Race Review - 2015 Spartan Trifecta

To change it up a bit, I decided to roll my entries into this year's Spartan Sprint, Super and Beast into one Trifecta review. This year I did the races in order from shortest to longest and visited 3(ish) new venues and one new state.


CO Military Sprint

This event has become my bread and butter. It was the 1st race I ever ran (2012) and the quickest and best Spartan I have posted in (2014). As usual, it was at the Ft. Carson Army base in Colorado Springs. This year, however, it was moved to a different location on the base, farther south. Because of this, the entry point was a single gate. We were running the first heat, and there was a long line of cars when we showed up, which was pretty early. It took us a good half hour or so to get through the checkpoint, and I was getting nervous we'd miss our start time. Later we heard people waited in that line for as much as 2 hours for later heats.

From parking lot to grounds.

Parking was closer to the site than normal, so no shuttle buses, but a bit of a hike to registration. Getting checked in was a breeze, as usual, and we just made our start time. After a little warm-up and some words from the Army Pastor as well as the rile up from the Spartan MC, we were off on our way!

Go time!

The terrain was slightly different from the other location, with a little more up and down on some rolling hills, with a couple pretty steep sections. One of which made the bucket carry particularly hard at this race, forcing many people, myself included, to stop, which is something I try hard to avoid.

There were a few different obstacles this year, and some tweaks to exiting favorites. New (to me) was the memory wall, where you have to memorize a word and 4 digit number to be recalled later in the race (although we were never asked to recall ours). The Rig, a hanging traverse obstacle consisting of  two horizontal bars, separated by three vertical lengths of rope. I was happy to see the Monkey Crawl omitted, since it had bested me twice last year, until I saw The Rig. This would become my new nemesis.

Bucket Carry of Doom.

The tire drag and pull has been replaced with sleds, that can be a bit of a pain, depending on the ground you are dealing with. The Traverse Wall is now in a "Z" shape, forcing you to negotiate an inside, as well as an outside, corner. I managed to slip off this one with a poor foot placement. The ropes had a variety of knotted and no-knots options for the first time. The Spear Throw was there, of course, but now with a tether on the end, so it can be retrieved quicker and safer. It didn't seem to affect my throw much and I added the 6th hit to my perfect Spear Throw record.

There was also more bunching up of obstacles this year. Especially the arm intense type. So quite a bit of running in between compared to the last couple of years. I'm sure this is to induce more stress on the hard obstacles, as well as probably a lot easier to set up, but I liked it better when they were spread throughout the course more. There was no ruck sack march this year, which was a bummer because that's one thing I really excel at and can usually pass a lot of people during.

Splash splash.

Shortly after we finished, and I with a time to qualify me for the OCR World Championships, we wandered around for a couple hours, I tried my hand at the Slosh Pipe Challenge (I got out 15 reps, the winner came in at 28), drank a beer (or two) before some clouds moved in. I heard a couple far off rumbles of light thunder, which didn't seem like a very big deal, but the ended up shutting the course down and pulling people off. This seemed a bit silly coming from an event that prides itself on being hard core, and where the founder himself brags about not canceling a race due to weather and running in a hurricane (the inspiration for the now well know "Hurricane Heats" available at many races), but that's not my call to make I guess. I do know several people were very upset and I heard from a lot of people things like "I'll never run another Spartan", etc. I did hear, later, that there were a lot of $100 race credits issued to people who were severely delayed, or not allowed to finish at all.

Art shot.

All in all, it was just OK. Not a great race, by any means, and probably a close tie for last place with the Vegas Super we ran last year. I wasn't real happy with the venue, the organization or the course layout. I'm pretty sure it ranks last for anyone forced to retreat off the course, especially those right at the finish.


Austin Super

Just a couple weeks later, I was traveling to Austin to compete in the Spartan Super. In stark contrast to the CO Sprint, this was a really great race and one I look forward to doing again some day. This was a first for me in several ways. It was my first trip to Austin (or TX for that matter), it was the first race out of my home state I traveled to alone and it was the first Super that I really wanted to be competitive at (the 1st one being a team race and I also wanted to back up my OCRWC qualifier).

I flew in on Friday afternoon, checked out Austin for some food (fajitas and BBQ ribs on one plate. Amazing!) then drove out to Lago Vista where I had rented a place, essentially splitting the distance between the airport and the venue, which was a bit of a drive from Austin.

