I love burpees

1 hr of turbo - knee no bueno

I deicided to rest today - and hope that I didn't lose too much fitness for next week.

Crossfit (can't remember what we did though) , and 1 hr zumba

My knee was really worrying me as it was now looking like a cut had an infection - Great!  I looked up signs of staph, and noticed red streaky lines coming from it.  The infection was spreading to my blood stream.  That got me over to the doc quickly.

He didn't know if it was mersa or staph, so he gave me and rx to treat both. 

I showed up to Aimee's strength class to participate, but halfway through decided that yes, I was going to commit to the Spartan race that weekend.  I ran outside for half hour to see if my knee would be ok - wasn't  too bad.  So it was decided!

I signed up for the spartan (better than never) and then went out for a quick 5 to make sure I could handle it. 

rest

rest and drive to the race.

Ah the arizona Spartan - I knew that if I had to do one set of burpees that I probably wouldn't win this race.  I was going up against the best who had a lot more experience than me on these obstacles.  April Luu was to be my biggest competitor I'm sure.  Because of how much she was beating the girls in other races, I knew that she was a good runner, and strong.  I tried to not let any of that get to my head though.  Heck I'm strong and fast too!:)

So I got to stay with my sister in Pheonix - we left the boys at home but had to bring Ivy along cause she is uber attached to her Mommy.  My hubby was also going to run his first Spartan for his birthday and I was sooo excited for him.

When I arrived, I was already freezing - it was prob 40s at the starting line. I went through my warm up and got to meet a few people along the way.  It was crazy cause people recognized me from the Socal spartan video, and would strike up a conversation.  It was nice to help calm my nerves.

The start was a single track, so I knew the ladies would jump the gate and try to jockey for position early.  I decided to let them do it.  I knew I was a faster runner than most, and that I would go ahead and let tire themselves out. 

Well I was right, and was in about 6 place through the first half mile.  And then they started to drop like flies.  The pace was too much for them (and had tired them out).  It was great for me to move right up to first.

April was staying with me for a while through the obstacles.  i made it past the monkey bars (hallelujah!!!) - I was not going to do burpees there.  Over walls, under walls - a group of 3 or 4 was sticking with me.  After the first mile and a half, they started to drop back.  I was honestly wheezing from a cold I had showed up with.  I know it was affecting my speed and stamina.  But I pushed on. 

I led for the next 3 miles.  The obstacles werent bad at all.  April did catch back up to me by the sandbag carry, and then pass me for a sec.  By the wall traverse, I was right back in the lead.  She definitely took a lot longer than me on that.  I'm glad something is easy for me in this race.

I had maybe a 20 sec lead by the time we reached the rope climb - Honestly I was exhausted.  I knew that I had less than a mile to go, and I just had to stick the rest of the obstacles.  So on the rope climb, I got half way up and noticed that I had chosen one with very few knots at the top. Crap!  I never learned how to climb it, and my arms were too dead to muscle it.  I tried and couldn't make it.  So i came down and started my burpees.  That decision lost me my lead.  (I did however learn how to climb it later - it's so easy!)  # 3 girl, Ella, was able to catch me a bit - I had maybe 30 sec on her. 

After the muddy hill climbs, I got down to the spear throw.  April was doing burpees!  This was my chance - I had practiced all week.  All I had to do was nail it and I would get my lead back.  And.... I missed:(  Crap.  And worst of all, 3rd place Ella came in, threw and nailed it.  She ran it in and April just missed catching her.  I ran (well rolled through a rediculously long barbed wire crawl) in feeling dejected.  I hate losing at the end! 

I still did walk away with $750 - not bad not bad.  i knew this race was going to go to experience and I've got to be able to run a clean race.  With the longer distrances my running will be more of an advantage, I don't think Ella has a chance.  April will still be a challenge to beat I think. And I think I'll be able to come back from mistakes like that.  Still loving the challenge that this race provides and am looking forward to the next one.

The bus ride back to the car was going to take a while, so we just waited around for the awards at 11.  Well that was not the best decision for my cold.  By the time Jim's heat came around I was plenty chilled.  For his bday I promised to run it with him though not the obstacles.  When I got started, my back acted up immediately.  Then 2 miles into it, my chest was honestly burning (not a good sign) from my cold. So I did 4 miles of it with him, and then stood around (again more in the cold).  Needless to say I was pretty sick afterwards:( 

Jim did so awesome, and even said that it wasn't that hard - well he didn't even get to run all out cause there were so many slower people at that time. There was actually times he was standing around.  Can't wait for him to try a longer race with more obstacles with a faster heat!

1 hr zumba

Recovery run - legs felt ok but knee wasn't loving me.  Hopefully this thing gets better!

7 easy treadmill miles

Crossfit - 30 kbs, 15 ring dips, 400 m run

Again feeling dead - But was still the top girls team for the day:)

So I really wanted to tackle a hill today, so I went out to Toquerville falls again.  Oh my gosh.  Is this run ever going to get easier???  It's a 2 mile climb, and then straight down and then back up again for the reast of it. 

I tried out my new Brooks trail shoes - yuck!  I hated them.  They had too much cushion in the front and I felt like i was so unstable - not a good thing to be going on during a trail run. 

Oh and the wind was super strong and blowing right at me while climbing the hills - and I couldn't stop hacking from this chest thing I've got going on.  Not my best day but am glad I was up to the challenge. 

Turbokick - 1 hr

Today was so awesome - I got to conduct my first Spartan training and I had so much fun.  We did bucket carrys, tire drags, wall climbs, spear throw, and of course burpees.  It think it went really well!  It's so fun to make every one else do the dirty, hard work. 

It's time to start building my miles back up to train for the spartan beast.  I was just hoping that my knee would hold up, and it did better than it's been doing.

I ran the water tower loop and then added extra hills and lots of sand. 

After 5 miles, I did 30 burpess, and 100 lunges holding a heavy rock every other mile

I'm so so determined to get a strong uppper body, so I really wanted to hit the weights a bit.

I did

tire drag

5x wall climb

20x thruster - 40 lbs

20x pull ups

spear throw, 15 burpees, throw, 10 burpees, throw, 5 burpees

Repeated 2 x

Great workout today!

I wrote out a tentitive schedule for training and hope that my body holds up so I can stick to it.  I'm planning on adding miles on every week and then hoping to compete in Georgia Spartan March 9.  My eye is definitely on the prize at the  Las Vegas Spartan.  I'm hoping to get my hill running/ trail running stronger, and be able to nail all the obstacles by gaining upper body strength.

1 hr zumba

1 hr crossfit - dirty 30s

This was so hard for me!  My arms were dead from Saturday so everythings was a struggle

30 box jumps (had to rest)

30 pull ups (had to rest)

30 thrusters - 40 lbs

30 overhead lunges

30 knee to elbows (rest once)

30 wall balls

30 burpees

30 double unders

Jim stayed home today so I didnt get to go to strength class - but did go to run outside:)  I ran intervals on my street - 2x400, 2x600, 2x800, 2x600, 2x400 with same distance rest inbetween..  I didn't time each one but saw that I averaged a 5:30-5:40 on each.  I was happy to be able to maintain that time even when the streets were at an incline. 

7.5 miles on the treadmill - knee bugging a bit but body loving the recovery pace.

After

45 incline pull ups

30 thrusters - 30 lbs

25 burpee box jumps

2 times through - arms still feel so dead:(