Race report: Spartan Race Super - Sevenoaks
They say that variety is the spice of life, so when I was offered the chance to take part in a “Sprint” Spartan race (5km in distance with around 15 obstacles), at a significantly reduced rate, at a venue that’s just a 45 minute drive away from where I live, I leapt at the chance.
At the time I hadn't considered that I have terrible upper body strength and a fear of heights.
Once again this was an opportunity that came up through my friends at One Year No Beer, who have a partnership with Spartan Race.
As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, a significant part of the OYNB challenge is to push yourself out of your comfort zone and try new things, both physically and mentally.
Which is also the ethos of Spartan Races.
Ruari, one of the co-founders of OYNB, and his wife Jen, are seasoned Spartans and have even raced at the world championships in Iceland so, unsurprisingly they’ve been very keen to get as many of us in the OYNB group to take on a Spartan Race.
While I’ve taken part in quite a few different physical challenges, that have pushed me to varying degrees of endurance, these have normally been variations on three disciplines of triathlon (swimming, cycling and running).
So taking on an obstacle course race (known as OCR) was something very new to me. While I don’t know a great deal about Spartan Races and OCR I did know that it involved a lot of climbing, swinging, lifting and hanging.
These aren’t skills that are normally required for triathlon. I'm not the most co-ordinated person in the world and when I’ve attempted to take on the monkey bars or hoops while hanging out with the Trihard Jrs in various children’s playgrounds I’ve not exactly covered myself in glory.
So I realised I would have to work on my upper body strength to ensure that I didn’t embarrass myself too much in front of my fellow OYNBers.
On top of this the Spartan punishment for failing to complete each obstacle is 30 burpees, a brutal high intensity exercise which I try and avoid as often as possible.
But as we were doing the sprint distance (5km) and would be tackling the course as a team, I felt my endurance reserves would cope.
The event was more about getting everyone over the obstacles and around the course, so we’d therefore be going at a pace that everyone was comfortable with.
But then a few weeks before the race I got a message from Jen. While they were taking part in a several races around the UK throughout the year, and had a good number of OYNBers signed up for other races, I was the only one that had signed up for the Sevenoaks race.
So they’d decided that they were going to do the Super distance instead. This was more than 12km in distance and had 21 obstacles. I’d be OK with that wouldn’t I?
I reluctantly agreed. But my excitement levels had now been replaced by ever increasing stress levels. How was I going to keep up with two Spartan experts who’d raced at the World Championships?!
The night before the race Jen and Ruari FaceTimed me. Ruari (no offence) looked and sounded dreadful (no offence Ru!). He’d been struck down by a nasty strain of man-flu. For a momet relief washed over me. Perhaps they were going to have to pull out?
In my mind I decided that I’d still have a crack but I’d be able to amble round at my own pace, without having the pressure of keeping up with the world championship contenders.
But no such luck, they were still planning on competing and Jen was sending over a map so I could familiarise myself with the course.
After glancing at the first couple of obstacles listed, I decided ignorance was bliss. I’d rather not know which terror was coming next and would just find out when I faced it.
My nerves weren't helped when I arrived at the event village the next morning. In plain view was a horrendous rope climb. As I was quite early I spent a considerable amount of time watching a fair amount of competitors scaling it and a fair amount not even bothering and going straight for the burpee penalty.
While I had been working on my upper body strength I certainly hadn't been practicing rope climbing. In fact, I don't think I'd climbed a rope since I was at primary school.
There seemed to be a technique to it, using your feet to create almost like a step to push yourself up.
This is where Jen and Ruari found me, watching the rope climbers. "There's a technique to it," they said. "Don't rely on your upper body strength as you won't make it to the top, it's as much about pushing yourself up with your feet."
While I could see what the efficient rope climbers were doing, I couldn't quite work out how they were doing it. And even if I could, I wasn't sure whether I'd be in any state to think clearly enough to attempt it when the time came.
Further thoughts of the rope climb were banished from my mind as after a quick briefing from a scantily glad Spartan, emphasising that any failed obstacles resulted in 30 burpees, we were under starters orders.
We set off at a relatively gentle pace. As the route was pretty much single trail so it was difficult to pass people, not that I was in any hurry.
After a few minutes we came to the first obstacles, which were small wooden walls that had to be vaulted over. These didn't really cause me any problems and my confidence began to grow.
Then we came to the barb wire crawl. As I've probably mentioned in this blog before, I'm a big fan of the weight loss show The Biggest Loser. One of the exercises they frequently get contestsants to do is a commando crawl - crawling along the floor with your body as low to the ground as possible.
This is something the contestants always seem to struggle with. "How hard can it be?" I've often thought to myself. Turns out a bit tougher than I was expecting.
While I got through pretty quickly I was surprised at how much it had taken out of me.
This became even more apparent when we arrived at the next obstacle - hoops that you have to traverse using just your upper body strength.
It was the moment of truth. Had my new gym regime of assisted pull ups and weighted pull downs been enough?
I grabbed the first hoop and prepared to swing to the next one. I gracefully soared through the air and immediately hit the deck.