The drive to the venue was a beautifully, serene,
winding road through rolling hills along the river. I really enjoyed it, hardly saw a car the whole time, and it really set the mood for the weekend for me. Arriving at the venue, which was some sort of ranch, the parking staff was great and things moved quickly. It was a short hike to the bus and about a 5 minute ride to the main grounds. The area had been experiencing heavy rains (I would get an occasional flash flood alert on my phone) and the ground was pretty sloppy with mud and muck.

Before.

I was plenty early for my 11:00 start time, so I wandered around a little bit, and zeroed in on the Slosh Pipe Challenge. No one was signing up, so I figured I might get lucky and win a race entry. I stepped up and banged out a pretty impressive (for me at least) 28 reps. I milled around a bit, keeping an eye on the challenge, but hung my head in shame after I saw a guy hit the 30 mark. So I headed over to the start and made my way towards the front, excited to race on a new course.

And this was a fantastic course. It would through the trees, across streams, up over large rock outcrops, through rolling terrain that was never quite so steep that you had to stop and rarely did I even have to come to a walk. Like many races, I came to trade positions back and forth with another guy and we would chat along the way as I passed him or he passed me.

One of the many stream crossings.

At one point, along a wooded path probably about halfway through the race, I could hear two guys chatting behind me, probably 30 yards off or so. Then I heard what sounded like a large branch break, and one of the guys said: "You all right?" Followed immediately by a shout for "Medic!". Obviously it was no branch that snapped, and judging from the sound it was a pretty large bone. We hadn't passed any staff in a while, so I ran on ahead and quickly found a guy manning an obstacle and relayed the info so he could call it in. It wasn't a bad stretch of path, or rocky, or anything like that, so I'm guessing it was just a misstep that caused it. I good reminder for me to keep my head in it and watch my feet.

The obstacles were similar to the Sprint from a couple weeks prior. The Memory Wall again had no recall station, so I spent a lot of time reciting the useless mantra in my head. I nailed the Spear Throw again (7 for 7!), but once again failed The Rig. Right at the finish, they stacked up a number of arm smoking obstacles, finishing with the Rope Climb. I was pretty tired, but managed to get up it without too much difficulty, then took a couple minutes to explain the technique to two guys that were just sort of holding the rope staring up at the top. The only variation I recall, was the Atlas Carry had a thin rope stretched across the halfway point that you had to duck under, making it a little more interesting. The sled carry was in some serious muck, causing a good bit of suction and I had to really yank to get it moving.

Final dunk in red TX mud water.

Considering how nasty the fairground area was, the course overall wasn't that muddy. I really expected to be slipping and sliding all over the place, but it was a pretty smooth run. The one issue I encountered was with the stream crossings. The fine gravel would get into my shoes, and although I was able to ignore it for the most part, at around mile 8 it was compacting in the toe area so bad that I made myself stop and empty it out, even though I really didn't want to. This year I went up a full shoes size in my runners, and that helped me to not stop sooner and I also haven't gotten the dreaded Black Toenail this year. I brought a small water bladder with me, but I probably didn't need it. I felt pretty good and drank very little from it.

The Rig (hate) was my only failure for the day, which allowed me to finish strong (elevation drop probably didn't hurt, either) and the ChronoTrack has me listed as 1st in group for the day, although the official results from Spartan will later drop me to 13th. But either way, good enough to back up my OCRWC qual, and make the day a great success! I felt really good post race, until I stopped to chat with the guy I had been trading with on the course and I suddenly got intense leg cramps in my calves.

I like the 1st place better.

I was pretty beat, trying to walk off the cramps and sip a beer, grab a bite to eat and finally just had to sit down, so I went near the finish and watched some racers cross the line for a bit before I decided to head back to the car. The parking area was still really mucked up and a lot of cars were getting stuck, but they had tractors on hand and were yanking people out quite efficiently.

This was probably my favorite Spartan Race to date (maybe tied with my first CO Sprint, because your first is always memorable and that was an incredible race) and I would definitely recommend it to anyone. It's a great destination race, Austin is a cool town, and there's lots of other stuff to do in the area if you have a couple days. My only regret is that I didn't take an extra day or two as well as have someone to share the experience with.

After.

Breckenridge Beast

Fast forward a couple months, and we're back in Colorado for the first ever Beast in Breckenridge. Breckenridge is a ski town, but has a pretty decent Summertime draw too. We decided it would be a great mini vacation, so we rented a condo with some friends and went up Friday night. We took it pretty easy Friday night, knowing the next day would be tough. The Beast we did last year in UT was really hard and everyone expected this one to be worse (they were wrong) and pics leading up to it showing a ton of snow still on the mountain had us all wondering what to wear for it.

