Check out our full coverage of the 2015 Spartan Race World Championship here. 2015 Spartan Race Men’s World Championship 1st place: Robert Killian 2:25:56 – $15,000 + Custom-made Spartan Rig, $12,000 value Who Is This Guy? Many folks around the world of OCR found Saturday's results at Spartan Race World Championship 2015 in Lake Tahoe a little [...]
Happy Labor Day. A quiet weekend in obstacle racing in the United States but in Europe it was another story. Both Toughest Oslo and Spartan Race European Championships took place. Stateside Spartan Race had it's first College Classic race at Cornell University.
Running is one of the most popular fitness activities in North America, but it's not necessarily practiced in a straight line. While marathons, particularly half-marathons increase in popularity, so does Obstacle Course Racing (OCR), which The Running Event (TRE) will examine in a new Experiential Zone adjacent to the main hall of the Austin Convention Center, Dec. 1-4, 2015.
While not a full 6-feet under, 6 Death Racers (or was it 7) were buried alive. Read that again - buried alive. Eulogies from their dear friends wafted through the air as these select finishers were laid to rest in actual plywood caskets laid in the ground, that were nailed shut and even covered by dirt for good measure.
As I was reflecting and perusing photos from this weekend's Reebok Spartan Race World Championships, I couldn't help but visibly notice the lack of standardization in a race where so much was on the line. Spartan Race, I do sincerely love your events and believe you guys put on some of the most difficult and awesome physical sporting events in the entire world... this is a constructive piece of criticism that I've been distilling with my observations over the past few years with the growth of this company and sport.
Ever since signing up for Wintergreen back around May of this year I have heard little jabs about how tough the course was last year. “Only wish it on your worst enemy,” and things of that nature. No amount of witty banter or raised eyebrows or widened eyes with dropped jaws could have ever prepared or accurately described just how intense this race is. There are those whispers within this community about Spartans being a different breed of OCR and this race turns those whispers into screams.
For the fifth consecutive year, the Reebok Spartan Race brought their 3+ mile event back to the New England area. The wildly popular race series spanned two days and was also being filmed by NBC for a future broadcast. After putting in a full day volunteering on Saturday, I was excited to return on Sunday to tackle the course that many were claiming was the toughest sprint distance race every held in the area.
In order to be eligible, racers must kick off their Triple Crown challenge by competing in the Killington, VT, Reebok Spartan World Championship, September 20, 2014, and finish with the first-ever Team Championship in Dallas, Texas, November 1, 2014. Competitors must round out their Triple Crown by competing in either the South Carolina Reebok Spartan Race Beast, or the Sacramento Reebok Spartan Race Super, both on October 25, 2014.
Since earlier in 2014 when OCRWC announced their intentions to develop a world championship that isn't tied to one specific brand of events, there have been a few jabs that have been thrown in their direction from Joe, in conversations and interviews he has used variations of "we only acknowledge one OCR World Championship, and it's held in Vermont each September." This was completely to be expected, Joe and his ever-growing team has sunk millions of dollars into developing and advertising the Spartan brand all over the world, it only makes sense that he would protect his investment when asked about a direct competitor. He's spoken with so much vitrol in the past about his distaste for the tactics of Will Dean and Tough Mudder's when both races were fighting to develop a foothold in the industry. His dismissive comments when asked about OCRWC clearly didn't seem like he was lowering the boom on the fledgeling event. Or did it?
Knowing that we were going to be running up and down mountains, I decided to take a slower pace at the beginning of the race. I didn't want to burn out early. From what I saw, it was pretty much the mass consensus once we reached the first climb. I have to hand it to Dan. He managed to find every single track trail that had a steep grade and long distance to climb. Calves and quads were to be tested this day! After about 2.5 miles of running up and then back down that same mountain on the long trail, we make our first loop back through the festival area for the Rolling Mud and Monkey Net obstacles.
