The end of June I travelled to Toronto for the first time. Kirk and I arrived at the airport on the 30th and got picked up by his sister at the airport. We would be staying at her house for the week (thankfully, because there was no way we could afford a hotel). Once we settled in, we went for a beautiful run down on
The Beaches - a great little shakeout run before race weekend.
That evening we had dinner at their house and had a couple beers before going off to bed. Travelling is exhausting!
The next morning we began our day bright and early and did all the typical tourist stuff..
Hockey hall of fame
Ripley's aquarium (my absolute favourite part of the entire trip),
and finally the CN tower.. standing on the glass freaked me out!
We had lunch at a delicious vegan restaurant called
Fresh. It was YUMMY! and a great pre-race meal. We both got vegan tacos!
Then we made a pit stop for some DELISH ice cream from
Sweet Jesus.
That night, we went back to the beaches to celebrate Canada day and see the fireworks, however after walking over 21 km that day, and knowing that we had to get up early and race the next day, we decided to head back and go to bed.
Saturday morning we woke early to get ready for the race. Taped my knee with rock tape, eat a huge bowl of oatmeal, and got picked up by our HEXT teammates Fm and Jen.
The drive to Brimacomb ski was just over and hour. Before we knew it we were there, and I was pleasantly surprised at how small the ski hill was. I knew they would kill us during the race with down/up hill runs, but atleast it didn't seem too steep.
Once we were all checked in for the race everyone went to warm up and mentally prepare. Today was the sprint, so we were expecting only 6-8 km of hills, obstacles and mud. The elite heat started at 8am, with males and females leaving together. The course started directly straight up a hill. I was already gassed at 3/4 up, I completely underestimate the hills and overestimate my running ability. After walking to the top we reached our first obstacle, the 6 foot wall. I slowed to catch my breath, hesitated a bit (being a shortie, walls are a struggle for me), took a running leap, and climbed over on the first try. Surprisingly managed well. Right after that was more walls (over, under and through). Straight back down the hill after this, to the hercules hoist (I love Canada's herc hoist cause it's only a propane tank), followed directly by the 20ft rope climb. Which is brilliant and cruel.
I've somehow never failed the rope climb, partially because I'm too stubborn to stop, and partially because it's so high I'm terrified to drop. This one was a slow struggle for me, but I made my way to the top and rang that damn bell. Slowly slid down to the bottom, trying not to get rope burn, and began another ascent. At the top of the hill, there was a long row of monkey bars. The line up was long, I made it halfway and dropped off.. To my disappointment, successfully sending myself to the burpee zone, for the first of what would be MANY Burpees that day.
5 or so minutes later, I've finished my 30 Burpees and am back running. The next obstacle was the slack line. I was already pretty tired from my monkey bar Burpees from before, and approached this one way too fast, falling off at the board part, not even making the slack line. 30 more Burpees.
Back down the hill, where the 8 ish foot wall was waiting halfway. I've been known to struggle at this because it's so tall, however, after thinking about it before the race and coming up with a new strategy/technique, I aced it no problem and continued on my way. Reached the bottom of the hill and you guessed it, we went right straight back up.
At the top was the parallel bars. They zig zag up and down, and have a wonderful sprinkler pointed directly at them so that it's extra slippery and hard. 30 Burpees again. These ones were a struggle. And it felt like I was the only one there doing Burpees. At this point, I knew I wasn't doing well after so many Burpees and so much walking, so I decided to just have fun with it and not stress myself out over placement or time.
More ups and downs, sandbag carry,
Followed directly by jerry can carry, more running, most of it at this point was a blur.. More running through the woods (which is always fun!), lots of mud, spear throw (some how have managed to never miss this obstacle.. I credit my skills to Kirks teaching technique), barbed wire crawl,
then my arch nemesis.. The platinum rig.
The platinum rig destroys my confidence every time. I struggle hard with the rig. I've never once made it across. I like to blame it on my super short arm span and not being able to reach the rings. Of course.. 30 Burpees at this one too. I don't even want to talk about how many Burpees I had to do that day.. It was sad. Borderline pitiful.
Regardless, I climbed the rope mountain type obstacle (A-frame?), and finished strong at the fire jump, where a medal, water and shirt were waiting for me.
I finished 38th which I wasn't super pleased with, but can't complain, it wasn't my best race.
The good news is, I got to spend the day with a bunch of amazing friends/teammates!
After the race, we went to the Toronto zoo with my teammates, which was an absolute blast!
By the time we got back, we were exhausted. We made supper, chilled out a bit, and went to bed early, as we would be repeating the same thing the next day.
Day 2, Sunday, was the super 12+km with the same obstacles as the day before, plus a few extra carries (tire, a pipe filled with water, ammo cans, and a tire drag.. My grip strength was wrote off), and a sternum checker (basically a board laying horizontally that's as tall as I am and you have to climb over. Then the other obstacles from the other day, more carries and more running.
I'm very proud to report that I completed the monkey bars for the first time in my life (yay!), completed the parallel bars that I had failed on the day before, AND did the slack line successfully! That felt great and I was completely burpee free up until the stupid rig. Yup, Burpees. Oh well, if 30 Burpees was all I had to do the entire race, I was happy!
Day 2 was definitely more muddy than the day before!
Lastly the fire jump, and Kirk was waiting for me at the finish with my medal! I love it when he does that, because he's always the first person I want to see. I finished strong with 36th.. Not much higher placement, but there was a lot of good racers that day. I'm pleased with that for my first super distance Spartan.
After the race we got a drive back with one of our racing friends and had lunch with him. We had a chill evening that day as well, all the excitement and racing had made us pretty tired.
Monday came, and we decided a shake out run was necessary! We returned to the beaches for a nice run along the board walk.
Later on in the day, we decided to visit Casa Loma, a gorgeous castle from the 1800s in the northern part of Toronto.
We did a lot of walking around that day too, and ended our journey at Kirks brothers house. I had never met his brother Garett before, or his wife and kids, so I was very excited to be able to have dinner with them. It was the perfect end to our last day in Toronto.
The next morning, we grabbed an uber (our first one ever!) and got to the airport. It was Kirks birthday, so I upgraded us to first class, and for the first time ever, Kirks legs were crammed against the persons seat in front of him! Tall person probs.
Overall, I had an amazing trip to Toronto, it was very busy and jam packed with activities, but we had a blast and enjoyed our vacation. The weather was perfect the entire week so we couldn't have gotten any luckier!
Next up for races is Montreal, super and beast/ultra beast weekend.
I had been planning for the ultra beast, however after a lot of consideration, and the fact that I've never actually ran a beast before, I've decided to do the beast in the open heat with a few Nova Scotian friends. This gives my the opportunity to support and cheer on my boyfriend and teammates while they attempt the ultra beast, There will always be another ultra, and I think the smartest thing to do is a shorter race first to see how I handle 30+ km first, before jumping into the 50 k one. Especially since my furthest run so far is only 30k.
That's all for now!
Happy trails friends,
The Rural Runner
