Spartan Indoctrinated!

We are now a Spartan family! Yup, that's right, the kiddos ran their very first race, a Spartan Jr 0.5 mile obstacle course, and they were AWESOME. Proud parent moment! Big thanks to Ryan for making this happen.

Original plan was for both Ryan and I to race, but the latest bouts of being sick sidelined Ryan. After my race on Saturday, the kids wanted to come watch mama run on Sunday. (Yes.. I did 2 races on back-to-back consecutive days.) Ryan made the effort to bring the kids to spectate. My race time was early enough that I could finish in time before the kids race, so last-minute we gave the kiddies a choice if they also wanted to run, and they did!

Attempt at a pre-race photo... can't get all of them looking at the same time.

Pre-race stretching.

Mulling around.. waiting for the race to start..



10...9...8... ...3...2...1.. GO!!!


Run! Run! Run!


Liam & Ryan, climbing over the wall.

Emilia doing the Under-Over wall obstacle.

Liam's "barb wire" crawl.


Emilia going over haystacks.

Go! Go! Go! Yes. I am THAT mom.



Waiting for her turn at the kiddie "spear throw". Kids have a 5 burpee penalty for not hitting the target.

Emilia doing burpees in the back and Liam's "spear throw" attempt. =)


The Finish line!

Post-race outfit --> Emilia tried the muddy water obstacle but did not like the freezing waters. We did not bring a change of clothing for her, so she had to sport a fashionable towel look.

Connie's Super and Sprint Summary Recap:

For the 9+ mile Super, the conditions were completely opposite from the last time I did this. There was severe winds blowing sand and dust, making it hard to see and breathe.

(photo curtesy from random facebooker in the Spartan group)

(video curtesy from random facebooker in the Spartan group)

The obstacles felt harder this time around, with a few more upper body centric ones. Even the traverse wall was a challenge. Here's a view of the Z-traverse wall with people doing the 30 burpees penalty for failing it.. And in the background is the bucket carry. One fills their bucket with small rocks and have to carry it up and down the hill in the further back.

My Super time was pretty dismal.. 4:16 (~90%). Grandmas and grandpas beat my time. However, I did go into it with no training (haven't ran more than 2-3 easy miles since last October) and lingering muscle strains. But, I did it anyways. It was more a mental game as I was not confident about any obstacles that require dynamic movement with the possibility of jumping or falling (aka rehash of the ACL injury). I failed 5 obstacles (monkey bars, Spear Throw, Thermophalea, Z-Wall, and Tarzan Swing), so that meant I spent a lot of time doing 150 burpees!

Okay, so the Super results were not good and very humbling. I was tempted to postpone the Sprint the next day, but I decided to Spartan it up! I already knew what to expect, and I had the extra motivation to finish faster so I could make it in time to watch the kiddos. The first 0.5 to 1 mile was hard running on tired legs, but surprisingly, the body learns and adapts. After the first mile, I felt great. I knew what to expect and it felt comfortable. I ran the course faster, did the obstacles faster, felt more confident. I did take assistance on the monkey bars, so less burpees there, but I added burpees by choosing to burpee out of doing the bucket carry because that obstacle aggravates my low back muscle strain. Z-Wall was not an issue this time. Still failed the Spear throw and Tarzan Swing, so did a total of 90 burpees. My time was 1:51 which places me in the 20-30% for age/female/overall categories. Much better results.

We achieved 4 medals, 2 from the kiddies for the Spartan Jr race, and 2 from mama... these medals were definitely 100% earned!

Super proud of the kiddos and Ryan! And motivated to train again! I do not recommend running these races without training, but it is doable. I just can't walk for the next few days... =P

A Bobbin'

Girlie got her first major haircut.

Liam had to watch from behind the baby jail gates.

Ryan cut a good 6-7 inches off.

Ta-da!!

Emilia is very happy with her new haircut, and proud of her daddy's work. She wouldn't even let the nanny do a touch up to straighten it up a little. =)

Zoom, Zoom, Zoom.. Look! Pink Unicorn!

