Spartan Obstacle Race 2024

After reading Outlive, the best selling book about living longer and healthier, I am an even stronger proponent of obstacle course racing.   The Outlive author is a big fan of strength exercise (particularly carrying heavy objects and improving grip strength). along with maximizing VO2 max, maintaining balance, and adequate zone 2 training.  Obstacle races seem like the perfect target for training that would incorporate all of these objectives. 

My gerontologist is more of a marathon runner and seems concerned about the accident risks of a Spartan Race - when I suggest that more elderly people should sign up for Spartan events as a big motivator for maintaining an optimal exercise regime, reply is  - "the Spartan race sounds like a recipe for injury"

And in fact I am a little beat up from last weekend's Spartan race.  But it is my chronic running pains that I mostly feel after the event in an unhealthy way.  My arms and core feel the good kind of muscle soreness you expect after a hard effort on obstacles I don't have opportunity to practice on. 

The caliber of field seems to have improved since my last event.  Even the ancient, wizened group you see in this picture of my age-group wave looks pretty intense.

I improve my time to 1 hour 33 minutes on the 12.6 kilometer course with 25 obstacles.  This time works out to about a minute improvement versus same course back in 2019 when I was younger...