This year I decided to spend my off-season with a little unconventional training and racing. The Spartan Race series was brought to my attention several months ago, but at the time I was too focused on the XTERRA series to change up my training or take a chance with such a random set of skills. The Spartan Race is a competitive obstacle course race. This particular event was 8 miles long with over 30 obstacles both natural and man-made. Since this was the championship race, there was a prize purse of $10,000 for first place and it was winner-take-all (no cash for second place).
Although I didn’t train very specifically for the race, it did happen to work with my off-season plan with some functional strength training, easy running, and high speed treadmill sprinting at Dogma Athletica. I could see how the training for these events could be a blast. The events require a great combination of endurance, strength, agility, balance, and strategy.
I didn’t approach the event with any expectations other than to have fun and give it a solid effort. I knew Hobie Call would be the man to beat and with his 15+ race experience would be a huge advantage in the obstacles. In the early stages of the race Hobie and I raced side-by-side which made for a fun and exciting race. Around mile 5 there was a very long commando crawl under barbed wire. Hobie rolled on his side for the entire length (150-200 yds) so I started out doing the same. I got so dizzy after about 30 yards that I had to go back to the elbow crawl. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that one obstacle pretty much decided the race with Hobie putting over 90 seconds on me. I was able to work back into the race, gaining time on the sandbag carry, the 5 gallon bucket full of rocks carry, and some tough hills, but in the end came up short, finishing second. I had a great time and Hobie proved that he was the champion. Hopefully I will get a chance to revisit one of these races in the future. I highly recommend a Spartan Race for anyone looking for a challenge.
