This was my very first venture into the land of longer distances. I am going for my Trifecta with Spartan this year. I am doing it while I can, and while I still feel capable. I have done 7 Spartan Sprints with 2 more on tap for this year. What do I think about the Super versus the Sprint? Well I am not a fan. I don’t like running and that is what this was. The course was 9 miles at Reveille Peak Ranch in Burnet Texas. I did like the course but again I am really not that interested, motivated to do the longer runs. I actually found it boring.
There were 22 obstacles with 7 of them at the end. So that left 15 obstacles sprinkled over pretty much 8.75 miles.
I believe and it actually was confirmed by Spartan Media guy John Ziegler that Spartan in the longer distances uses the course/ or terrain as an obstacle, a big obstacle. Living here in Colorado we encounter this type of terrain all the time, plus throw in our altitude for an added bonus. It was trail running with some interruptions along the way. Again this is just my own personal take and perception of this race. I do not like this distance and I am going to feel the same way about the Beast in Utah at the end of June. When I crossed the finish line, I saw Chris and I said to him, “we are never doing this again”.
This trip as I said was to get that 2nd leg of our Trifecta this year. I am glad we did it, I am glad I have a blue medal and I am glad I only have one more long distance to do. I did not got out and run a lot for this race beforehand. I still like that plan. I ran all the down hills at this race. I took my time on the narrow rocky single track along the fence and through the woods and up the slick rock. I probably if I had to estimate ran 6 to 7 miles? And walked the other times. I did not start to walk till after mile 3. I am always passed by the 8:30, 8:45, 9:00 and goodness knows how many other people passed me. I am strong on the obstacles and sometimes people would pass me only for me to catch them at the obstacle and get ahead of them. Running elite gives me a head start but it disappears fast.
The venue as I said was In Burnet Texas, very nice place, very good trails. I did enjoy the actual trail running?, with the cows, fire ants and rattlesnakes. We did have to park off site and then walk about ½ mile to the buses and then be shuttled and dropped off was probably another ¼ mile? So this one took a lot of time to get to the venue and we were late. This is unusual for us as I have everything printed and map quested. We drove to Texas from Colorado, 14 + hours so might have been a bit befuddled. Take your time, arrive early be prepared is my advice. We failed on that front this time around. I made it to the start corral 12 minutes before the wave started. That makes me anxious. The weather was wonderful, the high was only mid 80's. It was not a factor on Saturday.
This was a runner’s course, if you are strong there you will excel. You had plenty of time to recover from the obstacles. There were all the standard walls, with the 8 foot as classified. The other surprise obstacles were the Hobie Hop, the choice between two tubes, one long, one short. If you chose the shorter route, 15 burpees. But when Chris ran at 12:15 they were not doing that. Small pays off here. We had a river crossing which was great. I would practice swimming with my shoes on in the future for this one. And they had the spear as classified. Inverted wall, sandbag, hoist, tractor pull. We had a choice between the tire pull and the tire flip. The barbed wire mud crawls were very short at this race. We had the cargo net/bridge and they put a wood platform above the cargo net and you could chose to do either one. I went across the boards.
One thing about this venue it was crowded in the festival area. Lots of people, it seemed the space was very small. There were over 7,000 who finished this race. That was the largest participation that I have seen. I think this was actually a good starter OCR. I did not think the obstacles were that difficult. I attribute that to the long time between them. I did not carry a hydration pack as there were 5 water stations along the course. I did eat my energy jelly beans and felt pretty good. Both Chris and I felt the effects of these 9 miles but I do think that getting in a car and driving 900 miles home had a lot to do with that.
So leg 2 of my Trifecta in the bag, was really glad this one is behind me. Next up is a lovely Sprint in NY, ahh the greatness of sea level.
I give this event 3.5 out of 5 stars
—–Martha Pasquale—–
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