Central Florida Spartan Sprint

After the Kissimmee Spartan Sprint this summer, I really wanted to do another one. Getting to do the obstacles made me feel really powerful and strong. The next Florida race was the Central Florida weekend one week after the Space Coast Half Marathon. Will was already signed up to do the longer Beast distance on Saturday and when I said I was interested in the Sunday Sprint, we both signed up.

The Central Florida races were taking place about 3 hours from where we live. Since spectating isn't free and there's not usually a lot of places along the course to spectate, Will decided to go run the Beast by himself and come home afterwards. We'd drive back down on Sunday together for the Sprint. Unfortunately, disaster struck when Will got a flat tire around 9 pm on the drive home. He was fine, the car was fine aside from needing a new tire and we had a spare so he was able to get back on the road and make it home without needing a tow. But you can probably tell where this is going.

There is pretty much no way to get a tire replaced between 9 pm on a Saturday night and 8 am on a Sunday morning which is when we'd need to leave to make it to the Sprint on time. Even attempting to get a rental car before 8 am on a Sunday would be really unlikely. If it was a local race, we probably could have gotten someone to drive us but three hours each way at the last minute is a lot to ask even of a really close friend. So we were left with skipping the race as our only option.

I wasn't super upset Saturday night but at that a point I was just really tired and wanted to sleep but Sunday morning I was really struggling with my emotions. After the Space Coast Half, I did not feel great so I started out the week with a rest day. I had planned on doing recovery walks on Tuesday and Thursday but it was in the 40s during my walking time. I have no issue running in 40F weather but this Florida girl is not up for walking in near freezing temps at 5 am. I napped instead. So by Sunday, I had all of the angsty feelings from not having exercised all week on top of all of my feelings about missing my race.

I went out Sunday morning for a four mile run. The weather was actually quite nice for a run and it was a good time for me to get my feeling settled about my first DNS. It was a real bummer to have two not so great race weekends in a row but there will be more races. Marathon weekend is coming up. And there will be more Spartan races opportunities in late 2020.

One of the things that comes with running is that sometimes you will put in all of this training and not get to run your race. Injury, emergencies and inclement weather happen to everyone. It sucks when it happens but the journey is still worth taking even if the destination isn't what you pictured when you started out.