Sometime late last year while basking in the dying rays of the sunshine of my thirties, I wrote about becoming strong, about taking control of myself and I recounted the propitious aftermath of half a year spent pre-dawn sweating in a gym. Six months later, I’ve taken it a bleeding, bruised step further. No longer content with just being strong, no longer content with boxing, MMA or weightlifting, now, like Gerard Butler before me, I am Spartan. #greekgoddess
Spartan Races, like Tough Mudder, Rat Race, Mud Run, Adrenaline Rush and all the other trademarks of this latest fad for fitness fanatics, involves running through a field and surmounting a series of increasingly difficult, painful, filthy, putrid obstacles. This is how the upwardly mobile cashed up, coked up City bankers get their rocks off these days. No longer happy with their 50 quid MANicures, MANscapes and Barber Shop Beard Braids, the boys need a way to prove that they are still Macho Macho Men, they need Maximus’ gladiatorial arena to show off their finely-hewn just-waxed sunbed-tanned torsos for the ladeez and remind themselves of what it feels like to be a totally awesome dude. #notthatimjudging
I presume that when the biggest challenge of your average working day is whether to print in colour or print in black and white, crawling through a barbed wire tunnel restores your self-confidence, rebuilds your wife-whinging-eroded-ego and chafes your organically moisturised knees.
So that must be why Actual Real Life Royalty ran my most recent Spartan race, as in, they were 2 metres behind me, and they ran with me. #okBearwastheretoo
The Spartan Race is said to be unique (as per their Reebok-funded Marketing team) because they divide the year into three increasingly difficult races, the Sprint at 7km, the Super at 15km and then the Beast at 20km. Once you’ve completed all three, you have your Trifecta. I am now 2/3 of the way there. And I did it all with a manicure.
A week after I turned 40, I ran the Sprint in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park with the majority of the staff from the gym. Most of them had on warrior face paint, some had on kilts, one had a Hipflask of Whisky, all of them were shouting and screaming like Spartan Warriors in the lead up to the start. #oncewerewarriors
Then along comes me…
Before you even start the race, just to enter the marshalling area, the very first thing you have to do is jump a 1.5m (5ft) wall. Doted with all the grace and elegance of a baby hippo doing the Haka, I approached said wall with caution and care. I launched myself over it; almost dissected my lady parts, straddled the wall on my inner thighs, and hit the concrete path below… right then…it can’t get worse than this…off we go. #onceateoreos
Well it can. And it did.
Crawling on my elbows through sodden grass in a 12-inch high tunnel of electrified barbwire. Obviously that was designed for dudes. The race organisers forgot that girls with big bazongas would be dragging their nipples across the gravel. I did that.
Hauling logs, shouldering buckets of gravel, heaving 20kg medicine balls and sand bags up hill and down dale. I did that too. The singular advantage of being a girl in one of these races is that they let you carry half what the guys do. I’m stronger than most of the dudes, so the ‘carrying’ obstacles don’t bother me anywhere near as much as the climbing ones or the high ones…. the motherf**king high ones. #imnotasquirrel
I clambered up the cargo net, gritting my teeth and gingerly placing each foot in a net hole. Then I swung my leg over the top and stopped. I was petrified, frozen with terror; I realised I was 8m (25ft) above ground, that the holes were big enough for me to fall through and there were people running through the arch way below. I could not move. I was shaking, trembling, adrenaline coursing through my limbs, I might have even peed a little.
But never fear, the Knight in Shining (Under) Armour* came to my rescue. He placed his hand around my ankle and held me tight. He looked into my eyes and he calmly placed my feet where they needed to go, he held my hand and reassured me that I was going to make it down, he was beside me every single step of the way and when I made it to the bottom he hugged me tight and told me he was proud. #youwanttopukedontyou #hecancooktoo #bridgetandbear
We made it round the 7km course in an hour and a half. When I got to obstacles I couldn’t do like the Monkey Bars and the Rope Climb, I did the 30-Burpee penalty. I did it all and at the end, I jumped the fire pit that indicates you are home. The good people of Sparta, now sponsored by Reebok™, give you a Spartan-y T-shirt and a Spartan-y medal; they also give you a free Spartan-y beer and have food trucks serving Spartan-y food like Venison Burgers and whole raw suckling pig trotters. #okjustoneofthemistrue
I had accomplished something I had never even dreamed of only 11 months after the very first day I set foot in my gym. I was filthy, I was aching and bruised, I downed a bottle of wine and a bowl of chips that very afternoon. #Ihaventchangedthatmuch and what do you do when you achieve your goal? You tick it off the window list^ and make a new one.
Last weekend, we ran the Spartan Super around Aston Down Airfield in Gloucestershire. This little stretch of green, green grass is part owned by the Phillips’. That is Zara, Peter and their parents Anne and Mark; you know, Princess Anne. So we ran our Spartan Super with Zara and Mike Tindall and her brother Peter. I even got to see little Mia before they took off. I figure if my pastimes are shared with the 13th, 16th and 17th in line to the throne of Great Britain, then I’m on the right track.
Hauling, climbing and crawling are all relatively easy for me now. Going faster, harder or for longer doesn’t bother me; I just switch the brain off and walk when I can’t run. I get tired, but I just keep going until I reach the end. I figured whatever they threw at me I would just grunt and puff and heave and run until I got there, that, or do the bloody burpees.
I thought that until I was faced with a pit of molten muddy urine soaked cowshit. I looked at my beautiful fingernails and my lovely new Salomon trail running shoes and my Nivea Rich skin and I asked myself who in Christendom I had offended so very much to find myself here in this, albeit Royal, quandary today.
Moreover, I asked myself, why on God’s Green Earth had I PAID MY OWN MONEY to do this?
Because I can.
*Under Armour is of course a well-known brand of American gym gear favoured by Bear
^I have a fancy pink pen that writes on glass, hence the Window List
