offer is the fact that most of the criteria are quite easy to test, with very little in the way of equipment, trainers/judges or specialized facilities.  This appeals to the whole essence of Hobofit.  In most cases, the testing components are things like push-ups, sit-ups, chin-ups, and swimming and running over a few specified distances. 

For instance, the pre-selection testing for the Joint Task Force 2 is a combination of 5 components: a 1.5 mile run, push-ups, sit-ups, pullups and a 1-rep max in the bench press.  Of all of these, the only one that presents some difficulty in testing accurately is the 1RM Bench.  If you have the facilties and a good spotter, great!  For everyone else, it's still pretty easy to get an approximation of your 1RM by extrapolating another perhaps +5-10% from a 3-rep max or 5-rep max.  For the JTF2 test, performance in each of these components is rated on a points scale (11-30), with an aggregate score of 75 points needed.  Therefore (for non-assaulters...the slightly easier of two sub-groups), you'd need an average of 15 points in each category, which equates to a 1.5 mile run in under 10 minutes, and at least 48 continuous push-ups, 9 pullups, 48 sit-ups in a minute, and a 1RM bench of just under 200lbs.  Now, I've heard on good authority that 75 points is really the bare bare minimum and that most of the real guys are getting much higher than this.  However, for an aging armchair athlete, this seems to be a decent baseline.  What I like about it too is that it allows for some variation related to an individual's strengths and weaknesses, provided you meet the minimums in everything.  For instance,  I tend to get a lot of points in the Pullups, pushups and bench components, whereas I really need to bust my ass to meet even the 15 point levels for the 1.5 mile and the sit-ups.  Someone smaller than me might excel at the run but struggle with the bench press.

Another one I like to gauge myself against now and again is the SARTech pre-selection test, partly because it adds .  The Canadian Forces School of Search And Rescue (CFSSAR) SAR Tech pre-selection evaluation consists of:

To be completed in 16 minutes or less:

• 1.5 mile / 2400m run in 10:15 or less;
• 31 consecutive Push-ups;
• 33 consecutive Sit-ups;
• 8 consecutive Chin-ups;
• 450 m shuttle run; and

To be completed following the above items:

• 675 m swim in 20 minutes or less

The swim component takes a bit of organization but it's easy enough to just swim 27 lengths of any standard 25 metre pool for time.  The shuttle run is a bit hard to do on your own, so I usually skip that component.

I try to do both of these tests at least a few times every year, just to see where I'm at.  It's something I hope to do well into old age, as a way to ensure that I'm not suffering too much from age-related physical decline.  If it becomes the case that I start to struggle with one or more of the components, I'll take that as a sign of where to focus added training and attention.  Until then, it's a fun and cheap way to feel a little bit more GI Joe than Office Space.

Not What the Tree Was Designed For

My office recently moved locations. Part of adjusting to this has meant that, over the first few week, I’ve been trying out new methods of bike commuting, exploring the running routes and walking paths around the new building and looking for ways that I can incorporate exercise into my workday.  One of the first things I was looking for was a good location to put up gymnastics rings.  I’ve written previously about what a quick, cheap and effective tool these things are for lunch hour workouts.  I was fortunate enough that my former office had a park right across the street, home to both a swing set and several trees with branches that were the right height and roughly horizontal. My new building has no such convenient swing set but, after a little bit of looking around, I was finally able to locate a suitable tree that was large and sturdy enough and had an accessible branch around which it’d be possible to loop my rings.

One day the other week, I decided to bring the rings and give it a try.  Everything went fine – I put the rings up, headphones on, hammered out an initial set of muscle-ups and then took a break before the next set.  While I was waiting, a guy walking down a nearby (maybe 15-20 yards) staircase was trying to catch my eye so I took off the headphones.  Turned out he wanted to know where I got the rings and we got into a brief conversation about using them and different exercises they could be used for, etc.  All in all, nice guy, good chat – he left and I turned back around with the intent of doing my second set when all of a sudden I see a security guard walking toward be on the sidewalk below (the tree was on a little hill, maybe 20 yards from a sidewalk and parking lot).

