A Quick Trip Up North

Last weekend I was in Kalispell, Montana.Why? Well, to run in a race, of course. My friend Leslie and I decided that we needed to try out a Spartan Sprint before we killed ourselves in the Spartan Beast we had already signed up for (Beast=12+ miles; Sprint=4+ miles—in this case, 4.9). And Leslie's daughter decided she wanted to do it too. So off we went. Guess what? Spartan Sprints are pretty darn fun. We got to run and hike through the woods, wade through mud, crawl through dirt, climb up and down cargo nets and walls, lift heavy things, jump over fire, swing on monkey bars, try to throw a spear, and lots of other awesome stuff. When you can't do an obstacle, you have to do burpees. Blech. But I'm very proud to say that I only had to do burpees twice—once because I couldn't throw the spear straight, and once because I couldn't climb a rope, both of which I'm perfectly fine with since I've never been able to climb a rope and that was the first time I'd ever thrown a spear (seriously, when do you ever throw a spear in real life?). I'd say we totally rocked it!

When my mom saw this picture, she said we didn't look nearly dirty enough, which is true. Our starting time was later in the day, so by the time we got to the crawling through the mud obstacles, it was more crawling through dirt. But trust, me, our lower halves are caked in mud. Yay! And now at least I know what I'm in for doing the Beast. I'm pretty sure the length is going to kick my trash, but at least I know I can handle the obstacles.

So what do you do after you finish? Well, first you take a shower. And then you eat pizza. And then you're only a 40-minute drive from Glacier National Park, so you go for a drive.

And there's another national park checked off my list. It's beautiful, by the way. It reminded me a lot of Alaska, just on a smaller scale.

Just gorgeous. Unfortunately, we didn't get to spend a lot of time in the park (something about having real lives we had to get back to). I could easily spend a few days there. All in all, not a bad way to spend a Saturday. Stay tuned for the report on the Beast, happening on June 29. I will not be running away to Vegas, and I will finish!