Saturday morning the sun was out and it looked like it was going to be pretty hot, so I decided to go tights and short sleeves, rather than the long sleeves and I brought just in case. This was a pretty solid idea. We checked in with one of our sponsors, Brute Force, stashed our bags and made our way to the start, which pointed directly uphill. We were a little late getting the the corral, so ended up towards the back of the pack.

These guys rule.

Once the start went off, it took a good bit to push through the people (this drives me crazy) who immediately started walking and didn't have enough sense to move over to let us pass. It's like driving people. Stay right, pass left and the world will be a better place! The climb did manage to spread people out and when we hit the big water crossing (the first of a few venue specific obstacles) I was able to push through at my own pace. The course wound pretty much up and up, but unlike Utah, it was mainly along dirt access roads, rather than single track trails. This was nice in that it made for a quicker ascent and descent, but also made it relatively easy. There were very few really steep climbs, mostly long gradual ascents.

Cold snow melt water.

For the obstacles, the stand outs were the hike up the snowy half pipe which then turned into a Snow Wire Crawl. This was one point where some gloves would have been nice! At the top of this slope, the course split into it's respective Sprint and Beast distances. The Sprint turned off down the hill and we continued upwards. There were 2 separate Log Carries, that were rough and a very long Bucket Carry that I had to stop during, much to my disappointment. The other notable was the horizontal rope traverse, which I hadn't seen at a Spartan race before, but knew from other events.

This was a little miserable.

Again I found my pace car. A young soldier, named Jason from Ft. Leavenworth who wearing a Rogue t-shirt. We traded back and forth several times and then hiked up a long hill together and chatted about races and heart rate monitors and all manner of OCR type stuff. I would pull ahead on the quicker stretch, but his steady pace would catch me on the long hills. On the traverse wall, I made a misstep at nearly the last foot placement, allowing Jason to pass me and keep his lead.

Not long after my first failed obstacle, I found my old (not) friend The Rig, who bested me once again. This set of burpees really smoked me and the rest of the race became incredibly difficult. I was starting to feel the fatigue, some minor cramping, etc. when I can to the Spear Throw. On my step in, I hit my lead leg against the low log barrier, and botched my throw for the first time ever. This put me at 90 penalty burpees for the day. From here my morale was down and the cramping was up. The last downhill section back towards the fairground was a lot slower than I wanted. The cramps were setting in and I walked way more than I wanted to.

Somewhere, out there.

At the finish they again had the Rope Climb as a final insult. I was tired, cramped and downtrodden, but determined not to do anymore burpees that day. So I dug deep and pushed through to the top, splashed under the Dunk Wall and crossed the finish line at 3:42 and change. I did make my goal of beating my UT Beast time, but this was a very different race and I was angry at myself for missing the spear and the traverse, 2 obstacles, as my friend Dave says, are right in my wheel house. It would have been nice to reinforce my OCRWC qualifiers again, but I missed it by a full 25 places.

Post race, some clouds moved in and it started to sprinkle ever so slightly and a light breeze came up. As I wandered around waiting for my friends to finish, I began to get a deep chill that i couldn't seem to get rid of. When Dave saw me, sitting shivering by the Brute Force tent, he mentioned my lips were blue. I couldn't even make it to have my free beer and was barely able to wait for Dave to take a leak before I had to get out of there. I was shaking pretty bad when we got on the bus and figured I was getting hypothermic. Even a hot shower back at the condo didn't help and the shivering and teeth chattering continued until I got some food in me, leading to believe that perhaps it was brought on more so by a severe calorie deficit (I generally have a hard time fueling on a hard course) rather than the relatively slight temp drops, post race. Once I ate I bounced back fairly quick and was able to enjoy a night on the town.

Rare and elusive Beast Sprint medal.

This Beast was a decent race. Not great, but not terrible. Bruce is a cool place, and I would probably do it again, but it wasn't so special that I'd feel bad missing it. I did get a bonus from it though. The only known Beast/Sprint medal that I've heard of. So that made it all worthwhile. :)

In Total

After a local day outing, a destination event and a road trip, 26.7 miles were covered in 7 hours and 51 minutes,  dozens of obstacles conquered, a few failed (damn you Rig!) and some highs and lows experienced. I decided next year I wouldn't want to do the CO Sprint (although I almost immediately signed up for the CO Super at the same venue, go figure) opting to do one somewhere else, like AZ perhaps. The Austin Super will likely find me competing there again, but probably not in 2016. If the Breckenridge Beast happens again, I will likely skip it for a trip to Montana, because I hear that course is phenomenal.

