In which I wallow in my mediocrity

Unlike 32-year-old Pullman native Camille Adams, I never reached the point of hallucination in my death race competition.

Adams, a platoon sergeant with the U.S. Army's 66th Military Intelligence Brigade, was recently featured in a 360 story about the 40-mile, multiday Spartan Death Race she ran this summer in Vermont.

As one of only 41 people to even finish the race, Adams earned her elite athlete chops by placing first among the four women finishers.

I ran a 3.5-mile Spartan Sprint Saturday, solidifying my status as a nonelite athlete by placing among the top 2,000 male contestants.

The race took place at the Washougal MX motocross course near Vancouver, Wash. It has a mix of steep, wooded hills, a few flatter spots and enough mud and rocks to dam a major river.

An editor who was familiar with the site described it as "Deliverance Country," saying bodies could be hidden there without fear of discovery.

Editors are such helpful people.

The first sign my "training regime" wasn't as rigorous as it should have been was when I got winded walking from the parking area to the entrance gate. The second was all the flat-bellied men and women milling about inside: They looked really, really good in Spandex.

There were also guys walking around in Santa Claus and Batman suits, one kid wearing a ski mask, and teams who dyed their hair red and orange. We all eyed each other, wondering who would break.

They sent us off in heats of 100 to 200 people. A Spartan Sprint is more obstacle course than trail race, and by my count there were 22 obstacles along the way.

The first was a series of waist-high barriers you had to hop over. More barriers came later, ranging from chest-high to head-high to one over-the-head backward-leaning barrier you had to climb over.

There were heavy tires to flip, cement blocks to drag and carry, buckets to lift and ropes to climb. It was the mud features, though, that really did me in.

About midway through the race a big waterslide dropped down a steep hill into a pool of cold, muddy water. Then you had to carry a sandbag up the hill and back down, after which you turned the corner and confronted a nightmare of a mud hill.

It had to be 150 to 200 feet long, all uphill, with strands of barbed wire stretched overhead so you couldn't stand up. You had to slither and flop on your belly, scrambling for handholds and footholds the whole way, hoping someone would lend a hand if you started sliding backwards.

That one obstacle took me about 30 minutes. Two other mud-and-barbed-wire features added another 20 minutes or so to my time. Once it was over I felt like the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

The elite racers finished the course in 40 to 45 minutes. I crossed in 2:36:09, placing 2,926th among 3,286 contestants and 1,983rd among 2,076 men. An 8-year-old kid from Vancouver and an 84-year-old geezer from Oregon both beat me by an hour.

I finished 53rd in my age category, though, which made me feel pretty good - until I realized there were only 58 of us.

During her Spartan Death Race experience, Adams said she began hallucinating during an overnight hike through the mountains, but a sense of peace and calm eventually washed over her.

I felt that way after the race, when I stopped at Denny's for a Grand Slamwich, hash browns and a double chocolate shake.

I thought back to all the times over the previous months when I'd ended a workout thinking it was good enough or that I was too tired to do more. After Saturday, I realized I had no idea what "too tired" meant. For that reason alone, I'll sign up for another race.

As the Denny's chocolate high descended over my spirit, I began plotting strategy. I'm thinking of wearing cleats next time. If I can make it up that mud hill a little faster, I'm pretty sure I can crack the top 1,000. That Oregon geezer better watch his back.

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Spence covers politics for the Tribune. He may be contacted at bspence@lmtribune.com or (208) 791-9168.