“Excuse me sir but do you have authorization to use that tree?”  The question was so ridiculous that it took me a bit off guard.  I work in a massive government department so I’m used to absurd bureaucracy, but I wasn’t quite sure how to respond.  Was it the tree, whose authorization I required?  The Prime Minister? The Queen perhaps, as our formal head of state?  I responded, perhaps a bit dickishly, that no, I hadn’t submitted a formal briefing note asking for authorization to use a tree branch at lunchtime to exercise.  He didn’t get the joke and proceeded to tell me that I wasn’t allowed to use the tree in “that way” (sounds perverse, I know).  I tried to show him my security pass in an attempt to assure him that I did indeed work in the building and wasn’t just someone off the street.  It didn’t help however and we ended up getting into a lengthy argument on the subject.  I probably said a few things that I shouldn’t have, although I did manage to refrain from saying what was really on my mind (namely that, if he’d give exercise a try sometime, perhaps he wouldn’t be so morbidly obese).  Unfortunately, after arguing for a few minutes it became clear that, even if there weren’t going to be any great repercussions (I had suggested he call the police), I realized that he wasn’t going to leave and my workout was basically shot.  The chance of finishing my remaining sets with any sort of intensity with this guy just standing there staring at me was about as likely as (quoting Bill Maher) trying to maintain an erection while the cat walks across the keyboard.

So I took down the rings, packed up my bag and told the guy that I wanted to talk to his boss and see something in writing (some sort of policy) that prohibited the use of tree branches for exercise.  As I was packing up, one nearby onlooker, out for a smoke break on a balcony above, gave me a sympathetic nod and shouted how ridiculous it was and how he hoped I’d be victorious in my appeal.  It made me feel a bit better.  At least not everyone’s a tool.  We went to the security office, where I spoke to someone else who wasn’t able to give me any better information, other than a definitive “well, you just can’t do that”.  Ultimately I managed to get them to call someone from the building property management office.  Not to name names, but the complex in which I work may or may not be managed by a certain Montreal-based company with alleged ties to a North African dictatorial regime.  Perhaps that predisposed the conversation which followed...

It took another 10 minutes of waiting before two people came down to see me.  By this point, I had already more than exhausted my lunch break, but I figured that I may as well keep going out of principle (even though I had decided that, in the future, I’d just walk a few minutes down the road to the parkland along the riverbank and find a tree there).  The building property manager that I spoke to was a mindless automaton.  He parroted his response to me without any regard for the specific situation or any willingness to think outside the box.  There were concerns that I could damage the tree (ridiculous, as the tree was thick and probably 75 feet tall – it didn’t even register my presence!).  Apparently there were liability concerns.  I could hurt myself.  I tried to argue that I could just as easily hurt myself walking down a stairwell or slipping on a wet floor in the foyer.  On the rings I was perhaps a mere foot or two off the ground (soft, spongy woodchips even!).  Surely as a worker here, I was covered by standard workplace insurance?  What about the fitness club in the building?  Why were people allowed to exercise in there and not on a tree?  His response was comical.  “The machines in there are designed for that purpose – the tree was not designed for that.”

WTF!!!!  For what exactly was the tree ‘designed’?  Was this actually an invitation for a religio-philosophical discussion on the teleology of a tree?!  Did he really want to discuss the theological underpinnings of man’s dominion over nature?  Perhaps the evolution of our species as largely frugivore primates with opposable thumbs, ideally suited to tree-climbing?  Perhaps even the crazy hypothesis that trees evolved scalable branching structures to encourage species such as ours to seek shelter and sustenance, thus providing a vector for the transmission of their seeds (via fruit and nuts) to other locations.  This all would have been interesting fodder for conversation, had I been speaking to a reasonable and flexibly-minded human being.  But of course I was not. Trees were apparently not ‘designed’ for exercise – not like the plethora of ill-conceived, bulky and useless machines that populate the building’s (fee for service, of course) fitness centre.   Employees are not prohibited from, and are actually encouraged to subject themselves to Smith machines, leg presses, stability balls and countless other damaging and ineffective exercise paraphernalia in that context….but god forbid a tree!  I’m guessing all that fitness centre members need is a signed waiver saying that they’re medically ‘fit’ to attempt physical exercise.  No one is showing them how to exercise properly.  They’re turned loose on a gym full of questionable equipment and assumed to be safe.  The chances of someone doing short or long term damage to themselves there is exponentially greater than the chances of me hurting myself on a tree.  I even suggested to the property manager that I could sign a waiver, absolving them of any responsibility should I hurt myself.  It of course fell upon deaf ears.  

Having wasted enough time, I concluded the conversation by simply asking where the property line officially ends, ensuring that next time I find a tree just beyond it.  Of course, if I’m feeling in the mood for a little civil disobedience, maybe I’ll try another tree on the premises and see how long it takes ‘the man’ to get me again.  Or maybe just a set of push-ups in my cubicle, or the sidewalk out front....yeah that’d be safer...oh, except that’s obviously not what the ground was designed for.....