Spartan Stats to date

Race Review - 10k Turkey Trek

The final race for me of 2014 was the 10k Turkey Trek in Arvada, CO. The event comes in 2 flavors, the 10k and a 2k version. This is a pretty small local race, but well run and it comes with a really nice tech t-shirt for your trouble. There is also a canned food drive where you can earn some more raffle entries.

In the packet pick-up line.

Now, as we all know, just about every race these days has some sort of gimmick to set it apart from the rest. Wether that's mud and fire, splashes of color and water, or just plain rough terrain, very few races are standard 5k or 10k affairs. This suits me just fine, because variety is the spice of life. The Turkey Trek is no exception. Although, you can bomb it as a straight 10k if you're looking to win or set a PR, you get bonus raffle entries for chugging egg nog and/or eating pumpkin pie along the way.

And... they're off!

It was a beautiful day in late November, and in CO it can certainly go either way at that time of year, but we got some nice sunshine as we lined up to go. They split male and female starts by 15 minutes, although you could race in either heat, as long as you told the score keepers, so you could get an accurate time as the race was timed off the gun. The 2k sprinters would start after the ladies and run in the opposite direction in a short out and back route.

My son was "unmotivated" for this race and said he'd run with me, which is a slow pace for him. It didn't take long before he couldn't take it and pulled ahead. Around mile 2 he was far enough away I lost sight of him.

The course wound slightly downward to a creek crossing, then around 2.5 miles it started up, and up, and up to a steep switchback hill climb that topped out right about the midway point of the race. Here they had the Eggnog Chug Challenge setup. Not being one to turn down a challenge, I gladly accepted to 5oz. cup of 'nog and slammed it with relative ease. About 20 yards further on was a puking area, but it was mainly just for laughs, I hope, as I didn't see anyone throwing up.

Mid chug.

At this point, the course takes a long winding downhill route of the next mile or so. All on concrete, so a bit hard on the knees and I wasn't able to go quite as fast as I would have liked to here. The rest of the back half creeps up and down some rolling hills. Somewhere around mile 5 I spied something on the ground and stopped to pick up a broken pot pipe. Welcome to Colorado! The course flattens out at the turn around point for the 2k, which is where the tables were set up for the Stuff Your Pie Hole challenge. Unfortunately, I didn't see any pie (my son would say the same, post-race) so I didn't get to accept the 2nd challenge. Not sure if they were out, or I just didn't see it.

You never know what you'll find racing in CO.

From here it's a sprint to the end and off to the fairground for some tasty hot apple cider and lots of free snacks and whatnot. Awards were given for overall and top 3 in age group. My son managed to get 3rd in his group. Not bad for being "unmotivated" and I placed 14th in mine. Putting him at 35th overall and myself at 105 out of 245 for the day.

That's my boy, always dressed for the occasion.

The raffle had some good offerings, including vouchers for free pairs of running shoes, but even with all our attempts to get extra entries, we left empty handed.

All said and done, we had a pretty good time and enjoyed the race. The downhill on concrete was a bit of a drag, but it was tolerable. Some hill practice might be in order if you plan to place well in this event.

MOW - Avocado deviled eggs

Here's a quick and delicious meal, especially if you have a hard boiled egg cooker.

So pretty!

Avocado Deviled Eggs. Makes 12 halves.

6 hard boiled eggs
1 avocado
1 T. red onion (or one scallion) minced
1 tsp. dried cilantro (or 1 T. fresh minced)
3 tsp. lime juice
Dash or 2 of salt (optional)
Sprinkle chili powder (or paprika)

Mix 3 egg yolks with the other ingredients and sprinkle the chili powder on top. Give the other yolks to your dog, or use in a salad or something later.

For mine I used a scallion, fresh cilantro and chili powder. Turned out great. Coupled with a little buffalo chicken salad and a roasted jalapeño for a nice healthy dinner.

My son got the other 7 halves.

Race Review - Great Pumpkin Haul 2014

This was our 2nd visit to the Chatfield Botanic Gardens for The Great Pumpkin Haul. The last time we were here was 2 years ago at the inaugural event, so we decided to pay another visit to see how the event has evolved. In some ways good, and some not so good. The major player in this race is the pumpkin that you pick yourself, and then get haul with you for the full course. Prizes are for fastest run, largest pumpkin, best costume and something with hauling 2 of the orange orbs, that I wasn't exactly clear on.

