Even though I climbed into bed around 9:30p I wasn’t able to calm my nerves so it was a rough night of sleep. 

When my alarm went off in the morning I checked my UP app and saw that I had slept throughout the night, though I woke 5 times during the night. I did, however, surpass my sleep goal and was able to get 7.75 hours of sleep. 

I wasn’t sore from yesterday’s 5K, probably from all of the time spent stretching and mobilizing my muscles yesterday. That made me happy since it helped to keep my muscles warm but I wasn’t sore. 

I was calm and focused while I was getting dressed, a noticeable difference over last night. 

It was really cool when we pulled into one of the parking lots seeing all of the Spartan racers who had either already finished and were getting ready to race. 

As we walked into AT&T Park it was an overwhelming feeling. You could hear racers being sent off in their time groups. We walked into the stands to watch all of the racers for a while. There were several obstacles, including the finish line, on the baseball field. 

It gave me time to understand in what order some of the obstacles were in. There turned out to be many more obstacles that weren’t able to be seen but it was still good to know what the final obstacles would be. 

My heat was at 11:00a. Around 10:50a I went to go line up and was told to start the race as soon as I got there.  

Fortunately I had already stretched for around 20 minutes prior to walking up to the starting line but still would have liked to have had a few more minutes before starting. 

The first obstacle was climbing over a 4’ wall followed by having to bear crawl up two levels of the stadium ramps. 

I then came up to the traverse wall. I thought I’d be able to tackle this easily but having size 13 feet and large hands made it impossible for me. I ended up falling off and thus had to do my first set of 30 burpees as a penalty. 

That wasn’t how I wanted to start out the race but I pushed through and continued on. 

Then came the endless flights of stairs. We went up one flight, across a row of seats and then back down. That repeated itself more times than I can count and I was quickly exhausted by it. 

In between the endless flights of stairs, in no particular order since I can’t actually remember, came carrying a 25-50 lb bean bag up and down flights of stairs, 20 box jumps, 20 pushups, 25 medicine ball slams with a 25 lb ball, a ~100 lb Hercules hoist, Atlas carry, a rope climb, climbing a webbed net, 2 3’ wall climbs, a 7’ wall climb, a 8’ wall climb, monkey bars, spear throw and a few others. 

Besides the traverse wall, I ended up not being able to complete the rope climb, monkey bars or spear throw which ended up costing me a total of 110 penalty burpees.  

Add 10 other burpees that was part of the Atlas carry obstacle and I ended up doing 120 burpees today. 

Prior to today the most burpees I had ever completed in a single workout was 60-65 so I ended up completing double my previous best. 

All of the obstacles that I wasn’t able to complete all required a lot of upper body strength, especially shoulder strength.  

It wasn’t a surprise that I wasn’t able to complete those but I wish I could have had fewer penalties which would have meant an even better time. 

It wasn’t about time this go-round. My only goal was to finish which I proudly did. However, the next race I run I want to do better and perform less burpees. 

After finishing I made the mistake of not properly stretching out because I was so caught up in everything going on. I’m sure I’ll pay for that tomorrow morning when I wake up. 

Since I’m not planning on working out tomorrow I will spend time with my foam roller while waiting for Laura to wake up. 

We sat inside the stadium for a while to allow my body to cool down before we headed out to get lunch together. 

I thoroughly enjoyed a large bowl of pasta and meatballs from our favorite Italian restaurant in the city. It tasted delicious to have a large (carb-heavy) meal after running the race. 

Laura and I decided to grab a few snacks and a movie for the night so that we could have a quiet night at home allowing me to rest and since both of us are exhausted. 

The hundreds of likes, comments, shares, texts and emails that I have received today has been overwhelming. I never expected it and am so thankful for each and every one of you who has continued to support us. Simply: thank you.