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.
As you descended the first mountain face the view was breathtaking and the base camp kept you motivated to continue towards your next obstacle. Over a 9’ wall we went and then down a slippery mountainside to repeat the climb 3-4 more times, each one adding elevation and difficulty to the challenge. Some of the standard Spartan obstacles were present, cargo nets, crawls, barbed wire and fire; they also added some new ones like the rotating monkey bar grab and others that await you in secrecy.
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.
“What the Hell am I doing here?” I thought to myself as I stood in a pack of about 40 men and women in the Elite heat of the BattleFrog Race in WV. My only previous OCR experience had been almost a year earlier at the Super Spartan in VA. Despite running in the Open heat, I’d put up a pretty competitive time which gave me some confidence heading into the BattleFrog race; however, my confidence began to fade once I arrived.
The Spartan Sprint was held at the Mohegan Sun Casino. There was plenty of parking, picturesque views and a challenging course. The obstacles were well spaced out of the course, with an exciting pile up of six obstacles right at the end. Due to the venue, the course itself was a combination of trail, grass and road. There was definitely more road than many were used to seeing at an obstacle course race, which usually tend towards trail.
This past weekend in Utah was huge for over 2 dozen Colorado Obstacles Racers. We all completed our Spartan Trifecta. For those of you who do not know what that means, it is completing the 3 distances in the Spartan racing series. The Sprint which is usually 4 + miles, the Super 8 + miles and the Beast 10+. By all accounts we completed a marathon of obstacle racing. My races were 27 miles total with over 90 obstacles.
The hard fact is this; businesses fail. It happens every day, all over the globe. Whether they are a Detroit carmaker or the corner bakery, the collapse of these businesses inflict plenty of damage - both primary (the owners, employees, banks, etc.) and collateral (those employees' families, 3rd parties, and customers) and he fallout can get pretty ugly; social media makes damn sure that happens.
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?
According to a Running USA Study, in just five years, the number of estimated finishers in non-traditional events has grown from low six figures in 2009 to four million in 2013, a nearly 40-fold increase.
