Yeah Spartan!!!

I ran a Spartan race today, loads of fun and an insane experience. Spartan is an obstacle race series; I ran the most basic one  - the Spartan Sprint. 5 miles distance,  but the multitude of  obstacles make it seem like 15!

This was at the AT&T football stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys. We had an excellent view of the stadium - the stands, the ground and outdoors. This was the Stadium version of Spartan, there is a trail version that is muddier but this stadium had a million stairs and it seemed like i stepped  of each one of them. 

The race goes like this - a series of obstacles (will describe them below), if you can't pass the obstacle, you do 30 burpees. Remember police or military training in movies? Lakshya, Prahaar, Quantico? I felt I was doing some of those!

In summary, the race tested endurance  and upper body strength, mainly. I managed well on stamina but was poor at obstacles that required upper body strength, so more burpees than I would have liked!

Listing the obstacles as I remember - 

1. Wall Traverse - Rock climbing style, but traversing horizontal distance. Not too tough. Tick
2. 20 push ups, with full torso flat and hands stretched  out at each turn
3. Monkey Bars - 10 bars to be traveled. No chance. 30 burpees :(
4. Jump through a set of 5 feet walls.Too easy :)
5. Carry 4 liter water jugs, one in each hand (only one jug for the women) up a sloe and back down. Distance may be around 100 m each way. I struggled, stopping 5 times in total
6. Carry a sack through flights of stairs (stairs  is a recurring theme in this race). The sack must be around 4 kg. (lighter for women)
7. More stairs
8. Raise a heavy sack (lighter for women) to a height of about 20 feet and bring it back down through a pulley system. Tough, but I got help from fellow members and managed to get through. Would probably have had to do burpees if I did this alone
9. Spear throw - 90% people did burpees here. And I was not an exception. Throw a spear into a board  - like darts. Too tough!
10. Crawl up stairs - seemed easy, except that we had to do it through six flights. Killing!
11. Carry a heavy stone (20-25kgs) across 100 m, set it down, 5 burpees, pick it up,  back 100 m and set it down again. Struggled
12. Pick up a ball (25 lbs) above your head and drop it to the ground. Repeat 20 times. Not too tough
13. Skipping 20 times, with ankles tied together, and a heavy jute rope. I thought I'll struggle, but managed quite easily.
14. Now we entered  the home stretch, back into the stadium. First up, jump across a 7 foot wall. Done.
15. Rope wall. Lakshya moment :) Easy
16. Jump 2 walls, must  be around 6 and 5 feet high respectively. Struggled, arms had no strength left
17. Jump on a 2 feet high block of wood and back down. Repeat 20 times. 2 of us were Struggling though this, when a guy joined me and said we should do it in rhythm. So we did it turn-by-turn, one jump each. And it helped. I sailed through the remaining jumps easily.
18. Rope climb. 10 feet. No bloody chance. Could barely feel my arms by then. BUrpees. Very slowly indeed.
19. Run through punching bags to the finish line. Yay!!!!

All in all, a great  experience. Humbling. Need to develop ability to carry body weight on arms. Pull-ups! Was expecting mud and fire, but I think stadium races don't have that. Trail races seem more fun. 5000 stairs are no fun, believe me :(

Can I do the other two (Super and  Beast)? Only after some strength conditioning.

But will urge my buddies to keep this race on  their list. Spartan, Tough Mudder, Warrior Dash are the three prominent ones in this genre.