OCD FOR OCR

Spartan Canada had its last East Coast event of 2017 and it was big one! A complete all in one Trifecta weekend and the Spartan Canadian World Championship! The race weekend actually started on a Friday with the Sprint, had the Beast course race on Saturday, and finished up Sunday with the Super!

• Registration and Festival:

On Friday, registration wasn’t bad at all and that was even after they had a system crash and had to wait for the system to boot back up and when it did, they lost half of the registrations, and they still got everything back up and running quickly and then adjusted to the lost data and got the lines moving fast. Sunday registration moved fast as well.

The festival was set up in a close area with everything right next to each other and a lot of the obstacles set up as well just on the perimeter of the festival area. My only two complaints would be, they didn’t have enough porta-potties and because the festival was set up on top of a hill with no real driveway/road to access it, they couldn’t get the food vendors to the festival and they were forced to set up down near the parking area.

• Pre-race MC:

The pre-race MC Chris Hutchison was really good, this was my first-time hearing or seeing him and I really enjoyed his energy and how he took control of each wave. He does have a part of his speech where he tells the racers that if they skip even one Burpee, they haven’t earned the finisher medal, which I thought was a bit strong for open waves. I talked to him afterwards about that and he explained it’s something that Spartan Canada management has asked that he include.

• The Course:

Due to a previous commitment, I wasn’t able to run the Beast on Saturday, but I did run the Sprint on Friday and the Super on Sunday and what I can tell you about both was they were shorter that what most of us Spartan regulars have come to expect, but I was happy about that, because I like obstacles and less trail running.

When I first walked around the festival area and saw a great deal of the obstacles setup just around it, I feared that the courses would all be really long trail runs/sprints with a boat-load of obstacles at the end just prior to the finish, but that wasn’t the case at all. The course designer actually really kicked ass and designed a course that went away from the festival area and came back multiple times. All three versions of the course had obstacles out away from the festival area, but they all used the same basic design a returned several times to the festival area where spectators could watch their friends and family complete multiple obstacles and cheer them on and take great action photos. I saw one girl doing the course and near the finish, her mother and father were only a few feet away encouraging her to complete each obstacle, which was totally awesome!

As far as the obstacles go, because of how things ended in 2016 with the previous Spartan Canada East Coast management, this new company had only a few, if none of the obstacles so they had to build a completely new arsenal of obstacles. To do that, they reached out to Platinum Rig and had them build quite a bit of their obstacles for them. Because of this, the Spartan course doesn’t feel like a Spartan America or even a Spartan Canada East Coast race of 2016. I personally was happy about this, because when you have done over 60 Spartan races, it’s nice to see some new things.

I originally wasn’t going to do a Spartan race in Canada this year, but I was hearing mixed reviews from friends and fellow racers and decided I needed to see for myself. I actually was very happy with the Sprint course and enjoyed the challenge. The Super on Sunday was a really short course, but I was okay with that and for the most part enjoyed that course as well. I would have liked more obstacles on the Super course. I didn’t run the Beast, so I can’t recap/report anything about Saturday.

The Sprint consisted of the following obstacles: Under Wall, Through Wall, 4-feet Wall (which we typically consider the O-U-T and just one obstacle), barbed wire (which was so freaking low that it punctured my bladder in my hydration), Rolling Mud, Dunk Wall (this was one of the best Spartan Dunk Walls I have done, the water was way above the area racers had to go through and it required being completely submersed under the muddy water), Stairway to Sparta, Pond Crossing, Vertical Cargo # 1, and Hercules Hoist (was nice and easy).

The rest of the obstacles were: the Platinum Rig, Bucket Carry (this was one of the easiest Bucket Carries I have ever done at a Spartan), Vertical Cargo # 2, Rope Climb (this is not your typical Spartan Rope climb as it was built by Platinum Rigs, Monkey Bars, Sandbag Carry, 6-foot Wall, a Platinum Rig inverted wall that is more challenging than the version used by Spartan America, the standard Spartan Tractor Pull, Disc Golf (which was a Frisbee toss in to a chained catch, it was sort of lame, and pretty much a goofy filler obstacles), the Spear Toss, A Frame Cargo Net, Olympus, the Slip Wall, and ended with the signature Spartan Fire Jump!

The Super include all the above, plus the Z-Walls, 7-foot wall, a log carry, and a Plate Drag, which were the only four additional obstacles on the Super. The Super was short, but it clearly still had a much lower obstacle to trail running distance ratio.

• The Bling:

The bling is the exact same as America: the same finisher medal and same finisher shirt. The days of a dry-fit finisher shirt and a medal with a Canadian flag in the ribbon are no more. Spartan Canadian World Championship participants also received a very sexy finisher medal as well.

• Overall Feelings and Event Rating:

This is the first year the company that acquired Spartan Canada has run these types of events and it was clear to see they still have room to improve and growing pains ahead of them, but with that said, they did re-hire a lot of experienced staff from Spartan Canada East and West and they are doing a lot of things right already. I talked to a lot of the staff and they all are enthusiastic and working hard to improve each and every event so I expect this new ownership and team to only get better and better.

I enjoyed the shorter distances, the combination of Platinum Rig built obstacles and signature Spartan obstacles and I hope they don’t move away from that combination. I really can’t deduct points because of the number of obstacles on the Super, because that is typically the number of obstacles you will see at any Spartan Super course. The staff & volunteers did a great job all three days, the course was one of the best designed courses I have seen at any Spartan Race, circling back to the festival area multiple times, the bling is what it is and I am already looking forward to a new look in 2018, the MC was top flight, but not having the food vendors in the festival area was bad for everyone. I am rating the event/course a 4.8 out of 5 stars and look forward to 2018.

Article Written by: Walter F Hendrick (OCRSandy)