2012 Spartan Race play by play

Here we go. Start running! I start out in the middle of the pack and keep a slow-moderate pace, concentrating on my breathing and form so I don’t get the usual stitch in my side. As we near the first obstacle, it’s clear I am not going to win my heat. I didn’t plan on it, but there are some hard chargers and it’s readily apparent now. So I come up with my new plan: Don’t get beat by any girls. ;)


First up are ditches about 6’ wide filled with water. The dirt they dug out forms a hill on the other side. There are 3 of them and I clear them without difficulty. Soon after there’s a low log with a net trailing the other side you have to scramble under and crawl through the netting, when you pop out there’s a 4’ wall you have to hop over. 3 sets of this, maybe 2, it’s already hard to remember everything. So far no problems.

Run, run, run and we come to a short hill. Already people are walking. I keep my steady pace up the hill passing several people. More running on flattish ground and I’m starting to breathe pretty hard now. We’re barely into this thing and I’m starting to wonder what I’ve gotten myself into. There’s a conex up ahead with a soldier standing there. As I approach I see 2 heavier chicks walking away. Apparently they’ve quit.

The soldier says, in true army fashion, “Grab a pack and attack my road!” There’s ALICE packs on the ground. They weigh about 60lb., I guess. The road is a long sweeping uphill climb, set against a tall foothill, so you can’t see where it ends. It becomes obvious who on this road has backpacked before and who hasn’t. I get into the familiar stance and start hiking up. Here I really start passing people and I’m not moving particularly fast. A couple of guys actually run past me, but screw that. I see a guy walking backwards looking down at his friends who are dropping behind. I say “You must be the backpacker of the bunch” and he says “I’ve done a lot longer hikes with this pack than this” or something to that effect, alluding to previous armed forces service. We joke a bit about how horrible the ALICE packs are and then I see a big dude in front of me with his hands under the lower part of the pack frame. The pad has slipped off, so I help him get it situated real quick as he looks super uncomfortable. He thanks me and I press on to the top of the hill. All told probably about 400 yards and maybe a 3-4% grade? Not too bad. I’m feeling pretty good at this point.

Then we have to take a much steeper downhill route to return the packs. That rocky, sandy type of steep hill that can mess you up if you’re not used to it. I’ve done my share of it, some people certainly have not. People start to stray off to the sides where there’s vegetation to help with grip and another soldier on a bull horn yells, “If you are going down you will stay on my road!” I get back to the conex and help a girl put on my old pack and start running to the next obstacle.

This one is some Mr. Miagi type posts in the ground. You have to make it across, hopping from one to the next without falling off. They are various heights and widths apart. Some far enough apart you have to leap to the next one. I do pretty well, but am moving too fast and then lose my balance right at the end and fall off 2 posts short. I look around at the staff guy and say “Now what?”, “Now you do 30 burpees for failing.”  If I had known that I would’ve taken my time. Oh well, burpees it is. They are surprisingly hard to do already, even though I’ve done a ton in training. While I’m doing them people I passed are making it across and passing me. Including girls!

Run, run, run. I pass a dude and say something then notice he has an OHS scar and say: “I see we have the same scar.” He just nods and I brush him off as “not friendly” and move past him. Tire flip. Flip it over and back. No problem, I do a lot of these with Jonathan. Oh, but this tire is bigger AND it has the wheel still mounted to it. Oh well, no big deal. I drop into the squat, unghh… Damn this thing is heavier than I thought! Reset and fully commit and it goes over and I get it back without hurting myself. I’d say it was close to 250lbs. Much heavier than Jonathan's and he says his is around 140. Some people are using a buddy to flip it. The girls have slightly smaller ones to flip.

Run, run, run. Water pit, with 50ish° wood incline and a rope. It’s muddy but I make it over no problem. Wood slats to climb down and I’m back to the next treat, which is right there.

Grenade toss. Box of dummy grenades and a 55 gallon drum sitting at 45° towards me, about 30’ away. Here my lanyard water bottle hinders me. It’s on my right wrist, so I have to hold the bottle in my left hand and move with the throw. Miss. No problem I’ll try again. Miss. Going for 3, “Hey! You only get one throw!”  30 more burpees. These are harder than the last.

Right next door is the rope climb. Water pit a about waist deep, ropes with knots, bell at the top. Racers are piled up here a bit so I get a chance to watch a couple people go for it. Looks tough and I’m a little tired, but I figure I got this. Water bottle lanyard screws me again. When getting my slippery feet up to the 3rd knot, the bottle is hanging between my feet. The part I had wrapped around in an attempt to make a sort of handle has slipped off making the lanyard too long. So now I’m holding with arms only trying to get my feet on the knot. I do and the next knot I can’t get my slippery feet to purchase again! I’m fatiguing the hell out of my arms to decide to ”game it” and descend to save my arms for what’s to come. I was about 2 knots from the top. I wade through the water, up a slippery muddy hill, that was way harder than it should be and, wait for it, 30 more burpees! We’re at 90 now if anyone is counting. While doing them a dude come up and does his next to me, but he cheats and only does like 10. Weak. Although I can see the temptation, I do all mine because I'm good like that. This set is particularly hard and takes me a long time to bang them out. I get passed by a ton of chicks. :(

