Kathryn Connors

If you don’t like stairs, don’t do anything related to the Spartan Stadium Series. If you do like stairs, then I will always recommend Citi Field. It was my very first Spartan Race in 2015, and I intend to do it every single year I can. First, I live in NYC and don’t have a car so getting to Citi Field is the easiest of any of the races I’ve ever done. This year I was lucky and a friend drove (door-to-door service---I felt so special!). There is tons of parking if that’s your option. The 7 Train is also right there if you’re coming in from the city. Second, I do like stairs. You can count on never-ending stairs at Citi Field. Just when you think there can’t be any more stairs left in the stadium, there will be stairs.

I had heard a lot about Mountain Creek—Super, Beast, Ultra Beast, and multiple friends have completed Spartan Races at this venue in the past few years. It was my first time, however, and quite a way to kick off my Spartan season and the first of hopefully two Trifectas, even …

Maybe it’s the fact that I live in the great Concrete Jungle. Maybe it’s that, for years, I attended and then worked at a very rustic summer camp where hiking, swimming, canoeing, and getting dirty in the woods were part of the deal. Maybe it’s that, like many out there, I live for the thrill of mud (or stairs), lifting heavy objects, and burpees for fun. Whatever it is, I was hooked after my very first Spartan Race, the Citi Field Sprint in 2015. I had intended just to do the one race on the insistence of friends. I’m an actor who started in personal training as my support job—quickly learning to love it—so Spartan Racing was not exactly the focus. By the end of 2015, I had completed the Tri-State Sprint in Tuxedo, the Virginia Super in Wintergreen, and the Fenway Sprint in addition to that first Sprint. My friends also thought I was crazy. The next year I was determined to plan things out better and complete a Trifecta. I managed Citi Field and the Virginia Super again and then the Hawaii Beast to do so. I also ran Fenway two times, the second time being the culmination on my SGX Coaching certification. Now my friends were certain I was crazy, but I had managed to recruit several into the Spartan Family regardless.