OCD FOR OCR

This was an all-star race with all the big names on hand for a shot at the podium and being crowned the Spartan North America champion on Saturday, running the Beast version of the course. For us normal mortals, this was an exciting weekend to run all three distances, (Beast, Super, and Sprint) and earn a coveted Trifecta in one weekend!

• Registration and Festival:

It’s almost not worth commenting regarding registration anymore for Spartan USA, because they have registration down to a perfect science and the lines move fast and easy.

The festival area was set up just right for this weekend and it made for good times for both the racers and spectators.

• Pre-race MC:

This is another section, not completely worth keeping for Spartan. All the emcees, Spartan has in its rotation are forced to use the same canned script that has been used since I believe the begging. Any one that has run 10+ Spartan races, has to be so tired of the same boring speech that leaves very little room for the emcee to add his or her personality to it.

I hate to sound like a broken record, because I know all the OCD FOR OCR journalists have suggested Spartan change it up and allow its emcees more freedom to ad-lib for each and every wave. With that said, this weekends emcee did have great energy and did his best to get the racers fired up!

• The Course:

Beast: The Beast course clocked in at over 13-miles, over 4,000-feet of elevation gain and 38 obstacles and some portions of very technical trails, both going up and down. The obstacles were arranged to start out with some nice and easy ones to help the faster runners spread out and avoid long lines. As always with Spartan, the course has several sections of long trail runs with no obstacles, but such is I guess to be expected at a venue like the Summit Bechtel Reserve. The 38 obstacles included all the top obstacles in the Spartan 2019 arsenal, including: Stairway to Sparta, Olympus, Twister, The Box, Z-Walls and all the other obstacles the Spartan faithful have come to expect. The course also included all the heavy carry challenges and the always difficult, Yokohama Tire flip! When you finished this course, you knew you earned your Beast finisher Medal!

Super: The super on Sunday, was as to be expected, shorter and 7 or 8, less obstacles, but the course was no walk in the park either. I was a lot of elevation gain and after doing the super, just the prior day, it was at least for me, harder. Because it was mostly the same course as yesterday, I had a mental game plan based on remembering both the terrain and obstacle’s layout from the Beast and it helped me be more prepared when I approached the harder obstacles and some of the sketchier terrain. I really enjoyed this super and felt it was one of the better super’s I have completed in a while.

Sprint: After the tough Beast on Saturday and the kick-ass Super early Sunday, I was pretty loose and ready to kill the shortest race of the three for the weekend, the Sprint. I knew I had a long ride back to NJ and had to be at work really early Monday morning, so I turned on the burners and ran the Sprint as fast as I could. At this point, I knew the obstacles, terrain and elevation (both up and down) like the back of my hand, so I ran the Sprint fast and burpee free! Earning all three finisher medals and adding another Trifecta to my personal record books!

I cannot go without mentioning the water swim, its was on par with the swims I had done back in the old BattleFrog days. Swimming is by far something I struggle and fear, so this was a hard challenge for me. Even though the life-vest is mean to help me, it always seems to make me struggle even more and start to panic, but I kept my cool and got through the swim! I am was very happy they didn’t include this for the Super or Sprint on Sunday! 

• The Bling:

The finisher medal for the Beast was a unique to this Championship weekend, which for a metal whore like myself makes it way more awesome and special! It really is the highlight of the weekend when it comes the bling. The rest of the bling and the shirts, are both bling that I already own for 2019. I am already looking forward to 2020’s finisher medals and crossing my fingers the go back to the old style/material finisher shirts!

• Overall Feelings and Event Rating:

I had a great weekend and loved the terrain. It’s always a treat when all the top elite athletes in the sport show up at a race and I get to both watch them and talk to a few of them. This was one of the better Spartan races from top to bottom I have done this year, so I am easily rating it 5 out of 5 stars!

 Article Written by: Raymond Figarella.