2018 Race Recap #36: Boston Spartan Super

Man, I was killing this course – KILLING IT – until I got to the last mile and a half. Seriously, my wheels came flying off and that ended it.  Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves though, shall we?

In terms of Spartan Races, the Boston sites – in this case Carter & Stevens Farm, but also the Boy Scout Camp in Rutland that Spartan has used for Sprints the past couple of years – are pretty flat, fast courses. In comparison, the Palmerton Super was some 4000′ of elevation gain, versus todays’ 1400′. It’s a very nice facility – wide open, wooded, muddy AF, all kinds of things that make for a good obstacle course. It’s a cow farm, right? I mean, it’s flat, it’s muddy. Spartan also does a really good job of compensating for that in terms of obstacle selection and spacing.

The fact that it is August 11 and 70-degrees, overcast, kind-of-crummy really didn’t hurt.

By and large, this is a trail run with some obstacles thrown in there, and I was KILLING IT. This is where the whole compensation thing comes into play, though, I finished in a little over 2 hours, 35 minutes – on a course measuring 8.6 Miles by my watch. Thing is though that were this a 7-mile course, I’d have finished in just under 1 hour, 45 minutes.  Seriously. That last 1.6 miles took me over 50 minutes to complete between the obstacles, my faulty wing and the burpees.  I’ve had a messed up shoulder for a while, but that means that I’m basically going to fail a bunch of obstacles I should otherwise complete, like monkey bars for instance.

Pretty much everything was stacked toward the end: I failed the spear throw (a 50/50 proposition for me anyway) and everything else: multi-rig, monkey bars.  I usually get the Herc Hoist, but between my sore wing and the rain soaked bags that did me in. I got the rope climb by some virtue, but otherwise I sucked that stretch.

I was really pleased with my performance for the most part, but that last stretch really messed me up.  On ward and upward.

 

Results: