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Running the Super Spartan Race, Midlands 2012

Having noticed my blog was getting a bit text-heavy, I decided to wait a while for the photos from the Super Spartan, before writing an update.

However, is has now been nearly three weeks since we ran the course and not a single photo has surfaced. To be honest, this is entirely typical of the Spartan Race experience and I’ve decided to write this anyway, before I forget the event altogether.

A couple of months ago, Simon and I ran the Spartan Sprint, a 5km obstacle course. Although we weren’t expecting an epic challenge over 3 miles, we were still somewhat disappointed by what the Spartan Race organisers considered as “obstacles”.

So we decided to try again but, this time, we’d run the Super Spartan. Over twice as long as the Sprint and boasting 20+ obstacles, surely that would push us closer to our limits…

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So we got up at 6am and struck out for Birmingham. After a power breakfast in a local village, we parked up, donned our running gear (the same clothes we take to the gym) and hyped ourselves up for what the organisers described as “an 8+ mile battlefield of insane mud running”.

We had conquered the Spartan Sprint with ease and laughed at their pitiful choice of obstacles on the 5km course. That was clearly just a warm up – a tester for those new to physical exertion. Now we were ready for something more, a REAL challenge.

WHAT NEW DEVILRY DID THEY HAVE IN STORE?

…a brick. Yup, a brick. It turned out that the SUPER SPARTAN race was simply the Spartan Sprint race…but twice. The second time around, we would carry a brick with us.

The only other difference was that, when it came to carrying things, we’d have to carry twice as much. Two bags of sand instead of one. Two tires, instead of one. Lift something of the ground twice, instead of once.

In fact, the biggest obstacle was the sheer heat of the day. With no water stations or refreshment of any kind, the Spartan Race just left us to bake in the sun and deal with the dehydration. All in all, come the end of the race, we were tired…but unbroken. We were certainly ready for the “live music and catered meal to soothe your aching joints” but, like many of the Spartan Race promises, those also failed to come to fruition.

At this point, I develop a conflict of emotions. On the one hand, I’m not a runner and it wasn’t easy tackling 8 miles through mud, rivers and long grass, especially when 4 of those miles involved carrying a brick. In fact, carrying two heavy bags of sand and a brick was a thoroughly gruelling experience that left my forearms quaking. It was tough, enjoyable and a hugely worthwhile day out.

On the other hand…it’s lazy. Simon and I paid £60 each to enter, drove 200 miles there and back…for what? To throw a makeshift plastic spear at some straw? To run around in a farm until we found a pile of tires, pick up two of them and run in a circle? To wade our way through 2 miles of riverbed? Sure it was fun, sure it was quite hard at points, but it was…tame. Petty, even.

Some poor bastards signed up to to the Super Spartan, then the Sprint – for a truly tough day! Those suckers ended up paying £120 to run the same 5km course three times. That, in my mind, is utterly unacceptable.

The Spartan Race bills itself as the Best Obstacle Course outside, but it simply isn’t true. I fully accept my experience of these things is massively limited, but I just don’t understand how they can make a claim so bold. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Tough Guy involves lakes of ice water, thirty foot high scaffold frames, underground pits of electric shockers, monkey bars, mountains of mud and pits of slime up to your armpits. Spartan Race boasts 2-inch high balance beams, plastic spears and rope ladders.

Apart from the running, the two races are hardly comparable. I’m hoping to do Tough Mudder in November too and I’m fairly confident that it too will be better, tougher and more impressive than the Super Spartan.

The next level up in the Spartan Beast, which is 12 miles with 25 obstacles. They’ve got one coming up in Novemeber and, if I complete it, I will become part of the Spartan Trifecta Tribe (completed all three races in one season). Normally, I wouldn’t think twice before signing up to something like this. At the moment, however, I’m waiting on a response from the organisers, to make sure it won’t just involve running the Sprint three or four times.

Overall, it’s frustrating. Frustrating because I really want to love the Spartan Race. I want to enjoy every moment, revel in its challenges and recommend it to all my friends. And, to an extent, I do. It’s genuinely fun and if, like me, you don’t run very often, it’s challenging too!

But it’s not… It’s not what I want it to be. I don’t feel proud of myself for finishing the Super Spartan. In fact, I’m a bit embarrassed by my time (despite the fact I’m not a runner) and feel I’m deceiving people when they hear I’ve done it, because they assume it was much “crazier” than it was.

It’s not crazy. The Super Spartan is quite hard, quite enjoyable…and quite tame.

Nevertheless, I had a really great time. Getting out in the open is always great and tackling 8 miles, 4 with a brick, through mud, rivers and scorching heat was an excellent adventure. Simon and I both pushed ourselves and my legs hurt for days afterwards, which is a sure sign of exertion (even if it is mainly because of twisting my knees and ankles time and time again in the river).

I appreciate this post has put a bit of a downer on the whole thing, but only because my overall of the race was that it could have been so much MORE than it was. Twice around the same course? Really? Reeeeeeally?!

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