Local athletes set for big test of Spartan World Championship

Polin, who turns 30 on Saturday, qualified with an eighth-place finish at Washougal with a time of 46 minutes. That was an improvement of 12 minutes and 32 places from his 2015 result.

Vancouver resident Jesse McChesney won that Washougal race with a time of 41:24.

A personal trainer, Seekins caught the obstacle course bug after entering the 2015 Washougal race with a friend. She knew right away she’d found an outlet for her energy and competitive spirit. The championship will be her fifth obstacle race since April.

Polin, currently stationed in Portland, was introduced to obstacle racing by a fellow member of the Coast Guard. He figured he could excel on the obstacles to make up for racing faster runners. He learned he was wrong.

Even with walls to climb, barbed wire to crawl under and spears to throw at spear at a target — and penalties of 30 to 60 burpees for failure to complete a challenge — a Spartan Race is still a foot race. That is why Polin worked to shed 15 pounds this year. And it is why Seekins sometimes feels like an underdog in an age group dominated by former college runners.

Actually, it was 4 hours and 21 minutes of pain on the championship course last season. Polin said he wasn’t prepared for the altitude, or for the cold temperatures. Add in an ice-cold river midway through the race and that turned into an excruciating challenge.

Seekins grew up as a dancer. When a hip injury led to the end of her dance career, she found her competitive outlet in obstacle racing and quickly became addicted to the adrenaline rush.

Daily training sessions that can last two hours, and that does not include the injury prevention warm-ups and cool-downs, or the ice baths needed to combat inflammation. Indeed, training for obstacle-course races is a lifestyle that includes pushing through the pain that comes when pushing a body to its limits, Seekins admitted.

“There’s a lot of sacrifice involved to be able to compete at an elite level, and to make it to the world championship and to be consider one of the best in the world really makes all of that sacrifice and heard work worth it,” Seekins said.

Yes, Seekins sees quizzical looks and often gets questions when she’s running stairs at Doc Harris Stadium carrying weights, lugging a bucket of gravel around a park or aiming her spear at a target on a tree.

“The draw of it is you put yourself through this thing that’s crazy and brutal and push your body beyond normal limits and when you get done you feel so alive,” she said.