I find myself coaching a little band of beginner obstacle course entrants in preparation for the Spartan race. When I proposed that my Spartan race teammates get together for some training sessions I had envisioned a series of tough, anaerobic training sessions rapidly mixing tempo pace running and calisthenics at a high level of intensity. But my happy-go-lucky team of beginners has no appetite for strenuous effort and discomfort, and instead we spend our training sessions working on technique for navigating monkey bars and climbing over fences and under barriers. So the training is more like a return to childhood — frolicking at a playground and rolling in grass. I am a bit worried as the event approaches and some of the team struggles to do even a few push-ups or one pull-up. So we practice working as a team to help boost each other over a fence.
I had initially sought to push to the limit and test myself in the obstacle course race - compete against the younger participants and see how I feel coming in and out of the obstacles at an elevated heart rate and out of breath. But when race day arrived it was an obvious choice to stay with my team and help each other.
The Spartan Race is quite a spectacle — thousands of participants winding around a 6-kilometer course on a military base all day long in wave after wave. We are a bit intimidated as we arrive and see the muscular elite group in the morning wave. We start at the back of the 11am wave and jog to the first barrier - a 5-foot wall which my team lifts and pulls one another clumsily over. Then we roll sideways under barbed wire -- and as you can see above the rolling practice clearly paid off.
My main concern given how old and feeble I am was how my back would handle the 3 obstacles involving carrying things -- sandbags, buckets of gravel and giant iron “atlas balls”. The latter I just don’t even take the risk of trying to lift off the ground, and instead just substitute the burpees (Spartan Race has you do burpees if you don't complete the obstacle).
But you my back seems to be strong enough for the sand-bag carry -- you can see me here awkwardly plodding through this obstacle (though not actually hoisting the sandbag onto my shoulder as recommended).
But you my back seems to be strong enough for the sand-bag carry -- you can see me here awkwardly plodding through this obstacle (though not actually hoisting the sandbag onto my shoulder as recommended).
At the end of the course is the "wall of fire". In the past I might have been cynical about such a contrivance. But as we say at my Saturday morning Hill Repeats -- "It is all about the photo opps and social media" — so our happy band tries to join hands and leap over the wall of fire (really just a wall of smoke at this point). We aren’t entirely successful at getting all 7 of us together ( but at least no one trips and tumbles into the flames -- which apparently happened at one obstacle course event).
We finish the 6k course in a time of 1:24:46 which put me in 2,567th place.
What do I think of obstacle course racing now? The event itself was certainly fun, and has been great fodder for conversation. More importantly, having the race on my calendar provided a great target and incentive for various strength training that I hope to incorporate into my long-term weekly training regime. It is harder to hit the weight room with the Spartan Race behind me. I am a big fan of having events to focus one's exercise around, no matter how competitive or non-competitive you might be. I can't imagine doing a lot of these obstacle events - they are expensive at roughly $100 a shot, a bit of a hassle compared to run events and some of the obstacles are a bit risky for the feeble elderly like me. But I do hope to compete in a future obstacle event.
