Complete Spartan Race (all obstacles) in October 2012

[drlisasharpe]

I am a runner and complete upper body weakling. I'm also a 46 year old woman who works full time and is a mom. I consistently win my age group in local 5Ks, but I've neglected strength training for years. My crazy triathlete friends convinced me to do the Super Spartan (8 miles, 27 obstacles) in October. If you don't complete an obstacle you have to do 30 burpees. I can barely do 10 with good form.

I have been doing timed 1 min intervals and have worked up to 3 sets of 25 full pushups, but there are many exercises I simply can't do yet. I can't complete even one of Mark's upper-body intensive workouts. I have my work cut out for me!

Lisa

[crispy8888]

Wow! That's quite a challenge for yourself! Keep us posted on your progress!

[ChrisS]

Oh, seriously good luck! A spartan race is something I want to do eventually as well, possibly late 2012 or sometime 2013.

[drlisasharpe]

So far, so good. After one month, I can do 36 full pushups in a minute and can do one (yes, only one) chin-up. I'm on the Beginner's program and am doing lots of ladders which seriously kick my butt. However, one that note, I now have GLUTES! wow. My insane friends and I are doing a cardio workout once a week at a local toboggan run - we all have kids (this factors in)....

1. Run one mile, kid in stroller.
2. With kid on back, sprint up toboggan hill (they loooooveee that).
3. Do 30 burpees
4. Repeat until exhausted.

Kids range in weight from 40-57 pounds. We make the dad carry his 57 pound son.

[Cecilia]

That's seriously good progress! So, you have glutes...what's your secret? I'm almost finished with 1st class, wk 10 (except for the arm workout due to tendinitis) and all I can say is that I have no glutes. They've whittled down to nothing...

[Sarah]

It is encouraging to hear about your progress in the pushups! 36 sounds like a huge amount to me, hardly an upper body weakling.

[drlisasharpe]

I DID IT! It was UGLY, though. I credit the bodyweight training for my ability to suffer through. It was every bit as tough as they advertised, and I wiped out at least 10 times in the insane slippery mud. We climbed ropes in the mud, rappelled in the mud, scaled walls in the mud, army crawled under massive amounts of barbed wire in the mud, went down chutes in the mud, scaled ropes over rivers of mud, carried and dragged 40 lb weights through the mud, flipped semi truck tires, did monkey bars (I wiped out).... but the thing that really got me was the final obstacle, in which we had to jump into an icy pond (full of mud, of course), swim to a rope and climb it, and then swim out, all the while wrestling to climb up a slippery wall of mud. I didn't stop shaking for an hour and a half. I have multiple contusions all over my legs and arms! Every muscle hurts! But here's the good news - I found out yesterday that I was 6th in my age group and in the top 10% of all 45-50 year old women worldwide.

All the pull-ups and pushups (and burpees) really helped. If you miss an obstacle you have to do 30 burpees, and after all the burpees I did in training, that was not an issue at all. I missed 4 obstacles and did 120 burpees.

All I could think about was that I was happy I didn't have to do this with people shooting at me! Thanks Mark! It's the Tough Mudder next for me.