I run a short ways and a soldier is saying “Grab a rifle and move forward!”. There’s a pile of rubber training M16s and a long mud pit with barbed wire stretched over it. Height of the wire varies from about 12” to 18” I’d say and there are hay bales at random places you have to move around. Everything comes to a crawl here, literally and figuratively. So many people are in here and I’m stuck behind them. There’s a machine gun shooting blanks to the side, which was awesome, and a mix of demoralizing music, followed by the Rocky Theme.  I feel something sharp on my knee and pull a piece of glass out of the mud. Awesome, a nice open wound in the muck. Get to the end of the wire and there’s a muddy hill. That wasn’t so bad, I think. Oh wait, another stretch of wire! In fact I see 2 more stretches. Moving on my water bottle gives me some issues. The mud is so thick it’s caked on EVERYTHING. My water bottle is like 4 pounds now and tangled around the rifle, somewhat intentionally tangled to keep it from getting under me. The M16 weight is about 15lbs with all the mud. This 2nd stretch I find an open lane to the left and pass a bunch of people. The last stretch the wire here is a bit higher and fewer people, I’m able to roll under it for the most part. Do a U-turn and head back to drop off “Charlene”. Heading back way too many people are walking. I run and pass a bunch of people, dump the gun and run off.

Run, run, run and there’s a water station. I grab a cup and ask the guy, “So is this halfway then.” “Almost, top of that hill. But don’t worry I hear the sandbags are full of Styrofoam.” Sandbags?  Run, run, run. Grab a sandbag, about 40lb. or so, and up a steep gravely hill. I pass the cheater from the rope burpees here. On the way back down the hill I can see in the shadow and feel on my legs that my bag is leaking sand. I’m tempted to let it lighten itself, but decide to adjust it instead so it doesn’t leak. I make a mental note to tell the staff guy its condition. When I get down there’s a dude who looks to be in his late 50s and damn tired, waiting to receive my bag. I opt just to hand it to him and let him decide if he wants to let it leak or not.

I run around the side of the steep hill, no road, just hill side. I see a marker that says “Mile 2”. I've been in it for about an hour at this point. A narrow path is here, lots of cactus and that sort of terrain. At the top I’m tired and grateful to see a bit of a bottle neck on the path and everyone walking. After a couple minutes it slopes down and I’m rested but everyone is still walking. WTF? Why walk downhill? So I break off the path and pass a whole string of people and one guy calls out, “Get it buddy!”

Down the hill and there’s another trial. Big foundation type cement blocks with chains on them and a hill. Blocks are about 50lbs. I dig in and drag it up and back down without too much trouble, passing a bunch of people, mostly girls. ;) At the bottom I see the guy with the scar again and he says “Good job, man.” Maybe he wasn't not unfriendly, maybe he was just tired.

Run, run, run up a semi steep trail. A couple chicks sitting down at the crest, looking like they’re quitting. Now is where I get a little confused, somewhere in there, there was 3 water pits with steep muddy hills that were f’in hard to climb. Seems like it was before this, but I can’t see them in the pics, and all this stuff is out of site of the fairgrounds, so it might have been back here. Anyway, they sucked. ;)

Down the hill and there’s some wood walls. A racer is offering to help people, but no one’s taking his offer. I take off the water bottle and toss it to the side beyond the first wall which is 6’ tall. I scale this one without issue. Next wall is 7-8’. I hop up and start pulling. There’s a little metal bracket on my right and I’m able to kick off it and scramble over, although my arm strength is fading.

Run, run, run and we’re at some monkey bars that are spaced pretty far apart. I take off my gloves and mentally prepare myself, knowing that my grip and arm strength are comprised right now and even without the gloves my hands are muddy and slippery. I get to it, doing one arm to the first bar and then bringing the 2nd to the same bar. Not too bad. Again, no problem. Hell, I got this, I’ll hand over hand the last couple rungs. Wrong! Slip. 30 burpees, gloves came in handy here as the ground was pretty rough and cactus like. Oddly these burpees aren’t that tough and I’m feeling the 2nd wind kick in.

Moving on, run, run run, down a wide dirt path. There’s a dude in front of me walking. The path goes up and down and again, I’m wondering, “Why the hell is he not at least running down the hills?” I mean, don’t get me wrong, I did my share of walking but to me, this is a no brainer. I pass him and he starts running and catches up saying “Alright, you’ve inspired me.” His name is Terry and he’s about my age, can’t say for sure because we’re so covered in mud anymore you can no longer see anyone’s numbers. We start running together. There’s a house and a couple with their kids and 2 garden hoses cheering people on, "Go Spartans!!" and offering us their water. We stop real quick and press on.

