Friday I arrived in Monrovia fairly early so I had sushi with a fellow SISU IRON athlete. We had met a year prior at a Spartan Race 12 Hour Hurricane Heat where I had fireman carried him through one of the challenges because I was too heavy for him to carry.
I relaxed for a few hours then met my dear friend Joe for another quick bite to eat. I knew I wanted calorie surplus going into the event.
I arrived and joked with the sweet lady taking fees that I put my pants on one leg at a time and wouldn't need vip parking. I drove up the hill and was the only one in that area.
I walked down to registration turned in my waiver and tennis balls and learned my first challenge was to retrieve a small chocolate covered donut suspended from a paracord tied over a stream. I was not allowed to use my hands and if the donut fell in the stream I still needed to eat it. I began and for some reason put my head back a got light headed. I took a few pointers from Dave and Margaret laughed at their funny comments and ate that ugh thing that I can't remember the last year I had one actually I liked it or maybe it was just the challenge and patch that Dave handed me.
Some waiting and 9:00 pm arrived. We began by counting off and being put in two lines. I was instantly reminded of emt academy and was just waiting for staff to yell front lean and rest position and "down." Instead we started rolling drills. I absolutely hate rolling it makes me motion sick and I always end up being scared I'll pass out and have an ambulance called. I was so frustrated, upset, angry on the verge of tears and did not even care if I would be first to quit. We got to stand up. I grabbed my knees and leaned forward praying a staff member would not talk to me. I breathed and was okay.
Some athletes submitted essays as one of the tasks to complete prior to arriving. Those who had their story published received a break the next 45 minutes while we played in frog pond. The athlete I had lunch earlier with that day was one of the essays selected as he had written a SISU athlete had encouraged him to sign up for the IRON. He wasn't aware that I wasn't a SISU athlete at the event where I carried him. Next we would be separated into 4 teams and we got to swim in the dirt on land and do rolling again to Kevin's right which was our left that was entertaining. Luckily it was short.
We got to rinse off in frog pond again looking for our individually named tennis balls. We earned another cute patch.
We were then given an assignment to run and retrieve a cinder block up the hill and return with it. When we returned we were separated into two teams. Team one was to take the cinder blocks of team two along with their own back to the area we got them from. I was reminded of carrying all the gallon jugs up a trail last year to set up an ultra run aid station and also of all the bucket carries and trash bag carrying I've been doing the past two months to help clean the beach and pay for my axe, saw and knife. I tied a rope handle through one block and put my forearm through the hole of the other one. The following photo is a result of the arm carrying despite long sleeves.
Our next task was to eat a snack of crickets and meal worms (taste like French fries) and a Serrano pepper. I surprised myself I don't usually do very well with hot or spicy. We got a cute survival patch for this.
We then had our hand zip tied to our foot via our shoe and were given a challenge to take the cinder block around the loop course back to the starting point without using our hands to touch the block. I was one of the last ones on this task. There was a young man in front of me and another person in front of him. We were told we had 35 minutes and could go back the way we came or continue forward. The athlete in front of me chose to go back and I encouraged him to stay with us. I didn't want him to go alone. I took an independent study course in high school in time management and I value being on time and being in the right place at the right time. I created this blog a number of years ago centered around time and the excuses that are made surround it, but time hacks and I have a love/hate relationship. I like the challenge they present, but I also don't like the possibility of failure they create. As the time hack drew near I purposely stayed behind the young man I was ready to be done. One of the staff members Matt then announced we were allowed to remove our shoe but must keep it zip tied to our wrist. It ruined my plan to be done and up the hill I ran with the cinder block.
We had to go down the hill with one shoe to be given our next task. We were separated into teams of 5 and Schmitty my teammate from a race in Vegas last year was placed on my team. Now I knew I had to put my best foot forward and continue because if I didn't I would place an extra burden on four individuals. We needed to run to the chapel and check in then collect items we thought would add up to 500 pounds. We could make one trip or numerous trips. We had to go through the pond with our items. The first trip we collected cinder blocks and I grabbed logs and wood. The next trip we grabbed a large log and put a rock in one of our teammates buckets and decided we would use the water weight to help equal our 500 pounds. I took the teammates rock bucket into the water with me and I said a prayer we would make the weight. As I stepped out of the water her bucket had bulged out from the weight of the rock and all the water emptied. We waited our turn on the scale and as we neared our time to set it up a rock fell and the weight we had was 508. We were closest team thus far and had to do 8 minutes of jumping jacks.
Our next task was a hike. My hydration pack was empty and I wanted dry pants, socks and shoes. We passed my car on our way and I made a quick stop thinking I'd catch up to the last of the group. I closed my car and ran down the trail only to choose left when I should have gone straight. Having learned asking staff questions usually earns burpee penalties I didn't ask Matt which direction I should go instead I let him know I was choosing not to continue. I knew what the following challenge was and I had done recon of the area earlier and knew my chance of making the time hack was small. Keeping this in mind and knowing that I have my first ultra trail run in 2 weeks it was important to me to be true to myself and be content that although I wanted to quit in the first 30 seconds I made it through the night and past sunrise just over 9.5 hours.
I left camp and drove to Santa Barbara to shower and take a nap. Soon after I drove home and unloaded my car and was determined to carry everything in up the two flights of stairs in one trip. Lucky for me it isn't a log or 500 pounds. Yes I park in a Fort.
The quote on my bucket is:
Success is not final, failure isn't fatal, courage to continue is what counts. I was given success, failure and courage and now all I'd like is a nap.