I'd failed at the very first attempt! I moved over to the designated area to perform the dreaded burpees.
Several things went through my mind. After just a few obstacles my arms already felt like jelly, I wasn't going to be making over and around some of the obstacles as easily as I had hoped and it was going to be a long afternoon with a lot of burpees.
The one glimmer of hope was that it didn't appear as though the marshals were monitoring how many burpees competitors were doing as stringently as it appeared. If I was going to get round the course, I'm ashamed to say it was going to have to be by drastically cutting some corners!
In some ways, coming off the hoops so easily and realising that I wasn't going to get over all the obstacles took some pressure off. It was a beautiful day, we were in stunning countryside, so what better way to spend your Saturday afternoon.
But then we came to another obstacle known as "The Bender". It was cross between a climbing frame and monkey bars, where the bars came out an angle behind you but with no lower level bars to push up on your feet.
Which meant you had to pull yourself up several bars, using your upper body strength, before you could swing your legs over.
I thought I was in for another set of burpees but decided to give it a go anyway. I managed to get a better grip on the bars than the hoops and somehow pull myself up.
I then swung my legs up, bashing my shins in the process. But I was at the top! And then made the mistake of looking down.
I wish I hadn't. A wave of vertigo washed over me, there were only hay bales to break my fall. On top of this I realised that the angle of the bars meant climbing down wouldn't be easy.
I took a deep breath and somehow made it down. But there were two sets of this beast - one more to go. I made it over and down and felt a rush of elation.
At that point I wasn't bothered how the rest of the race went. If I was beaten by every other obstacle I didn't care - I'd conquered one that minutes earlier I'd felt I didn't have a hope of making it over.
At the time I hadn't considered that I have terrible upper body strength and a fear of heights.
Once again this was an opportunity that came up through my friends at One Year No Beer, who have a partnership with Spartan Race.
As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, a significant part of the OYNB challenge is to push yourself out of your comfort zone and try new things, both physically and mentally.
Which is also the ethos of Spartan Races.
Spartan champions
Ruari, one of the co-founders of OYNB, and his wife Jen, are seasoned Spartans and have even raced at the world championships in Iceland so, unsurprisingly they’ve been very keen to get as many of us in the OYNB group to take on a Spartan Race.
While I’ve taken part in quite a few different physical challenges, that have pushed me to varying degrees of endurance, these have normally been variations on three disciplines of triathlon (swimming, cycling and running).
So taking on an obstacle course race (known as OCR) was something very new to me. While I don’t know a great deal about Spartan Races and OCR I did know that it involved a lot of climbing, swinging, lifting and hanging.
 |
| Jen demonstrates how it should be done |
These aren’t skills that are normally required for triathlon. I'm not the most co-ordinated person in the world and when I’ve attempted to take on the monkey bars or hoops while hanging out with the Trihard Jrs in various children’s playgrounds I’ve not exactly covered myself in glory.
So I realised I would have to work on my upper body strength to ensure that I didn’t embarrass myself too much in front of my fellow OYNBers.
On top of this the Spartan punishment for failing to complete each obstacle is 30 burpees, a brutal high intensity exercise which I try and avoid as often as possible.
But as we were doing the sprint distance (5km) and would be tackling the course as a team, I felt my endurance reserves would cope.
The event was more about getting everyone over the obstacles and around the course, so we’d therefore be going at a pace that everyone was comfortable with.
Super Spartan
But then a few weeks before the race I got a message from Jen. While they were taking part in a several races around the UK throughout the year, and had a good number of OYNBers signed up for other races, I was the only one that had signed up for the Sevenoaks race.
So they’d decided that they were going to do the Super distance instead. This was more than 12km in distance and had 21 obstacles. I’d be OK with that wouldn’t I?
I reluctantly agreed. But my excitement levels had now been replaced by ever increasing stress levels. How was I going to keep up with two Spartan experts who’d raced at the World Championships?!
In sickness and in health
The night before the race Jen and Ruari FaceTimed me. Ruari (no offence) looked and sounded dreadful (no offence Ru!). He’d been struck down by a nasty strain of man-flu. For a momet relief washed over me. Perhaps they were going to have to pull out?
In my mind I decided that I’d still have a crack but I’d be able to amble round at my own pace, without having the pressure of keeping up with the world championship contenders.
But no such luck, they were still planning on competing and Jen was sending over a map so I could familiarise myself with the course.
After glancing at the first couple of obstacles listed, I decided ignorance was bliss. I’d rather not know which terror was coming next and would just find out when I faced it.
 |
| Red trail + blue trail = Help mummy! |
While I had been working on my upper body strength I certainly hadn't been practicing rope climbing. In fact, I don't think I'd climbed a rope since I was at primary school.
There seemed to be a technique to it, using your feet to create almost like a step to push yourself up.
This is where Jen and Ruari found me, watching the rope climbers. "There's a technique to it," they said. "Don't rely on your upper body strength as you won't make it to the top, it's as much about pushing yourself up with your feet."
