The 2016 Portland, Oregon, Spartan Race

K1 lives near Portland, Oregon. She does the occasional long distance running event, so this year she thought she would sign up for the Spartan Race on 6 August. She started having second thoughts about the rigorous obstacles, but I told her not to worry - I would bring two of her macho brothers out to help lift her over the big walls and such. K8 enjoys tackling obstacle courses, and was extremely happy to finally get his first airplane ride. I gave him my window seat. He doesn't smile for the camera like this very often. 

K6 had previously run a Centurion Race, so he was the veteran on our team.

We had the good fortune to fly on a day that the Pacific Northwest was having beautiful clear weather. We had this magnificent view as we flew right past Mt Hood on our descent into Portland. 

K1 and her two youngest had the stomach flu on the day we arrived, so they put us in the local Marriott Hotel. They soon bounced back. On the day before the Big Race, the team, which now included K1's hubby Mike, had to load up with carbs, so we visited "The Rock" pizza shop...

...with their delicious buffet of wood fired pizzas, and old rock and roll band theme.

Then off to a county park to do some last minute training...

...on state of the art equipment.

We finished up with a 1/2 hike across the dam and through the forrest. Then home to try out a new online edited movie service Mike found called Vid Angel. We watched "13 Hours", the powerful story of what really happened at Benghazi when our Consulate was attacked and the U.S. Ambassador was murdered along with 3 other Americans - the story is based on eye witness survivor's actual reports vs the made up fairy tales and official lies from Obama and Clinton. I highly recommend you watch it (the edited version cuts out the bad language), and form your own opinion. It is a prime example of failed leadership putting our people in harm's way, and then not sending "the calvary"(we had troops a few hours away in Europe) to rescue those men and women trapped by...I digress from my more happy story of the Spartan Race. 

Saturday morning! The big day, so it's time to crawl out of bed, skip breakfast and get ready with 1 1/2 minutes of stretching. Yeah, we're ready. Oh, and Mike woke up with the flu! Oh, no, but he suited up after his warm-up barf, and headed to the race.

The race was located up in the hills. We were in a long line of traffic creeping up the hill, but the beautiful scenery made it enjoyable.

K6 and K8 were getting eager - they bailed out of the car and headed up through the field of vehicles toward the entrance. 

Here is the "before" shot, when everyone was clean, happy, and naive about what would soon happen to their bodies. Notice the green wrist band on Mike's right hand - it is an electronic counter to record an individual's start and finish times.

The runners had to hop over this little wall to get into the Starting area. K6 and K8 in the center background.

The course was 4 miles long, winding up and down through forested hills and across part of a Motocross track, with...

...26 challenging obstacles of varying height, weight, and difficulty.

I could only get close to a few of the obstacles for photos and video. You can see some runners coming out of the woods behind the inverted metal V climbing thing. 

I waited patiently for my 4 man team, but I only saw Mike. He said K6 and K8 caught the competitive bug a few minutes into the race and ditched Mike and K1! K1 was coming along behind Mike chatting with friends. After this obstacle, Mike went down to the spear throwing event, then...

...the rope crawl, followed by one more mud hole obstacle...followed by...

...the final rinsing water hole in front of the finish line. Some runners crossed the line as individuals, and others...

...who had stayed together as a team, crossed as a group. Notice the guy on the left doing a flip into the water.

In spite of having the flu, and having to puke a few times during the race, Mike crossed the finish line - a real trooper!

K1 was not far behind in finishing.

The first thing you received was a "Finisher's Metal" and a banana, then...

Energy bars and drinks, and a cool looking Finisher's t-shirt.

Who would know? She had the flu two days ago and he had it on race day. But they had so much fun, they are planning on running it next year.

This area had lots of water hoses for a quick rinsing to get the top layer of mud off (it would take a few more showers at home to really start feeling clean, and to get rid of the mud under their finger nails).

They all finished. The "after" photo - not so clean, but still happy in spite of any aches and pains. K8's shirt was ripped to shreds during the barbed wire obstacle. Mike had to leave immediately after this pic to head home and back to bed.

We stayed a little longer to check out race results, and shop for stickers and t-shirts. K8 was our best athlete on this day - he ranked 441st out of all 5,401 runners (men and women of all ages)! He ranked 406th out of all 3,308 males, and he ranked 28th out of all 100 of the 15-16 year old males! Not bad at all for a guy who didn't train in the weeks leading up to race day, or even stretching or warming up properly the morning of. Just think what he could do if he set his mind to winning it? Both are already planning to return for next year's race. It was a blast, and we had a great visit with K1's family.