Pacing - Hiking with kids

Having the day off work, I took both of my kids hiking last Monday.  My daughter has been obsessed with waterfalls lately, so we drove about 40 minutes out of the city to the Eardley escarpment of Gatineau Park, to do one of my favourite local hikes at Luskville Falls.  I love the scenery out there – for some reason it always reminds me of the mountains in South Korea and brings back a lot of good memories of hiking around the forests there.  

The last time I had done the trail was in the Fall and I had been able to get away and do it alone, without the kids.  I had taken them before, but they had been young enough to ride in those backpack kid-carrier devices.  This was the first time that I figured they were both mobile enough to hike on their own.  There are some pretty steep sections and I had pretty low expectations about how far we would get.

Was I ever pleasantly surprised!  We managed to hike probably 2-3 kilometres up and back, with much of that steep enough that the kids had to scamper over rocks on all fours.  I don’t think I heard a complaint the entire time.  We usually go for hikes on trails that are much flatter and easier for little feet to navigate, but still I’m usually well prepared for a chorus of “My legs are tired”, etc.  It didn’t happen this time.  I don’t know exactly what it was but they really rose to the challenge.  No complaints at all.  My only guess is that beforehand I had talked it up to them as a bit of a challenge and that it was okay if we didn’t get very far because it was a pretty steep climb – I think that element of a challenge really made them want to do it even more.  Goal-setting starts by age 3 apparently!

Of course, we kept a pretty slow pace, but it turned out to be a nice change.  Like I said, the last time I did the trail I had done so alone and I recall it was in the Fall and I had stopped in just before dusk on a road trip up to the Ottawa Valley.  I had set a pretty quick pace that time because I had wanted to get up and back before the mountain got really dark and I’d end up tripping and falling on the way down.  While that was great too, this time the slow pace set by the kids really forced me to relax and appreciate the beautiful day, the scenery, the smells and the small details.

Once the first acorn was found, the hike turned into a roving quest to find others.  We’d take 10 steps, scamper over a few rocks and then find another.  Each one had to be carefully examined for quality and either kept or discarded.  Despite my reassurances that only white oak acorns were usually palatable enough to eat, after boiling away the bitter tannins, we collected pocketfuls of the things, with my assurances that we’d try boiling these ones when we got home…just to see.

We took frequent breaks.  In addition to giving little legs a chance to rest, these opened my eyes to a few things I might have otherwise missed.  As the kids sipped their water bottles on one rocky outcropping, I caught the scent of sweetfern and noticed some clumps growing nearby.  I picked a bit, mentioning to my daughter that it made good tea.  To which she responded, “Is there anything on this mountain that we can just eat without cooking it first?”  I told her, a bit optimistically, that we might find some berries, but I’m not sure she was convinced.

Lo and behold, another 10-15 minutes up the trail, there was a little narrow, overgrown side-trail that led down to the stream atop the waterfall.  In August, it wasn’t much more than a trickle but the kids wanted to go see it.  Initially I said no, as I was a little worried about them making it down the steep footing, but I reconsidered and, holding my youngest really closely, we made our way slowly down to the water.  There was a little pool of water where they could take off their shoes and cool their feet.  We saw a little frog perched on the moss and watched him for a while.  And then, as they were splashing around a bit, I spotted a few small blueberry bushes along the water’s edge.  There were only about 10 small berries on the bushes but it was enough to mean I hadn’t been a liar earlier on.  I divided them (equally of course or it would have been tragic!) between both kids.  I thought to myself that, had I pushed on as I initially wanted to (and most certainly would have if I had been solo), I would never have gone down this little trail and would have never found the blueberries.  It was the slow, meandering pace, set by my kids that had led us to them.

We went a little bit further and then I made an executive decision to start heading back.  Again, it was me, thinking about the steep descent, that spurred this, not any complaints from the kids. They wanted to keep going.  We had a few minor slips on the way down, but overall they were very sturdy and cautious and we got back down with minimal scrapes and injury.  I couldn’t think of a better way to spend the day if I tried.  And a big part of that was because I had to slow down and adapt to a child’s pace.  There’s a broader lesson in there somewhere…assuming I can remember to apply it.

Spartan Beast

I spent five and a half hours last Sunday running up and down ski hills and through swamps, climbing under and over all sorts of obstacles, and generally getting beat up – all in the name of completing my first Spartan Beast race.  And what’s more, I actually paid someone about $80 for the privilege of doing all of that shit!  So what gives?  Why would a cheap bastard like me pay money for an organized form of exercise (torture) like this?  And actually be planning on doing it again?  Well, since you’re reading this anyway, I’m going to tell you.