While I could see what the efficient rope climbers were doing, I couldn't quite work out how they were doing it. And even if I could, I wasn't sure whether I'd be in any state to think clearly enough to attempt it when the time came.
 |
| If you use a magnifying glass you can see someone's climbing a rope |
Starting Spartan
Further thoughts of the rope climb were banished from my mind as after a quick briefing from a scantily glad Spartan, emphasising that any failed obstacles resulted in 30 burpees, we were under starters orders.
 |
| If you use a magnifying glass you can see a scantily glad Spartan |
We set off at a relatively gentle pace. As the route was pretty much single trail so it was difficult to pass people, not that I was in any hurry.
After a few minutes we came to the first obstacles, which were small wooden walls that had to be vaulted over. These didn't really cause me any problems and my confidence began to grow.
Then we came to the barb wire crawl. As I've probably mentioned in this blog before, I'm a big fan of the weight loss show The Biggest Loser. One of the exercises they frequently get contestsants to do is a commando crawl - crawling along the floor with your body as low to the ground as possible.
This is something the contestants always seem to struggle with. "How hard can it be?" I've often thought to myself. Turns out a bit tougher than I was expecting.
While I got through pretty quickly I was surprised at how much it had taken out of me.
 |
| Not the best view that Jen had of me |
This became even more apparent when we arrived at the next obstacle - hoops that you have to traverse using just your upper body strength.
It was the moment of truth. Had my new gym regime of assisted pull ups and weighted pull downs been enough?
I grabbed the first hoop and prepared to swing to the next one. I gracefully soared through the air and immediately hit the deck.
I'd failed at the very first attempt! I moved over to the designated area to perform the dreaded burpees.
Several things went through my mind. After just a few obstacles my arms already felt like jelly, I wasn't going to be making over and around some of the obstacles as easily as I had hoped and it was going to be a long afternoon with a lot of burpees.
The one glimmer of hope was that it didn't appear as though the marshals were monitoring how many burpees competitors were doing as stringently as it appeared. If I was going to get round the course, I'm ashamed to say it was going to have to be by drastically cutting some corners!
In some ways, coming off the hoops so easily and realising that I wasn't going to get over all the obstacles took some pressure off. It was a beautiful day, we were in stunning countryside, so what better way to spend your Saturday afternoon.
But then we came to another obstacle known as "The Bender". It was cross between a climbing frame and monkey bars, where the bars came out an angle behind you but with no lower level bars to push up on your feet.
Which meant you had to pull yourself up several bars, using your upper body strength, before you could swing your legs over.
 |
| Getting to grips with the Bender |
I thought I was in for another set of burpees but decided to give it a go anyway. I managed to get a better grip on the bars than the hoops and somehow pull myself up.
I then swung my legs up, bashing my shins in the process. But I was at the top! And then made the mistake of looking down.
I wish I hadn't. A wave of vertigo washed over me, there were only hay bales to break my fall. On top of this I realised that the angle of the bars meant climbing down wouldn't be easy.
I took a deep breath and somehow made it down. But there were two sets of this beast - one more to go. I made it over and down and felt a rush of elation.
At that point I wasn't bothered how the rest of the race went. If I was beaten by every other obstacle I didn't care - I'd conquered one that minutes earlier I'd felt I didn't have a hope of making it over.
That f*cking bucket
I try not to swear on this blog but this was exactly how everyone was describing one of the challenges. It's official name is "Bucket Brigade". As the name suggests this involved carrying a bucket down and up a steep hill.
A bucket filled with dirt. A bucket that was incredibly heavy and difficult to carry. A bucket that all the competitors around me were describing as "that f*cking bucket."
It was awful. But luckily there was an official photographer on hand to capture the agony.
 |
| Look at the pure unadulterated joy on my face |
Now, the f*cking bucket was still relatively early on in the race. By that time I was well and truly knackered.
But somehow, with the help of Jen and Ruari, I managed to make it all the way round the course. Some obstacles were easier than others, some I succeeded in, some I failed.
 |
| One day I'll lose my spare tyre |
The dreaded rope climb was right towards the end and no, I didn't even get a quarter of the way up it.
But finally, after 2 hrs 54 mins we finally leapt over the fire pit and acoss the finishing line.
 |
| I'm the one on the right of the picture |
So would I give a Spartan Race another go? I think I would. It's definitely a challenge but like all challenges, the sense of achievement you get afterwards is amazing.
It's also a fantastic bonding experience, particularly if you're doing it as a group. However there is a huge sense of camaraderie with other competitors that you don't get in other events, helping each other to conquer the various obstacles.
Although this time I would book in several sessions at a climbing wall and would practice my rope climbing technique! But I don't think I'll be joining Jen and Ruari at the World Championships any time soon!
It's also a fantastic bonding experience, particularly if you're doing it as a group. However there is a huge sense of camaraderie with other competitors that you don't get in other events, helping each other to conquer the various obstacles.
Although this time I would book in several sessions at a climbing wall and would practice my rope climbing technique! But I don't think I'll be joining Jen and Ruari at the World Championships any time soon!
 |
| I'm the one on the left of the picture |
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