Amusement park rides are for babies. We're toddlers! Check out them real rides.... #autoshow

If you can't tell by now, Liam loves cars. He loves driving cars, looking at cars, describing cars, and naming all the cars he sees on the road. In fact, he went up and got into the driver seat of every car that caught his eye at the auto show.

The pink unicorn was like a honing beacon, calling all the little girls to bring their daddys over to check out the car.

We used it as a rendezvous point. Our texting conversation went like this:

CS: "We are at the pink unicorn."
CS: "Where you at?"
RS: "Driving."
RS: "Driving."
CS: "Where you at foolio?!"
RS: "Pink Unicorn."
#Sigh!

Police cars attract the kids every time. This one's a fancy one. No driving allowed.

The kiddos gave a try at "driving" at the kiddie driving school. =)

Emilia showing us how its done.



Liam, Liam, Liam. We're going to need some remedial classes...



4-Wheeling, with Emilia as driver.



And the evening ended with their first car crash. They got side swiped.

Love Notes

Emilia created a love note for us with her own spelling of all our names. =)

Chris Sharma!!!

What a way to start off the New Year! First there was snow.. and now we meet one of the world's strongest climber, Chris Sharma (with snowing chalk dust)!

Coincidentally, we had just visited Sharma's gym the prior week.

It was announced only a few days prior, that Sharma and Prana would be visiting Ryan's climbing gym for a "Meet and Greet" session. So of course, we had to go. It was intimidating to go up to talk to him, but using the kiddies as an excuse was great. Sharma himself is super nice! It was great watching him interact with the kids.

Chris was super sweet with Emilia. See her big smile! She asked him for a poster and he autographed it specifically for her as she spelled out her name.

Chris and Beaver (orange shirt --> the founder of Prana) gave out Prana swag to the audience. Chris specifically handed out kiddie T-shirts to both Liam and Emilia (see them lounging on the sofa at the front?)

It is a gym afterall, so we did have the hopes of being able to climb some. The kiddies, at least, did get a little bit in.

It wasn't much of a night for rock climbing for the adults though. The gym was way crowded, which meant Ryan and I had to be in constant eagle-eye mode with the kids. But that's okay. We got to shake Sharma's hand! #starstruck =)

Sender One

Roger came to visit over the holidays. We always look forward to having him around, because it means fun for all of us! Last time Roger was here, we had a 5+ hour climbing session. This time around, we took an impromptu trip to visit Chris Sharma's rock climbing gym, Sender One!

Sender One is one heck of a gym. The top rope area is amazing with tall and uniquely structured walls. There is even a special kids area, though my kids do not meet the minimum weight limit yet to participate. We hung out in the bouldering area cause that's what we do.

360 degree panoramic view (11 shots stitched together) of the boulder area. See the kiddos hanging out right in the center?

Sender One's boulder area is not that great for little kids. Even the easy climbs were hard for them. But the kiddos were content with snacking lots and playing around.

E making pretzel faces...

I found Liam just chillin' about near our gear...

And a little later, I found all of our shoes, water bottles, misc things here...

And selfie with the kiddos!

Emilia had a conversation with a random climber where I was within ear shot distance. It went something like this:

Emilia: "Santa came to visit when I was asleep."
Guy at the gym: "What did he give you?"
Emilia: "Presents!"
Emilia: "Though I don't know if it was Santa. Or it may be my parents."
Emilia: "Mama, did Santa come and leave us presents?"
Me: "Um... Of course."
Guy at the gym: Laughs.
Emilia: "I think he did, but I don't know. I saw wrapping paper downstairs...so it may be my parents."
Me: "Hey, take a look at this!" (Distraction technique)
Emilia: Walks away.
Guy at gym says to me: "She has good critical thinking".


While the kids went about their merry ways, the adults would climb, check on kiddies, climb some more, check on kiddies some more.

Here's one of Ryan's climb that took a few attempts to complete. This is an earlier attempt:



Ryan, bend those knees when you land!


A little rest, and he completed it on the next try!



All in all, we had another great climbing outing. Hopefully our next one the kiddies will get to climb more.