Spartan started with the obstacles right from the get go on this race. After the initial climb, you had a ridiculously long barbed wire crawl through mud and water. It felt like a quarter mile, but the water felt great with the heat. My arms and knees were torn up after this one. The next obstacle was the monkey bars. I gave them a shot, but I couldn't hold on, since the “bars” were more like pipes, and I have tiny hands. So on to the burpees for me.
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.
I hope my being completely honest can help even just one person that reads this, I truly know what it feels like to feel hopeless and helpless and not want to live life that way anymore but I promise you its better spend every day killing yourself a little than to call it quits and remember... The only easy day was yesterday, embrace your beast and always be insanely focused.
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.
This was one tough course. It was at Tuxedo Ridge Ski Resort in Tuxedo NY. This was the last day of the Actual 4 races that took place here over two consecutive weekends. In the 4 days over 18,600 people raced. That’s a lot of bodies. Being from Colorado I thought I might have an advantage with the terrain, nope I went up and down that mountain. I did not run at all, well I did for about 5 minutes in the beginning and then it was just uphill, rocky, boulders, tricky stuff. I do not have that same competitive edge as younger folks. I am all about self-preservation which I again executed so that I may race another day.
Spartan Race continues to innovate the world of obstacle course racing. Known for their Sprint, Super and Beast distance options, they recently unveiled their new "Olympic distance" of 1.5 miles in their preliminary steps to qualify as an Olympic sport in the future. The Spartan Race Invitational was recently held at the Reebok Headquarters in Canton, MA.