We get to the next obstacle, an “over, under, through” that’s pretty easy. Then we traverse down a steep hill into a nasty drainage ditch, you know the type with the warm black mud? Cruise along that through a short rectangular concrete tunnel, down a little more then we have to get up a steep muddy hill. People are struggling here. I get to the top and stretch down to help pull Terry up. Then we run back the other way; drop back down into the ditch over some slippery muddy rocks and through the other side of the drainage tunnel.

Run, run, run and we come to a huge back up at an easy obstacle. It’s one of those tent shaped wide “ladders” made out of logs. No big deal, but it must mess with people who are afraid of heights. There are 3 of them. The one on the left is just up and over. The 2 on the right are under/over, so you have to weave your way under one log, then over the next, etc. The lines for the under over are shorter, but people are moving really slow on them. People are also moving slow on the left one, but we figure it’ll be quicker and easier for sure. Also I’ve already done 120 burpees, most over stupid stuff, so I’m not taking any chances right now. While we’re waiting we chat a bit, he works out at a fitness place in Parker and was running with some guy he works with and their team. He said one of the dudes got hurt right away and they didn’t seem to care if he moved on so he left them behind. Anyways, up and over, no problem. Just past this is a water station, we grab a quick cup and I toss my empty mud caked water bottle in the trash there.

Run, run, run. “Terry says you ready to finish this thing out?” I agree and we step up the pace a bit. Although I’m still being mindful of my form and making sure I’m keeping a “conversational” pace and breathing right. About now it occurs to me I haven’t gotten the stitch in my side and that makes me happy. We run for quite a ways, crossing a road and moving way out and around the far side of the race area. From here we’re back in view of the grounds and can see the finish line in the distance. But there are still several more obstacles to go.

Next up is a rope and pulley with a 90ish lbs. concrete thing attached to it. You just have to pull it to the top, about 30’, and lower it back down without dropping it. I ditch the gloves again and we both do it without too much trouble and run on.

Spear toss. The “spears” are shovel handles with thick 10” nails sticking out the end. You have to throw them at big hay bales about 30’ away. After my terrible grenade toss I’m thinking more burpees are coming. But I kill it, nailing the heart painted on the bale dead center to the cheers of those behind me. Terry’s spear goes off kilter and hits at an angle. Burpees for him. He looks at me and says, “Go on man, I’ll see you later.” And I run off.

Next is some type of pull down machine. It has a wheel thing at top and 2 ropes that hang down. You pull down on the ropes at the same time, to some sort of set resistance, and that spins the wheel. I ask the dude who’s finishing WTF? and he says “200 RPMs, hit a button to reset it.” I hit the button and 200 displays on it. I’m thinking I’m either doing 200 reps, or that I have to get the wheel to 200RPMs. I pull down and the numbers tick off in strange increments, I quickly figure you out that it’s 200 revolutions of the wheel and if you keep rocking it and get it spinning real quick they tick off pretty fast. This is apparently lost on those around me because I finish it way faster than most people.

Run another 100 yards or so to a long water trench, probably about 75 yards long (it would be interesting to get official lengths and weights of these obstacles to see how far off I am), with tarps over the top, so when you’re under the tarp your head is barely above the water. You have to crawl on hands and knees. Between the 3 tarps, there’s a 10’ or so open area that you can stand up if you need to rest, but if you step forward while standing, it’s burpees for you. This must play on fears of drowning, which might be an issue if I was short due to the water height, and probably claustrophobia as well, which I don’t suffer from. But on top of that, the water was FREEZING! This felt good for about 10 seconds and then quickly became uncomfortable. I crawled through without stopping.

Sloughing out of that to a final mud hill with a rope about 20’ high and a girl in a Spartan costume at the top trying to motivate me by saying how close to the finish I was. Down the other side of the hill right to the next obstacle. The traverse wall.

It's like an improvised climbing wall with small hand and foot holds, all wood, where earlier I saw Hobie pass the other guy. The holds are caked with mud and our feet have just come off a muddy hill. No one is making it more than a 2 steps before slipping off into Burpee Town. The staff guy says you can help each other. Dude behind me asks “How?” and the guy says you can push against their back to help hold them up. Dude looks at me and says “Yeah let’s do this.” He gets behind me; I lean back into his hands, take one step and slip off into the Magical Land of Burpees once again. This set makes 150 burpees for me for the day. These ones are rough, but I can see the finish and bang them out without stopping too much.

After the burpees it’s a short sprint to jump the fire pit, which is surprisingly hard at this stage because you’re so damn worn out! Rope ladder up and over and down 2 conex boxes is nothing. Down on the ground and sprint past the Spartans and their sticks. One guy puts his down in a jab and I step into it pushing him back a bit. And then across the finish line! Got my shirt and my medal and stepped out to cheer Terry on through the finish. It was about 2 hours total start to finish. I said my goodbye to Terry and headed to the “showers”. It was probably the adrenaline of finishing, but at that point I felt like I could keep going for another mile or more.