For someone who’s always trying to find cheap or no-cost ways to stay in shape, paying money for an event like this seems a bit antithetical.  But for me, even though I aim to do most of my exercise regimen at little or no cost, there are times when a person needs a sort of goal or benchmark to evaluate one’s progress.  This race was one of those benchmarks for me.  I’m not an endurance guy really.  I don’t log countless miles of running each week.  I don’t run marathons.  For the most part I subscribe to the less is more, short but intense school of thought surrounding exercise.  Practically, that means a lot of weightlifting, sprinting, met-cons, tabatas, explosive movement-oriented sports – that sort of stuff, with a few middle distance runs and swims thrown in for good measure. 

This race, pardon the pun, was a different beast altogether.  24 kilometers long (most of those at significant elevation).  Not at all like my regular training.  But I’m an advocate of well-roundedness (or at least I’d like to think so) in fitness as well as life in general.  Excessive specialization in any field has never really appealed to me (perhaps a little bit of ADD…).  So this was a new challenge.  At the end of the day, I really just wanted to see if I could do it, in the absence of any real distance training.  Prior to Sunday, the last time I’ve run any distance much greater than about 7 or 8kms was at least 5 years ago (prior to my daughter being born).

In the lead up to Sunday, I have to say I was pretty nervous, which is unusual because I’m quite calm by nature.  Like I said, I hadn’t done any long runs leading up to the event.  Hell, I hadn’t even run a 5k in about 3 weeks.  My last workout beforehand was on Tuesday and consisted of a few sets of muscle-ups on rings.  After that, I figured a few days off would be good in order to come into Sunday totally fresh.  I was genuinely scared of failing at this thing, especially since I had mentioned it to a few people and would have been pretty embarrassed if I wasn’t able to complete it.

I had been pretty casual about the whole thing in the weeks prior.  A friend of mine, who was also planning to do the race (and who has a lot more experience with distance events), was really concerned about issues like food and water, talking to me about all manner of energy gels, camelback packs for water, electrolytes, etc.  In hindsight, I was a bit cocky and flippant about all of that stuff.  Food, I thought, ha!  I already fast for sometimes 20 hours each day.  What do I need food for in a 4-5 hour race!  Water, ha! I’ve heard there are some water stations throughout the course, and in the 7km Spartan Sprint earlier in June I had skipped past the only water station on the course without even stopping!  I didn’t like the idea of spending 50 bucks on a bulky camelback and getting it caught on the barbed wire and other obstacles.  My ego and my desire to be tough and minimalist was getting in the way.  In the end I acquiesced a bit and the day before the race I went out to Canadian Tire and spent 12 dollars on a little 1 litre leather wineskin thing.  I hung it from my belt with a climbing carabiner, with the thought that if it started to get in the way, I could simply ditch it somewhere and only be out $12.  I also stuck a handful of my kids’ dried Fruitsource bars and a granola bar in the cargo pockets of my shorts.

The day of the race was absolutely beautiful.  The week leading up to the race had seen humidex values in the 40 degree Celsius range, but Sunday was low twenties, sunny and breezy.  Absolutely perfect.  I had run a 5km Spartan Sprint 3 years previously in 30+ degree heat and it had been brutal.  Once I started, I realized that the wineskin flopping around at my waist wasn’t going to be a huge burden.  I had been worried that it’d interfere with my ‘speed’, but the first massively-steep ascent convinced me that that likely wouldn’t be a huge issue!  Some of the downhills saw it knocked around a bit but not a real problem.  On obstacles such as the barbed wire crawls and monkey bars, I just pitched it down to the other end and then picked it up later.  The fruit bars and granola bar came in handy too.

The first third (roughly of the race) posed no real problems.  I knew what to expect from the Sprint distances I had done before.  I was trying to be proactive with my water consumption to avoid cramping and dehydration and I wasn’t pushing myself to the max (hell, I knew I wasn’t winning this thing and I just wanted to finish and place somewhat respectably).  It wasn’t until I got to, I’m guessing, the 10km mark and we had to stop and do a set of 20 wheelbarrow-style deadlifts (really light weight) when I started to get some cramps in my inner quads.  I kind of pushed past them, scarfed down a fruit bar and few sips of water and kept on trucking.  But they didn’t get better.  For the whole remainder of the race my quads kept cramping – then it moved on to the calves and hamstrings.  It was a learning experience for me because I’ve never experienced this kind of muscle cramping in the past.  After briefly stopping a few times to stretch them out for a few seconds, I quickly realized that my best defence was to keep moving (and to massage them a little bit when possible to get the knots out).  Strangely the worst cramps came at sections of the race that were really upper body dominant, such as having to stop and do chin-ups.  That was when the legs cramped up the most and I ended up doing chin-ups in an L-sit position because it seemed to help with the leg cramps.  Strange!