It can go hard or easy. The choice is yours.

This race was quite a bit larger than it was 2 years ago, and they split us up into heats. These heats, however, were only staggered in 5 minute increments, which was far too short a time in my opinion, at least for how this race was setup. Last time we were here, the race was 2 laps of a 1 mile circuit. This was improved with a single 2 mile course this time around.

We were in the 3rd heat and quickly caught up to the 2nd heat at the first obstacle, which was a crawling obstacle made up of some boards and hay bales. A fine obstacle, but it was pretty low. I couldn't even roll my pumpkin under it, so had to find it's narrowest point and push. Not sure what people with even bigger gourds did. But worse than that, it was only wide enough for 2 people to scoot under at a time. That coupled with the fact that it was so early in the race caused a massive backup, and we waited around for several minutes before we got our turn. Many people chose to skip it altogether.

After this, only about 50 yards further on was a short tube crawl, that was also a bit backed up, but not nearly as bad. Then it was a pretty good run with some simpler obstacles. One was a duck under weave type thing that wasn't exactly clear on how it was to be performed, so people just kind of did whatever. The hazards are pretty simple, jumping over hay bales, climbing through and under bungee cords and things of that nature. The biggest challenge is predicated by what size pumpkin you choose.

So, there's this.

Of course the obvious answer is to pick the smallest one you can find, but when there's more than one man around, there's competition, and someone's going to push their better judgment aside. This year it was me, bumping up to 29.5 pounds and my son, Kellan, increased his haul to 22 pounds. This does create it's own set of problems, especially if you're smaller framed like my son and can't hoist the mellon up on your shoulder at least some of the time.

We finished in just over 35 minutes, and if not for the backups, we probably would've shaved a good 10 minutes off that time.

41 pumpkin birthday burpees. The Boy cheated.

This is a very family oriented event, and if you're like the jerk who pushed his way through everyone on the bridge crawl obstacle, you should probably just stay at home. There will be a lot of little kids around and there's no big prize money, so relax and enjoy the crisp clean Autumn air. Post race had some free beers, food vendors and discounts off the fall festival corn maze. The "band" seemed more like a few dudes trying to wing a jam session (complete with an ad-hoc beat-box portion that was quite amusing) more so than anything really cohesive.

It's a good family fun run or race as a group event for sure. And if you're planning to go to Chatfield Botanic Gardens to pick a pumpkin anyway, for about the cost of the corn maze entry and a medium pumpkin, you can race and get the free beer plus still go home with as big a pumpkin as you want. My only real complaint is the festival grounds seemed to shut down and pack up really early. It was such a beautiful day for drinking beer in the park. :)

Post race in the corn maze.

Race Review - Tough Mudder, Snowmass 2014

When it comes to races, I was really not looking forward to Tough Mudder. I had never done a Mudder, and from what I saw and read, it looked more like systematic torture, than physical challenge.
Well I wasn't totally right, but I wasn't far off in a way I didn't expect.

We had signed up well in advance of the race. One thing about TM is it's really hard to find a deal or discount, so your best bet is probably to sign up early. We also signed up, regretfully, for a Sunday heat, as it was the best deal we could find. Then, once you're on their mailing list, you will see that they are all about the money. You will be bombarded, often daily, with emails urging you to buy Tough Mudder gear.

Snowmass is a small ski village about 3.5 hours outside of Denver, making it nearly essential to rent a place to stay for the race. We got a motel room in neighboring Glenwood Springs and spent the night on Saturday, to race Sunday and drive home post race. Glenwood is about 45 minutes from the actual race venue, so we still had a bit of a drive to get to Snowmass Sunday morning.

When we got to the venue, we were pushing it to get through check-in in time for our heat. The line was long, but I figured we'd make it since we had printed off and signed our waivers ahead of time. Then some lady with a bullhorn asks everyone to check and make sure they have the correct waiver. How could we not? I think. Then it turns out we, as well as a ton of other people, have printed off the Spectator Waivers. Now why in the hell they have 2 different waivers, is beyond me. Why each is 2 pages long, is another mystery. And lastly, why this info isn't printed in giant red letters on the online race packet is a bad idea.

This led to dozens of people realizing their same error, stepping out of check-in and over to the long waiver line, where they promptly ran out of waivers. So they had to send someone off to who-knows-where to print more and about a half hour later we were back in check-in, promised we'd get to race even though many of us would definitely miss our heat times. Once the waiver debacle was sorted out, check-in was pretty simple and we scooted through to the race area.

