Sunday after the GORUCK Light in Winston-Salem, I took my mom to the movies, to see Crazy Rich Asians. One of my earliest memories when I was a kid was my mom taking me to see 101 Dalmations. I don't remember much of anything about the movie itself, but I do have a snapshot flashback of being in front of the movie theater, I think. It's interesting that I'm now taking her to see movies.
I took her to my favorite theater (albeit the only one I've been to in Charlotte), one with reclined seats.
Monday, Aug 20:
I had planned on doing a slow run, and I wasn't sure I could run at all because my legs felt a bit used. But, I stretched, and my legs felt ok once I got going. I could've potentially pushed for a 4th rep, bt I didn't want to overdo things before West Virginia.
- 1 mi warmup in 8:09
- 3 x [0.75 mi @ 9mph (5:00), 0.25 mi @ 7.5mph (1:58)
4.0 mi in 29:07, 7:17 ave.
Tuesday, Aug 21:
I've been wanting to take my mom to the rail trail in South End, since she likes taking pictures, and there are lots of cool things to discover along the trail. I was going to ruck it. However, I was super tired after work and napped. When I got up at around 11pm, I decided I still wanted to get my ruck in, so I went out at midnight.
7.0 in 1:30:00, 18:20 ave. I could've pushed on for another mile, but I started at like midnight, and after rucking, getting back, showering, and calming back down, it would be really late, so I stuck with 7. Pokemon Go along the way.
WEST VIRGINIA BEAST (NORTH AMERICAN REGIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS)
Spartan has been going crazy with Championship events... stadium series, national series, regional series, mountain series, trifecta WC, ultra WC, WC... anyways, this was one of them. The main difference for this one is that you had to qualify to get into the Age Group and Elite Heats, and the medal was slightly bigger than normal, and it had an event-specific ribbon.
I loved the venue (Summit Bechtel) from last year. It's very scenic, with mountains, ponds and islands, and bridges. It's pretty spectator-friendly. I wore leggings, arm sleeves, my sleeveless USA Legendborne tank, and my Merrel Crush OCR shoes. The shoes gave me blisters for a second event in a row, but they popped some time during the race, anyways. I did get scratched up on my deltoids from the sleeveless part not covered by the arm sleeves. I don't know if it's poison ivy or just sharp grass and stuff. It does make me more inclined to go with sleeved shirts in the future, though. You don't notice much during the race, but it itches afterwards, and is mostly a bit annoying.
There was 2400 feet of elevation gain. The terrain and course was changed up, in terms of sequence, but the overall feel of the course, and many of the paths were the same as last year. I don't care, though... they're all pretty much the same... bushwhacking, some actual trails, same obstacles each time. I brought along a mini Clif bar that I ate, and eagerly accepted Clif Shot Bloks at an aid station near the end.
I did pretty well with obstacle completion. Failed Spearthrow and Olympus. They did have a Swim obstacle (with mandatory life jackets), which is rare. It was nice to get off your feet for a while. The water was chilly, too, which felt pretty good.
Another small twist on the usual obstacles is that they had "Monkey Twister Monkey", which is what it sounds like. 1 set of monkey bars, followed by 1 set of twister, followed by 1 set of monkey bars. To me, it's much easier than Twister, since you can go really fast on monkey bars using momentum, whereas my Twister technique involves using every single rung, with 2-hand touches on each. I'm hanging for a long time when I do Twister, but I make it through.
I was only mid-pack in my heat, but I did win a plank competition hosted by the DJ afterwards. I lasted about 10 min, including periods where we had to switch to only using 1 leg or 1 arm or 1 arm and a leg. Those periods actually helped, because they gave the other arm/leg a break.
After finishing, washing off, and getting a beer, my dad picked me back up, and we went to New River Gorge, which is just 10 miles away. He went there last year while I was racing, but I hadn't had a chance to see it yet. Apparently, we went through on a family vacation when I was a kid, but I didn't remember that. I guess a bridge wasn't exciting to me back then, compared to stuff like Mammoth Caves and Chicago, which I think was the main part of that big road trip.
I'm a huge fan of the National Park Service, though, so now, every chance I get, I try to squeeze that stuff in.
After looking at the bridge from the overlook, we did a driving tour called "Coal Heritage". I didn't seem much that was coal-related, but the placards talked about how this area used to be a big coal mining area. Towns grew up around that industry. Before the new bridge was created, you used to have to drive way down into the gorge to cross a small bridge. The new bridge cut down the travel time over that span from 45 min to 4s, pretty much - crazy! Now, this area's main drive is all of the outdoor recreation. We saw whitewater rafters.
WV SUPER
Gotta love those back-to-back event weekends. At the motel, I got in a breakfast (lite yogurt, orange, apple) and went back out to the venue. I had another 8am start time with the Age Group Heat, and after I finished that, the Sprint would start at 12:15 (the first Open heat).
They switched up the locations of the photographers on day 2, which is good. Similar course, still tons of obstacles. I did fail Monkey Twister Monkey during the Super, because it started to rain a misting rain a few minutes before I got to MTM. Unfortunate timing. It didn't rain any other time during that event. Other than that, failed Olympus and Spear again. I did at least brush the hay bale, but my spear was parallel to the bale by the time it hit it, when it's supposed to be perpendicular. Womp-womp.
I had time between the races to rinse off, change my shirt (I ended up racing in the Super's finisher shirt, since it was dry and already dirty anyways), have a beer, and pick up the packet for the Sprint.
Results... way worse percentile-wise than yesterday, but yesterday was my main focus, anyways.
WV SPRINT
By the time you get to the Sprint on a Trifecta Weekend, all you care about is just getting through and finishing. Since it wasn't raining at Monkey Twister Monkey, I did make it this time again. Failed Olympus and Spear. Oh man, the Spear hay bales were completely trashed by the time I got there. There was only about 1/4 of hay left on the bottom by then. A couple of stations had 1/2 of the hay left. They really should've anticipated that. Everyone was failing even during the Super, if I remember correctly, but it was a joke by Sprint time.
I met someone who had drawn smiley faces on his calves, to cheer up other runners. That was fun. I ran into him later, towards then end, too.
I was happy that I didn't put the bucket down on the ground during any of the three races. I rested it on my hips (both hips at the same time, in a squatting position, for most of the breaks, and on one hip on uphills).
After the race and cleanup and beer, my dad and I drove back down to NC. Another Trifecta Weekend in the books! They did have a special Trifecta Weekend medal this year, although they didn't really publicize it, so unless you heard from other racers, you wouldn't have known about it, unfortunately.
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