On Saturday evening around 7pm I, along with two other fabulous peeps will be starting a 12 hour overnight hike through the woods. Except that it really isn't just a hike. It's training. Training for the 2012 Spartan Death Race.
We will start with an easy loop that will take about 45 minutes. This will give us a feel for the landscape...in the dark. When we make it back to the parking lot, there will be some burpees and sledgehammer-to-tire rounds before heading out again. Our friend John Waite (the experienced Death Racer) has put together a number of challenges as we loop around again and again through the night. From what I understand there will be some pails of water, tires, sandbags and puzzles. I love the idea of the puzzle component as a measure of our brain power as we become weary through the night. I am interested to see how I hold up to this. I think I will fair well. But we will see....
Having participated as a crew member at the 2011 Death Race the one component that was very apparent through out was the mental challenges. How the coordinators played with the participants minds, each individually. Just seeing how far each would go. How far could they push them. What they were willing to do. How could they break the next person....
Anyhow the last time I hiked through the night was two years ago and went a total of 80kms....not all in the dark...however I do recall we slowed down considerably once the sun went down. Noises play tricks on your senses. The major difference. It was July not December. I was only carrying water and food. There were no burpees involved.
So back to the sleeping in thing...I am trying to prepare my body somewhat for the sleep deprivation this coming Saturday evening. I am attempting to get some real satisfaction out of the warm, fluffy, heavenly duvets and the dry heat of our furnace. Because if I know John even a little bit, I'm sure there will be no resting, no dry clothes and no time to warm up until Sunday morning when I return back home.
195 days to go!!!
X J