Worst way to carry someone, BTW.

We were to be the last heat of the weekend and we immediately headed to the start line. Shortly after we got to the start area, an emcee began to push us through a short, and humorous (in a good way) warm-up. Then he handed the mic, which cut in and out repeatedly, over to the motivational guy, who then made us take a knee, for no less than 10 minutes, where he basically said the same thing about 4 times over. Not that it was bad content, but taking a long, really uncomfortable long, knee right after a warm-up, sort of defeats the purpose. We then sang the national anthem, no music or lead singer, just us racers, which was cool and we were soon on our way.

Lined up, right in front of us, was a ski slope, so I figured we'd be starting with a long uphill start, but the path quickly veered off and went down. And down. And down some more, to the lowest point on the course, conveniently marked with an elevation sign stating as such. With only a small obstacle along the way, we started off with 2 miles straight down on concrete. Not my favorite thing to do to my knees. The torture had begun.

After the decent we began to climb slowly up and hit the Arctic Enema obstacle. With is basically a couple roll-offs full of cold water with a board across the middle forcing you to fully submerge. Now maybe it was because we were the final heat of the weekend, but it wasn't as cold as I was expecting. Now it was cold, mind you, enough to rob you of your breath and cramp up those muscle that just took a downhill pounding, but it wasn't full of floating ice, like I've seen in pictures at other races.

Mysterious blue water at Arctic Enema.

From here we started a steady ascent of the mountain, punctuated by a couple obstacles. A rope/wall climb and a tented monkey bar obstacle being the standouts. Then it began to get really steep, and we climbed and climbed what seemed like endless false summits. It began to rain and the cold wind threatened to chill us to hypothermia, but it relented and the sun came back out as we neared the top obstacle section. There were a couple really cool trail running type sections along the way that I really enjoyed. Unfortunately they were relatively short and most of the course was exposed and had to be hiked more then ran.


At the top was a series of obstacles grouped together. Some really tick mud pit walls that required assistance to get through for all but the most hard core participants. An electrified obstacle/water pit that wasn't marked, at least not that a saw, as electrified, but we soon figured out watching those ahead of us. This is important, as I have a pace maker and electric shock is a serious no-no for me. There was also the infamous Walk The Plank obstacle up here, which seems to be managed very well since Avishek Sengupta died on it back east a couple years ago. (We also heard several times from organizers about not jumping into the water if you can't swim).

After this series of challenges we wound around and began a terrible, knee destroying decent. Now, it may be the fatigue of being sick for a week leading up to the race, or the 2 mile concrete decent at the beginning, but I have never experience joint pain like that before. It was excruciating. I had some pain at the Spartan Beast in UT, which had a similar elevation profile, with some steep descents, but this one really got to me. My right knee especially, which is my "good" knee. It became torturous and we had a long way to go down still.

As far as the obstacles, none of them were particularly hard, save for the monkey bars (which I generally have trouble with) and the Pole Dancer, which dislocated several shoulders that weekend from what I heard. Some were down right laughable, like Bushwhacked, which was just cutting through some weeds and over a couple fallen logs, Bell Hop where you jump and try and ring a bell as you run by *shrug*, and Gorilla Something-or-other that was just a short steep climb up and down on an already steep course.

Tricky, but with few upper body obstacles, doable.

Hold Your Wood was very cool and we partnered up was a stranger on that one. And there is always the classics, like Everest, that you just have to have help to get through. For me, the sheer presence of the mountain offered the biggest obstacle and most pain.

A new (and pretty smart) addition this year, was a course diversion know as the Legionnaire's Loop, where only previous Mudders could split off and do special obstacles built just for alumni. As this was our first TM, I can't comment on what was over there, but it sure sounds awesome.

I did like the signage posted throughout the course, which was obviously corse specific in many ways. That was until the end, where there were a string of thinly veiled anti-Spartan Race signs that I found in poor taste. Now I know Will Dean and Joe DiSena have no love lost on each other, but I've never heard or seen any anti-Tough Mudder propaganda at a Spartan Race.

All said and done, I did like the race overall. It was a challenging, well organized course. Aside from a few registration hiccups, it went really smoothly. We met several friendly folks on course and the team aspect of it is cool. In short, I didn't hate it as much as I thought I would. We had a really good time. The race shirt is definitely one of the best I've gotten, they get some really nice, free pictures of you and the post race content was really good, even though we had to have a quick beer and hit the road for the long drive home.

I don't always drink Dos XX, but when I do, it's free race beer.

