OCD FOR OCR

It’s December 2018 and the year for racing obstacle course races is coming to an end. Most organizations have already shut down, but we have one last few races in Florida (of course) and it is a Spartan Race which always puts on a very well-organized event. Well, it started with me making a last-minute decision to not drive down the night before, but to wake up super early and drive down to Mulberry from St Augustine (about a 3-hour drive). Spartan starts super early, so I had to leave the house at 4 AM to make my age group (AG) wave at 8:15 AM. The travel was very easy, even on I4, which I typically can’t stand driving on.

As I got closer to the venue, I was feeling good about my travel time, thinking I have plenty of time to get parked, registered and warmed up before my wave. This came to an abrupt halt when I got to the provided parking instructions and there were two Police Officers blocking the road to the venue. They advised, “turn around and go the other way”. Let me add, that this also happened to at least 200 other vehicles behind me, that were also heading to the same place. So, I quickly pulled over and frantically searched for the address that was posted on the staff parking pass that I was given the night before. Per my GPS, it’s was an additional fifteen minutes’ drive, which turns into 35-40 minutes due to the cluster of traffic (let me note that this also happened last year).

• Registration and Festival:

Finally,  I got in to park, get up to registration, saw some familiar faces, then, go to sign the computer, and suddenly, there is a Wi-Fi outage. No biggie, so I jump into the line next to me and wait for three other people to register and, the guy in front of me wants to show his ID with a credit card, <–are you serious right now?!? With my impatience, I kind of lost it and got on to another line and finally got through! That was an ordeal to say the least.

The festival area was pretty good.The merch area was completely covered with a huge tent which makes the experience much better. If it was to rain, you can get under cover which is a nice change by Spartan. The food was good, including Down South BBQ, if you haven’t eaten from that food truck, you are missing out. They have been at numerous Spartan Races up and down the east coast since the end of 2016 in Palm Coast. They are local to my hometown, Jacksonville.

• Pre-race MC: 

The emcee wasn’t anything rememberable, it was the same old spartan speech that we’ve all heard 14 million times word for word. I like others, really wish Spartan would allow its emcee’s more freedom to add to the pre-race speech.

• The Course:

I made it with less than fifteen minutes to spare, and just had enough time to drink my pre-workout awesomeness PerformElite™ by EndurElite, (the stuff is awesome, and you should try it) get warmed up and jump into corral and get ready to race. But wait, because there were so many racers that arrived late due to the traffic, the volunteers had to keep stopping racers and let those of us running in the AG competitors wave go ahead.

Finally, we get going and I can see many familiar AG competitors and I say to myself, I need to stay with these guys but then I remind myself, this is a Beast course and it is a long race,just set your pace and things will work out. The terrain was one of the most difficult challenges to endure for this race. It had potholes, tall grass,short grass, medium grass, with potholes and it was very dry compared to last year when it was super muddy. I really had to pay attention to the course to avoid all the potential hazards.

During the first part of the race, things went very well for me until about mile eight, when my feet really started not to like the terrain very much. That’s when my pace slowed drastically. Mile 12 is when it came to an abrupt halt! Yes, the spear throw was at mile 11.96. I nailed the spear dead middle (victory!), but sadly, it popped back out causing me to do the 30 burpees penalty. That was followed by a good 75-yard barbed wire crawl. Right after that, was the slip wall, but the ropes that usually hang all the way down the slanted wall, were only two feet long at the top. Needless to say, there were about fifty racers stuck there. I was able to get up and over on my second attempt and passed quite a bit of racers that were stuck there. This was a slight bit of a confidence boost for me, but I just couldn’t get my legs to get moving like they were previously. Not to mention my feet hated me due to the terrain.

Finally, after a few more miles of trails and obstacles, questioning my abilities, I made it to the fire jump, and was able to jump over fire jump,cross the finish line and get my finisher Beast medal! I saw many friends at the finish and stayed at the finish corral for much longer than I normally do.

• The Bling:

The bling is always good from Spartan. Nice size, and well thought out designs, but this late in the year, I am looking forward to the new 2019 finisher medals!

• Overall Feelings and Event Rating:

Overall, I had a pretty enjoyable time at this race. Spartan always runs a tight ship and it’s understandable to have certain mishaps happen during events and they do a great job under pressure at correcting problems that arise.

Overall, I give the race a four out of five stars, but the parking mishaps for the second year in a row, a one, at best. Other than that,if you find yourself in December wanting to do a final race of the year, the Spartan Race in Florida is a good one! Go get some!

Article Written by: Andy Sneller an average over 40 racer. Go #TeamMasters 🤘💪🏃‍♂️