I am tired, I am sore, I am scratched up and I am ecstatic that I finished the 4.5 mile obstacle race with my roommate Adam. I figured i would write the review now since I’m going out with friends tonight for drinks and I’m sure by the end of the drinks I will be telling stories of climbing Mount Olympus and wresting the Gods. So unless you read this before tonight, you might just get that story. This was quite a race as I have never experienced anything like it. We were pretty jacked up as we walked to the starting line as one of the spartan announcers called us to the beginning of the race. As we stepped up to the line, we were faced with an entire ski mountain right in front of us. Adam looked at me and said«there is no way we are going up the whole thing, it probably levels off at some point.» HA. There is no way that came true as the first 2 miles were straight up hill. We ran for about half a mile and then got pretty tired as the slope was really steep. This is where the pack started to separate and Adam continued to press on while I had to take a breather. The first obstacle came at the top of the first hill. It wasn’t anything too hard. Just jump over two 7 foot fences and crawl under neath two fences that left you less than a foot to go under. Not too bad for our first challenge. Then you round the corner and are faced with an even steeper hill. This was one of the hardest parts of the race as this was just a side winding trail that went through the woods with branches, rocks, and creeks running through the trail. The only way you knew you were on the trail sometimes was by the white flags letting you know you werent lost. After about 45 minutes of torture, we came to another challenge station. Jump over a 9 foot wall. I did that pretty easily as I’m tall and can jump but I saw some people struggling with this. So after that challenge, we found ourselves running for another 20 minutes until we can to one of the hardest challenges. Take a 5 gallon bucket, fill it with rocks and go down a double black diamond mountain halfway, turn around, come back up and dump the rocks right where you found them! As if my legs and calves weren’t being killed enough, now my lower back was absolutely shot. My mind was dizzy, my body sore and we hadn’t even summited yet! Finally, the top of the mountain and what a view! I drank a cup of water, poured some on my head and moved on to the next challenge. Pull a heavy cinder block on a pulley from the ground to the top of the contraption then slowly put it down. This wasn’t so hard for me as I’m pretty big and all of the pull ups I have been doing recently have finally paid off. Adam told me that when he was setting the block down he was almost lifted off the ground on a number of different occasions. Ok, so after that was done it was back to the woods we go for the decent part which as you know can be just as hard. The first challenge on the way down was pretty tough. It was a row of sawed off logs that we had to balance on from one end to the next. Since our shoes were completely covered with mud it was nearly an impossible task. I barely made it over but Adam didn’t realize that you only get one shot at doing it and his punishment was this exercise called a «burpee» which meant push ups and jumping into the air. 30 glorious burpees. Think you’re tired before? Now you’re dead. I forgot to mention that it had rained the night before so the course was complete mud mixed with rocks. The next challenge part way down the mountain was easy. Simply running through muddy and dirty water trenches of different depths. I should have figured this was going to foreshadow something and it certainly did. The best part of the race. A HUGE slip and slide down the side of a hill into a huge pond. Once into the water, we had to walk/swim all the way across to the other side. Once out of the pond we went over to the next challenge which was taking a huge cinder block attached to the rope down a hill, into a pond and then pull and carry this thing all the way back up. And to think I paid 70 dollars to be tortured like this. I did have some pretty good energy though as the pond was cold and woke me up for the rest of the race left which at this point was about one mile. I turned the corner and a very hard challenge. Barbed wire over a muddy horrible smelling rocky bottom. It was really tough as the mixed strategies were crawling and rolling. Jump over a 8 foot wall, and oh crap. More barbed wire this time twice as long! By this time I was completely muddy and exhausted. So the final part of the race came as I clung to a wall, threw a spear, jumped over fire and ran past the last Spartans with these Gladiator bats to hit you right before the finish line. I did it and I had a blast doing it. I highly recommend this to anyone that wants to challenge themselves both physically and mentally.