I clocked it at 10.5 miles, but my GPS is notoriously off, and most people seemed to agree it was right at 11 miles total. We finished in about 3:20.

When we got back to Denver, I could barely walk. Probably due to sitting in the car for hours right after the race, and usually when we run a tough race, we have a rental with a hot tub we soak in soon after. Fortunately the pain subsided after a day or so, but it was enough for me to question whether these long steep races are worth the punishment on my now 41 year old body.

Post-post race, I received no less than 3 separate surveys from Tough Mudder and many "buy gear" emails. Sometimes more than one in a day. This may be the most annoying aspect of the TM franchise.

Headbands well deserved.

Race Review - Green Beret Challenge

The Green Beret Challenge was a new race this year. Very lightly publicized and I only heard of it through a Facebook post. If you aren't into the local OCR scene pretty heavily (or have a friend who is) you probably didn't even hear about it.

Serious gear weight.

It sparked my interest for several reasons:
1. It was at Ft. Carson, which is probably my favorite venue.
2. It's obviously military themed, which means challenging obstacles.
3. It was limited to 500 participants. Small heats = good events.
4. It was inexpensive. $30 with no hidden fees.

I quickly signed up my son and myself and spread the word to my buddies, who didn't seem interested, and waited and watched the attendance counter on their registration site. I figured it might be a low turnout, perhaps so low it might get canceled, but the numbers climbed steadily and we got the event instructions via email a few days before the event.

SF Group.

Having been on the Ft. Carson Army Base several times over the last few years for Spartan races, I was looking forward to seeing where this race would be. I thought it might be in the same area, but it was in another section for the Special Forces group. 100% of the proceeds from this event would benefit the Special Forces Scholarship Fund.


We arrived to free parking and wandered up just before the first heat left. We were assigned a later heat and wandered around looking at the sponsor booths, raffle table and the Army type stuff. We watched the next heat get briefed and then wandered back to the car to drop off our goodie bags and get ready for our run.

Magic legs!

First step in the Green Beret Challenge is to write your heat number on your hand (we were in heat 5) and "bring it in" for a mission briefing. The briefing consists of a map with the course layout and a hard ass, take no shit, Special Forces guy pointing out key features. When someone would joke, he would just stare at them. It was pretty amusing, but the dude was super serious.


Then, we were hustled over to the starting area, just a few paces away, on the tarmac where we proceeded to do a quick warm-up that involved doing 1 minute each of push-ups, air squats and finally burpees. We had about a minute to recover, then off we went.

Pretty sure this guy wanted to punch someone.

This race was quite different from others we've done. It started with a long run (by OCR standards) of about 2.5 miles. This run was pretty flat, with some minor elevation changes, gradually went up a long hill, then the course veered sharply off the road and up a steep hill. The hill brought us to a walk, then we trucked back down, up a short steep hill ran along some covered fences where the Army canines are kept, then up to the obstacle area.

The obstacles were all pretty well bunched up, with a short jaunt in-between here and there. It was cool to be on a real deal spec ops obstacle course and I highly recommend it if you get the chance. There was a burpee penalty on this course, 10 for any minor obstacle failed and 25 for the 2 major obstacles (rope traverse and sled pull IIRC).


They had a balance post obstacle, which both my son and I failed (our only failures of the race). If you've ever done a Spartan Race, picture those posts, but with a greater variance of height difference, farther apart and all clustered rather than in discernible lines. There were a couple other balance obstacles, consisting of logs at various angles or with sharp turns in them.

Everybody loves burpees.

For ropes we had a horisontal rope traverse, about 7 feet off the ground, which frustrated a lot of people and had the only real obstacle back up of the course. A standard rope climb, that was only about 15 feet, I'd say. And, my favorite, a rope swing over a pit where you had to clear a horizontal log on the other side and then hop down.

In the push-pull-carry category were things such as a water can carry down and back up a short, not too steep, hill. A Prowler type sled push, with 2 plates on it if I remember right, that my son and I teamed up on as I don't think he would be able to do it on his own. This was on a nice artificial turf football field and we pushed it down about 30 yards, spun around and pushed it back. Lastly, was a heavy duty plastic sled, made for dragging wounded off the battlefield, loaded with sandbags to simulate doing such. This had to be dragged up a long gravel road, that had shallow ditches on either side that wanted to pull your sled into them. It was fairly heavy, but my 110 pound son insisted pulling his own. He managed it, but it took a long time as the thing outweighed him by a good amount. I was able to drag it up and back without too much trouble.

Course map.

