Spartan Race, my take from last year:
Well this is just a bunch of stuff I can share with you all, I am no great runner or any kind of hardcore fitness guy. I did the event last year for fun and just did it to get through it and it was fun. Everything is based on how the event was set up last year and I am sure things will have changed. I see they are charging for parking and spectators, that was not the case last year.
Race Preparation:
- Wear clothes and shoes that you are willing to sacrifice to the trash when you are finished. You will get wet & muddy.
- I brought a change of clothes and another set of shoes to wear for after.
- They had an open set of showers to hose of the mud.
- I would not recommend head phones, they will get wet and could get banged around.
- Same goes for water bottles, you could carry them and take them to the other side of the obstacles but some are a bit more challenging to do that with. There will be a few water stations but not many, I think there were 3 last year. This is a SPARTAN race so that is part of being a Spartan I guess.
- Shoes I wore an old pair of running shoes, I would recommend going out and buying anything new for the event. I recommend old socks that you have run in before as well.
- No rules on running the whole race, this is a personal challenge and I hope it is a fun event for you all.
I will go sort of in order of the obstacles I can remember:
We started out into a smoke screen up an embankment like a high irrigation ditch then around a bend to a stack of hay bales that we climbed over. Then around a building, over a split rail fence into a wash with a line of burning fire logs that we had to jump over (no big deal). While doing this you had fireman hosing you down after jumping over the fire, this was the first chance to get wet. They also could knock your ASS down if they hit you square on from the water pressure. Down wash and thru a tunnel.
Then you run through part of Rawhide over some more split rail fences. Then you cross the Golf course creek, go for a bit and cross again. These 2 crossing aren't too deep, later on you have to swim because the water is to deep to walk.
After that I think we ran for a couple of miles or more out into the dirt of the desert. This is were you shoes start to pick up dirt turning to MUD and making your shoes heavy.
More obstacles:
Balance Beam walk.. or push-ups if you fall off..
Cargo Net - climb over
Tunnel - some kind of Army Crawl through it...(this was hot and CROWDED at the time)
Crawl Under Barbed Wire: You do this abut 3 times. My suggestion is to TRY and get as far to the LEFT or RIGHT as possible. The reason is that the wire is HIGHER so you can have you BUTT in the air a bit more and some of us need the room ;). I suggest if you get the chance at home on the carpet try doing that Army crawl, knees and elbows, head and ass low, cradle that rifle in your arms. Move forward!! NOW remember you most likely will be in Shorts & a short sleeved shirt!! My knees got scraped up pretty good, remember boys and girls you are SPARTANS (and you are even paying for this abuse).
Some over, under, and threw obstacles, just fun stuff like tires and such. Nothing hard.
4-sided Rubiks Cube, believe or not I had a hard time with this and got some help.
Concrete block pull, basically you pull a 25-50lb block of concrete about 30 yards forwards, then pull it back backwards. Backwards works a different group of muscles.
High wall, this is a wooden wall that you have to climb over that is about 7-8 feet high. Some people can jump up and pull themselves over. Others will need some help up, TEAM WORK will be important at this obstacle! We used cupped hands to have people step into and then hoist them up to get over the top and jump down the other side.
Greased wall/ramp, you climb up this with the help of a rope, the key is to maintain a Normal force or 90 degree force to the ramp as you climb to reduce slipping. So I was pretty upright going up.
Climbing wall, this is different because you traverse the wall from one side to the other to ring a bell. 1. Watch a little before you go. 2. Don’t rush, take your time. 3. Let the person in front of you on the wall get close to finishing so you don’t catch them and get stuck on the wall waiting for them. 4. Don’t try to reach too far for the bell.
Spear throw (this is really a rake or shovel handle with a piece of metal on the end). I think there is some luck in this one, and I got lucky so I will most likely miss this time. I balanced it in my hand, then threw it to try and get an arc to the hay bales. Total Luck.
The end you get to dash through the GLADIATORS…you can figure this out and have fun!!
I look forward to meeting you all on the 11th.
Feel free to let me know if you have other questions, I missed.
Phil Swazey
