True Spartan

A trip to the nation's capital isn't an everyday thing. Neither is spontaneously entering a Spartan Race while in the District of Columbia, but a couple of months ago, it happened.

Denise Black of Malta found herself in that very rare instance as she was visiting her daughter Cassie Black in Maryland. The trip to D.C. was supposed to just be a "girl's trip," that included Black, her mother, daughter and her sister Kristin Collins of Sioux Falls, S.D.

"We didn't go to D.C. to specifically do the Spartan Race," Black said. "It was just like, hey, let's do it! So we did."

The First Annual Nationals Park Spartan Sprint was held at Nationals Park on Friday, July 21, hosted hoards of teams throughout the day, twenty at a time on a day that temperatures hit 102 degrees. Black ran the race with her sister and daughter as a team at 12:15 p.m.

"We finished in an hour and 52 minutes," Black said.

According to Black, the fastest team time was by one of the "Elite teams" that finished in 27 minutes.

"I think for us three, we did pretty good," Black said.

This Spartan Race wasn't the first for Denise and her daughter.

"Cassandra and I did one last year," Black said. "We did the one in Bigfork."

She admitted that she thought the Bigfork event was harder.

"There was a lot of mud and rocky hills," Black said. "We had to pack sandbags up hill and there was a lot of barbed wire. They are two different settings. One is in the stadium and one is in the mountains."

Her first Spartan Race in Bigfork was just as spontaneous as the D.C. race.

"That was a spur of the moment thing for me because I was just going to watch her," Black said. "I got over there and said, 'I want to do this.' And so I did and I surprised myself."

Prior to that event in Bigfork, Black had no experience in Spartan Races, but she did cardiovascular training by running at her property in Malta and lifting weights for upper body strength.

"Really not much training at all," she said with a smile.

Since the Bigfork event in 2016, Black has done similar events, such as The Dirty Dash, a Color Run, a Polar Plunge, two Torch Runs, two Run to the Pub events and the DC Spartan Race.

The DC Spartan Race consisted of running, stairs, jump rope, jumping over walls, climb ladders and bear crawl over the course of three of five miles, all within the bleachers at Nationals Park. But there was more.

"There were a lot of stairs," Black said. "A lot of carrying sandbags, climbing over walls that range from three feet to eight feet. There were monkey bar rings that you had to go across."

According to Black the sandbags that they carried were twenty pounds for women and forty for men. Her toughest challenge that day also included a sandbag of a larger magnitude.

"There was a Herculean lift (Hercules Hoist). It was a 100 pound bag of sand on a rope and you had to pull it up to the top and let it down without dropping it," Black said. "I actually did that (all by herself) and last year (in Bigfork) we had two people do that."

In the event that a participant could not finish an event, the member had to do 30 burpees in order to advance. Black had a few of those moments in D.C.

"If you had a team, like I did, you can split those burpees up," Black said sharing the event that she had bailed on. "The rope climb. I can't climb a rope."

She also bailed on an event where the team had to take 70-pound water jugs up and down stairs. The high temperatures were not helping.

"It was 102 degrees plus humidity that day," Black said.

While the temperatures and amount of obstacles could be intimidating, Black believes that it is a test of the mind.

"A lot of the Spartan Race, I was telling my sister it was mind over matter," she said. "If you don't think you can do it, you can surprise yourself and do it. I found that out in Bigfork last year. I was like, 'I don't know if I could do this and I'm glad that I did. I really surprised myself."

Black is around the age of 50, and she really admired that the Spartan Races bring people from all different walks of life.

"There are all sorts of ages and different physical abilities," Black said. "Skinny people, heavy people, handicapped people. One even did the whole race in his full fireman getup in 102 degree heat. That was pretty impressive."

Black hopes to compete again in Bigfork this fall and will eventually like to train for the "Beast," which is a 13 mile version of the Spartan Race."