I’ve waited a week to write this blog because I’ve been in such a funk for the past 7 days but I decided it was time to just do it.  I had hoped the funk would pass and I’d be able to write about my epic weekend from a happy place but I don’t want to wait any longer; besides, not everything in my I’mperfect Life is always rainbows and puppy dogs, so…

It started a few weeks ago when Spartan Race put out a call for people to submit their stories about how Spartan Changed their lives.  They wanted people who were planning to be at the Utah race or the Pennsylvania race to submit a 500 word essay about their story along with a picture- from there they were going to select people to be interviewed on camera for a Reebok commercial…WHAT?!  Yes!  Totally awesome!  But…Utah or PA?  Umm….yeah, neither of those were on my radar and neither of them were convenient.  I knew Chris Davis from Project Chris Davis had already been selected for the commercial because Spartan was using his picture to advertise the whole thing.  He and I met once…briefly…at a race.  I had been following him on facebook for a while and we’d had a few email conversations over the past several months but he’s like a Spartan Celebrity so he gets emails from random people all the time– I knew I was just “one of those people”.   When I saw the ad, I messaged him to say congratulations, that I thought it was insanely awesome and that I hated that PA was so far away because I would love to share my story.  The email I got in reply was not what I was expecting AT ALL.  He told me that I needed to submit and that “we” would find a way to get me there– he lives in Atlanta and said we could carpool.  I was like, WHAT?!  Seriously?!  Yes, seriously.  So I wrote up my 500 words (on the dot!) and submitted them along with a couple of pictures, a before and now and a cute little headshot that Brett took of my in our backyard.  Then…I waited…and waited…and waited.  I had decided that even if I didn’t get selected I’d still go to PA and race.  The opportunity to hang with Chris for an entire weekend was too good to pass up PLUS he said that he’d make it possible for me to run as a volunteer with the Biggest Loser heat on Saturday morning to help them get across the finish line…again..WHAT?!  YES. PLEASE!  (By-the-way, I know what my dream job would be now!)

I went ahead and registered for the race, made reservations for a hotel and then waited and waited some more.  On Saturday, the week before the race, I got an email from one of the producers of the commercial that said, “Will you be racing in PA?”  THAT’S ALL IT SAID!  I responded with “yes!”  and a few details and filler words, then…NOTHING!  By Tuesday I was sure that I hadn’t been selected (which was totally okay).   I told Chris what had happened and that I was still super excited for our trip, regardless.   He emailed me back a few hours later and told me that my interview was scheduled right after his on Friday morning.  I was like, “huh? wait, am I reading that right?”  He confirmed and I became cautiously optimistic, but still very reserved.  I didn’t make any announcements because I’m a “horses mouth” kind of girl.  The next night I got an email from an I’mperfect Lifer who follows me on FB asking me what time my interview was on Friday and did I want to meet up for dinner afterwards.  She went on to say that the producer had gotten her and me confused, her name is Adriane , which is very close to Andrea…so you know, that makes sense. Anyway, I told her that I didn’t have confirmation that I was ACTUALLY being interviewed but I would check into it and let her know.  I immediately emailed the producer and asked for confirmation, the response, one sentence, “Yes, you’re being interview right after Chris on Friday!”  That’s it.

Well…okay…cool!

We left the next night.  Chris got to my house at 10pm after driving up from Atlanta that afternoon. We drove straight through to PA and arriving at about 7am- groggy and a little slap happy.  This was not going to bode well for an on-camera interview.  Me being tired is like me being drunk– NO FILTER and BAD CHOICES!

We stopped by the race venue which is when I realized what I was getting myself into.  I mean, I KNEW it was on a ski mountain but I hadn’t really thought about what that would mean regarding incline until I saw this:

The picture does not do it justice.  After meeting a few staff members we found a parking lot in some little nearby town where we tried to take a nap.  Well, I tried to take a nap, Chris fell asleep almost instantly.  I on the other hand had the tune to some song stuck in my head and it just kept going ’round and ’round and ’round.  SO AGGRAVATING!  This is what I looked like…

 and this is what I felt like

At 9am we “woke up” went to a diner, had some breakfast and much needed coffee and I changed into my “Spartan Gear” so I’d be ready for my interview.  Joe Desena, the founder of the Spartan series saw Chris while we were eating and came over to razz him about eating eggs-  I got to shake his hand, it was pretty cool. Then we were off!