The other, somewhat unexpected (although shouldn’t have been) thing that got me were the blisters.  At about the halfway point, I could really feel a huge one forming on the inside of my right foot.  I put up with it for a while but then decided to take a short break on the side of the trail during one of the forested sections.  I had stashed a few band-aids in a ziplock bag, so I quickly covered it up and kept going.  In hindsight, it was a total waste of time, since it only provided a bit of relief, and pretty soon I had one on the same spot on my left foot anyway.  Your feet get so wet during these races, running through streams, mud, etc. – this one even had an open water swimming portion – that it’s impossible to do much once the blisters start.  Next time, I know where I’m susceptible to getting them, so I’ll try preventatively wrapping those parts of my feet in moleskin or tape.  For this race, it just got to a point where you just had to try and ignore them.  My attitude was basically to just deal with the discomfort and worry about it later.  It certainly did slow me down in parts, because it’s hard to resist being more tentative when something hurts.  Oh well, next time I’ll have to try the whole  “ounce of prevention…” strategy.

Aside from the cramps and blisters, I was pretty pleasantly surprised that cardio wasn’t a limiting factor.  I had thought that I might have a problem with such a long distance, never having trained much for longer runs.  For most of the second half of the race, I could have pushed harder, if it hadn’t been for the leg cramps and blisters.  Live and learn I suppose – and good info to have for next year.

All in all it was a great event.  Tonnes of variation and some really spectacular mountaintop views of the lake country all around Mont Ste. Marie – the only bad part was that I was reluctant to stop even for a minute to savour those views for fear of cramping up worse.  The best tactic was to keep moving.  The final uphill section, following the swim, was so steep in parts that you were scrambling on all fours over fallen tree branches and rock faces just to get up, but it helped to just keep moving, however slowly, one foot in front of the other.

Many of the obstacles were similar to the Spartan Sprint races I’ve done in the past, just longer and more difficult, but there were some cool new ones.  My favorite was a progression of hanging boards, rings, chains and ropes, all at different levels, that you had to swing across like an orangutan.  Very reminiscent of some of the stuff on American Ninja Warrior!  I was pleased not to fall on that one.  Actually, I only had to do one set of 30 burpees (standard punishment for failing at an obstacle) the whole day – on the spear throw.  That’s been my nemesis for the Spartan Sprints.  I missed the spear throw in my first two Spartan Races.  I actually hit it for the first time this past June for the Ottawa Sprint, after taking the time to get it well balanced in my hand before the throw.  This time I did the same thing, took my time, and hit the target smack in the middle of the chest….but it didn’t stick.  The spear (well, shovel handle with a dull metal poker attached) hit and bounced right off.  Oh well, burpees it was for that one, but I felt pretty good about it still.  Most of the obstacles themselves are not really that difficult.  They don’t require a lot of brute strength.  But interspersed with the distance and the elevation, they take their toll.  I’m reminded of that great quote from Rocky, “it ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”  The last quarter of the race at least is purely mental.

I set out basically to finish the thing, but secretly I was kind of thinking that 5 hours would have been a good goal.  I finished in 5 hours 38 minutes, so lots of room for improvement.  I have no illusions that I’ll ever match the top guys, some of who run this thing in just over 3 hours! (WTF).  One friend of a friend flew through it in just over 4 hours, and apparently had scouted out the course for 2 straight days ahead of time and had his wife strategically placed to offer food at different sections throughout the course!  Another guy I talked to (who beat my time by about 10 minutes) had trained 6 days/week in preparation for it.  My preparations (or lack thereof) pale in comparison.  But still, I’m happy.  If you would have asked me in the half hour following the race, as I lay on the ground stuffing a cheeseburger David Hasslehoff-style into my face (lovingly provided by my wife), if I wanted to do another Spartan Beast, the answer might have been no.  But, once that initial fatigue subsided, I can definitely say I’ll try it again and hopefully learn from some of the mistakes I made this year.

My five-year-old daughter ran her first Spartan Kids race this year and loved it, and my three-year-old son is chomping at the bit, so I’m looking forward to many more years of obstacle racing ahead!