Race Reviews

Spartan has been holding their races in the Tri-State area since I first learned of their series. Through these years, the Super had been the primary focus with a Beast thrown in the mix later. This year, things would be different. This year, New Jersey would host its first Ultra …

It's 6 a.m. Saturday morning and everyone is excited, nervous, and anxious to try the new battle frog course at a new Venue. It's Battle Frog’s 2nd year in Dallas (actually Mesquite), the new course is at the River Ranch Texas Horse Park. The game plan is to run in the elite wave, finish in two and half hours and go back and run it again to take photos some photos. What ensued was the longest I’ve ever been on a course, 6 1/2 grueling hours.

You may have noticed I’ve been talking about a lot of races this spring that you may not have done yet or have even heard of. There is nothing wrong with having a favorite as an athlete; I love taking a look at different takes on our sport. It helps me to become more complete. It also helps me not become complacent by never seeing anything fundamentally different. One such race is how I started off my 2016 season. Terrain Mud Runs began as an expansion out of the South-West this year and will be hitting Texas, Florida, and New Jersey along with other areas throughout the season. So when I saw Dallas was on the list, I made plans to get there and check it out.

When time permits, I usually try to volunteer at the races I go to, it gives you a little more appreciation for the event itself.  Give back and you earn free races. Well, for Houston’s first Sprint I had the chance to get in on the build. It was a …

Las Vegas Super. With a name like that, you would think that the Super would be in Las Vegas, nope. Instead, Hafen Ranch in Arizona is the destination. A short 1:43 drive (from where I was staying in Henderson) is all that separates me from my start time. I wasn’t exactly sure what I should expect from Hafen Ranch, but it sure doesn’t look like the mountains of Vermont, or NJ for that matter. Open mind, open heat.

Warrior Dash arrived in Austin, Cedar Creek actually, this weekend and was one of the first OCR experiences for many this season. I had missed the mud fest which many experienced in 2015, although many still enjoyed it, so this was my first WD experience.

As the sun rose over the southern California Mountains on a chilly January morning, the excitement for the first ever west coast Battle Frog event was as tingling as the cold wind going up everyone’s shirts. It was clear from the get go that Ryan Atkins’ first event as RD was going to be a difficult one. Taking the mic at the start of the elite wave the unBFeated champ went over his rules of the course and introduced us to a some new obstacles.

There is nothing like getting all beast mode on an obstacle course. And of course, what could be better than getting beast mode on a Spartan Beast. Spartan Races have become the most popular and widely recognized OCR. With that, the Spartan teams have to do more and more each year to improve the events, the turnout, and keep the OCR faithful coming. South Carolina is the state, Carolina Adventure World is the venue, and a Spartan Beast is the challenge. The final Beasts of the year. Challenge Accepted.

Whenever I get the chance, I always like to race local. It gives you a chance to see if there is some creativity brewing; as well as seeing a lot of first timers catch the OCR bug. From those not familiar with Houston, Legends is a very successful athletic/training facility featuring a full array of training options for it members. Many professional athletes have made their way through Legends and their staff has always been pleasant to deal with. For me, I typically use Legend’s Batting Cages and tunnels to work on my Baseball Fundamentals, when it s not OCR training time. I didn’t know this until after the race, but they have also been running an OCR boot camp for a few months and their Race Director, Garrick, is a Spartan and BattleFrog participant.

It hasn’t been a strong fall for Spartan, and that trend continued this past weekend at Rough Creek Lodge. Things seemed to start going that way at Killington, a lack luster World Championships, and then there was the mud fest this past weekend.