We got to the venue, found the production crew and got all interviewed and stuff.  Chris went first, then me.  Much to my surprise my answers were REALLY GOOD!  Maybe I should do all interviews sleep deprived…or a little drunk.  A little side note here that made me feel REALLY good– when I saw the producer the next day she told me that she and the camera guy watched my video “…last night and we were talking about beautiful you are.  You just look so pretty on camera.”  I’m okay with bragging about that.  It’s always nice to hear when someone thinks you’re pretty.

The rest of the afternoon was kind of a blur.  I remember eating food at a restaurant…oh wait!  I do remember!  We drove to the town where Chris’ hotel was, ate lunch and then went to his room and took a “real” nap.  I’d never slept so well on a loveseat!  From there we drove to Allentown (we did a LOT of driving that weekend…A. LOT!) and met up with some fellow Spartans for dinner at an amazing restaurant called Roma Ristorante where our server looked a lot like Mila Kunis.  She put up with a lot of crap from us and even gave it back.  That’s her being held by a Spartan Chick…

My roomie for the weekend, Anna met up with us at the restaurant after flying in from Calgary and she, Chris and I went back to our hotel (Chris decided to say with us since we were more fun AND it made more sense for us to all ride in one car to and from and around, together) got in after midnight, fell asleep after 1am and were up at 6am in order to get to the race in time to run with the Biggest Loser heat. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures from that actual race but here is some proof that it happened!

The Biggest Loser Heat was probably my favorite part of the weekend, okay, that’s not true…the entire weekend was my favorite part of the weekend, remember…it was EPIC!  Basically I ran back and forth between groups of people, up and down the hill (mountain) making sure they were okay, helping them with obstacles, coaching them on how to do the obstacles and making sure they were safe.  I don’t think those things were actually in my “job description” but I couldn’t help it.  I like to THINK it was appreciated, in fact I know it was, by most people…except for the moment when a girl was really struggling with climbing a very steep section of the mountain, I was telling her to “take deep breaths and big steps” she yelled at me, “stop fucking talking to me!”  I knew how she felt.  I’ve been there.  I just said, “I totally get it!  I’m sorry! You’ve got this!” and then moved on.  She made it to the top and ended up finishing– seeing her struggle the way she did and then seeing her finish was beyond inspiring.  She could have given up at any moment but she didn’t.  The pride on her face was extremely moving and afterwards she came up and apologized to me.  I told her not to even think twice about it!  I really have been there before; sometimes you’ve just gotta do things on your own.

We spent the rest of the day hanging around at the venue and then went back to the hotel where we all took naps.  Well, I kind of took a nap.  I, for some unknown reason, didn’t feel tired even though I’d had 5 hours of sleep during the previous 48 hours so instead I organized my suitcase, got my stuff prepared for the next day and then when Chris went to take a shower, because he and I were going to a friends house for a BBQ, I finally fell asleep…for all of about 10 minutes.

We DROVE to a cute little house in the Poconos and waited for the hostess of the BBQ to arrive but she ended up getting stuck at the race (she’s the lead medic) and didn’t get to the house until after 9pm…just as we were leaving.  She invited us to come back and stay the night the next night so we didn’t have to drive home after the race on Sunday, to which we replied, YES PLEASE!  And then we DROVE back to the hotel, picked up Anna and DROVE 30 minutes to some restaurant somewhere (we have no idea where we were, ever…just followed the GPS) and had a delicious dinner at an Irish pub.

We got back to the hotel after midnight and decided that we’d “sleep in” since none of us had an exact start time for the race the next day.  We ended up waking at 6:45, threw on our clothes, packed up our suitcases, checked out of the hotel, stopped at a gas station for coffee and arrived at the venue at 9:35.  We raced at 10.

MY WORD THIS BITCH IS LONG!  I think I’m going to have to break this up into two posts…

So the actual race…BIPOLAR SPARTAN PART 2