After the final obstacle, it was a quick half mile or so downhill sprint to the finish. I edged out The Boy, being well rested after waiting for him to finish the sled drag. We finished just under 1:10 and the course record is somewhere around 40 minutes, I believe.

Post race we grabbed some fruit, Cliff bars and gatorade and prepared for the raffle. The raffle was very gun/gear guy oriented, so I bought extra tickets. There were 40+ grab bags with MagPul P-Mags and miscellaneous stickers and patches, several shirts and hats, stuff from Hornady, some nice looking fighting knives, and a light and a flash hider from Surefire. The higher end items included a couple really nice packs from Kifaru. If you're not into shooting sports, you may be disappointed in your win, like the chick next to me who won a rifle case. We, on the other hand, made out like bandits, walking away with several P-Mags (I even turned down one grab bag after winning for the 3rd time) and I scored a nice Surefire hat.

Raffle time, w00t!

We left content with ourselves and impressed by the event. It was supremely well organized with staffing all along to course who were helpful and encouraging in true Army fashion. It was well worth our time and one of my favorite races of the season. I really hope it returns, as I would definitely do it again.

Muchos swageros.

Race Review - Warrior Dash, Copper Mountain 2014

Warrior Dash.
Warrior Dash, Warrior Dash, Warrior Dash... What can one say that's not already been said?

This was my second go around at this iconic event. We decided to rent a condo for the night, as we felt we missed out on a significant amount of partying last year. And make no mistake, Warrior Dash is a party. This year we even witnessed a group of runners hauling a 1.75 of vodka with them, drinking all the way.

A fair representation of the event.

Much to my disappointment, this was not a timed event this year. The winners were based solely on gun time in the first heat. I guess it makes sense, considering the party nature of this "event" (no longer a race without timing across the board), but even though I can time myself, I do like to see where I fall amongst the other competitors. All that being said, it wasn't a big deal as we ran together with a friend who doesn't run, so we were in do danger of breaking any PRs that day.

It is a pretty place for a party, though.

We had a later heat this year, and didn't get running until about 11:30. The course started same as the previous year and was just about exactly the same except for a few things. The long balance obstacle was absent this time, and a new large climb/net/water slide obstacle was in play and a snowy area about 100 yards long, that was new as well.

Snow field was new, but not difficult.

All went pretty well until we got to the high climb up and over wall. This thing was backed up pretty good and we waited around for a good 10-15 minutes before getting our shot at it. After that it was cruising along pretty good again, up some hills, over some small obstacles, etc. Until we came down through the village, where we knew we were getting close to the end, and ran smack into the largest obstacle backup I've ever seen.

It was at the new super-slide-climb thingy, and there were literally hundreds of people piled up. We hemmed and hawed a bit, then worked our way through the crowd to see what the deal was. Towards the front of the line we got info that the water level had dropped too low and it would be "an hour or two" before they got the obstacle up and running again.

This line went way back, around the corner and down the block.

An hour or two? No thanks. Thus marked an OCR first for me, I skipped an obstacle. As we walked around the impressive looking structure, we saw the finish was literally 20 feet from the water pool exit. This made for a really anti-climatic finish, especially for us. In my opinion, there should be at least a little sprint to the finish line to make you feel like you've earned it.

Looked like it would've been fun.

We walked away feeling a little empty. Our non-runner friend at least got some exercise, but with all the walking and waiting we did, I think Dave put it best when he said "I don't feel like I did anything." It was true, my daily workouts and training runs are harder than that. Granted, it would be different running solo for time, as we didn't really get to push ourselves, but the obstacle backups were depressing, especially skipping one... The biggest one... And the last one.

So what else could we do but drink and eat and drink and drink. So we did. We wandered around the fairgrounds after getting cleaned up, watched some of the stage contests, drink a lot of beers and did a fair amount of people watching. Warrior Dash definitely brings out some interesting people.

Women's push up challenge contestants.

We were actually surprised at how early the crowd petered out. In my mind, I had expected the party to go late, but it was all but done by about 5:00. We wandered back to the condo and hung out in the hot tube with some other competitors and chit chatted and drank (too much) and were all in bed by 9:00.

Final thoughts:
Warrior Dash is a well organized event. It prides itself on the party. It's getting taken less and less seriously by the competitive OCR crowd each year, and the timing removal won't help that. It needs to be run either in a big group of partiers and taken lightly, or sprinted solo. Run late for the former and early for the latter. I had a decent time, but I didn't have a great time. I don't know that I'll run it again next year.