Back on the wagon

Ok.  Summer is over with.  Time to get back to what it is all about.
So what have I been doing?  A lot.

I was doing some running training for the Virginia Wine Country half marathon, which I completed.  Was not happy with the overall running of the event and will probably not do it again.  It was put on by destination races and this was the second year that they put it on here in Virginia. Anyway, not to dwell on the past too much.
After that I started to bike a lot more.  I am looking at doing some more Duathlons so I am trying to improve my cycling.  I started to notice that my heart rate was elevating during my work outs.  Well it started happening more and more, and when I say elevated it was peaking around 220 bpm.  I started feeling weird and was feeling like my heart was racing.  So I made an appointment with my doctor.

So I met with my doctor.  They did an EKG and scheduled a stress echo.  Bottom line.  No more exercise for me.

So this is when we scheduled our family vacation to Tennessee.

After all of the tests that were done it was determined that I was just fine.  More then just fine. My heart was better then average.  It was doing everything that it was suppose to be doing.  Good news for me.  I was given the ok to get back to exercising. 

So what was the issue? 

Well anyone with a Garmin knows this.  The battery in my heart rate monitor needed to be replaced.  That is what was causing my heart rate to go all haywire.

So with that I got a new battery and was off and running.  Pun intended. 

This was kind of a good thing as I had signed up to run in the Super Spartan in Leesburg VA. 

It was brutal. 

There was lots of running through fields, jumping over walls and horse jumps and going under and through things. That was not that big of a deal. I was good with that. I did have some issues getting over the 8 foot walls.


So we are just under 4 miles in and we come up to the barb wire crawl, or what ever it was called. Basically it is a mud pit that you have to crawl through under barb wire. the issue was there was nothing but rocks in the mud. Not sure if that was how it was suppose to be, but it is what it is I guess. then we come up to the monkey bars and this was my first obstacle that I could not complete. My hands were still covered in mud as was the rest of my body and my hands slipped off. 30 bur-pees for me! I won't lie I was tired at this point. For me, 3 water stops was not enough, or maybe I just did not hydrate enough before hand. Oh well. There were two obstacles that I was not sure if I was going to be able to do but I got past them. They were both rope walls. The first was much like the roof of an A frame house. Now some people might not thing that bad but for me, I have issues with heights. I got over it though and was very pleased at myself that I did. The next one was a straight up vertical rope wall. I thought I was in trouble on this one. Going up was not too bad, going down was not bad either, it was the getting over the top. As long as no one else was on the ropes or if they were still enough it was not too bad.

So at this point we are at about 6 miles. We were coming up to the last water stop. Here we flip those big tires over twice, turn around and flip them back and make sure that they land flat and that the block of cement was in the middle. Not really an issue, it was easier then I thought it was going to be.

So here we go past the start/finish line on to somewhat of a home stretch. This obstacle was tough as I was having issues getting my footing. You go into a pool of water that is waist deep and you have to get out by going up a muddy hill. my shoes were old running shoes that had very little tread left. Well once you get up, you have to go through two more pools. After the third pool then there is the soapy wall. A wall at about a 45 degree angle that you have to climb up using a rope, all the time they are putting Ajax on the wall and rope. I tried three times to get up. Set number 2 of Bur-pees for me. There were a couple of more obstacles that we did then we have the last two. One you have to throw a spear into a figure made of hay bales. the spear has to stick. Mine did not. 3rd set of bur-pees.

the last one you had to climb a rope and ring a cowbell at the top. Well I tried, I got about half way up and could not go anymore. Into the waist deep water below. 30 more bur-pees for me and then on to the finish shoot. I was exhausted with battle scars to boot.
All in all it was not bad considering that I did not train properly for this event. Had I did a better job at preparing I am sure I would have had a better time, but honestly at the end I was thinking that a marathon would have been more fun.

I was under the understanding that it would be about 8+ miles, well it turned out to be around 10.3 miles.

So that is it in a nut shell.  I am back to getting into a routine of things including exercising.  I am also going to be trying to get into a more stable routine of cross training, as well as updating this blog on a regular basis.