OCD FOR OCR

The was my second year in a row participating in the Citi Field Spartan Sprint and I was excited to see if they changed it up much.

• Registration and Festival:

Raymond and I arrived just after 9 am, which sometimes can be the busiest time to get through registration, but all the lines were moving fast. To be honest, since Spartan USA adopted the barcode scanning registration system, registration has almost always been fast and smooth.

Setting up a festival area at any of the Stadium venues can be a challenge for multiple reasons, Spartan has assigned some of its best to the Stadium series and they did a good job setting up all the booths and vendors. I personally wish the bag check wasn’t placed next to the starting line and would have been closer to the entrance/exit of the venue, but from a vendor perspective, I understand why they place it where they typically do at most stadium races.

• Pre-race MC:

We ran two laps and the MC was good both times. Lap # 1 was in the morning and he stuck to the Spartan script, which at least for me, is always boring. For lap # 2, I had gotten some good trail mix (from one of the vendors) just prior to running the lap, so I was tossing M&M’s at the MC and even gave him a handful of coconut shavings to eat, which appeared to loosen him up and he was way more himself and less of the Spartan script this time, which both Raymond and I enjoyed way better. Spartan really needs to allow it’s MC’s more freedom to be who they are and connect with the racers and spectators.

• The Course:

According to my GPS watch, the course was about 4.5 miles, which was much longer than last year’s Citi Field course, so that was a major change from last year, but other than that, not much was different. The simple fact is, with Stadium races, they are all pretty much designed the same way so it’s about enjoying the fast pace and running through whatever sports team’s stadium and enjoying the venue itself.

The course started out near the festival area and quickly took runners into the inner workings of the Stadium with a lot of going up and down stairs. It was a beautiful day, so all the portions of the course that where in the stadium seating area’s going up and down the stairs, or through the rows of seats with a view of the baseball fields green grass,which is always awesome. The majority of the course was in the stadium, but for a short section, we exited the stadium and had the spear toss, Atlas Carry, Hercules Hoist and eight-foot wall to climb up and over and then just prior to re-entering into the stadium, came a new for 2018, exercise bicycles (Assault AirBike) that combined pedaling and using elliptical type arm handles to push and pull. Racers had to hit start and do this one until it reached ten calories. I wasn’t a big fan of this new obstacle, but they are a new sponsor for Spartan, so it makes sense why they added this to the race, to help get the company a lot of exposure and help boost its sales.

The course included most of the obstacles we typically see at the Stadium races: the rig, A-frame Cargo net, box jumps, heavy-rope jump ropes, the rope climb, multiple height wall climbs, Z-walls, Jerry Can Carry, Spartan Sand bag carry, multiple crawls under bungee cords, and the signature final obstacle (at least at the stadium races I have done), the CKO Kickboxing hanging heavy bags to run through!

• The Bling:
  

The bling for 2018 is a newly designed Stadium finisher medal and a new Spartan Sprint finisher shirt. This year’s finisher shirt is a nice black dry-fit type material, which I like. I wasn’t initially impressed with the new finisher medal, but it has a bronze finish and embraces the old Roman Colosseum, which is actually pretty cool, so I am very happy to add the medal to my collection!

• Overall Feelings and Event Rating:

I always enjoy the stadium races because they take place in Major League Baseball teams, stadiums and being a lifetime Mets fan running in Citi Field is even a bigger deal, so for that fact alone, I love doing this race and venue every year. Seeing the photos of Piazza, Staub, Seaver, and all the other amazing Mets and teams is something I love and look forward to, so I plan to keep this race on my future schedules.

I am rating this race 5 out of 5 stars, because they changed up the course from last year, did a great job with the festival area, it was in Citi Field, and the weather was amazing (wasn’t last year).

Article Written by: Walter F Hendrick (OCRSandy)