Sometimes, I’m just way more motivated to recap a race than others. This is one of those times. So, it’s taken me a week to put this together. Real life is starting to get in the way of this stuff: this time it was Mothers’ Day, and then during the week other activities more demanding of attention.
This is the second time I’ve run the race with my kids – we ran the same race, the same weekend last year. This year, the oldest brought her boyfriend, I’m not sure if that was his or her attempt to ingratiate me, but I do appreciate the initiative and really, he ran a great race.
Last year the venue was the Scout Camp in Rutland, MA. This year it was at some moto-cross course in Charlton MA. Since it had been raining for a good portion of the week, someone at Spartan made the determination that a change of parking venue was in order, and thus it was decided to have racers park in Rutland – roughly a 30-minute drive from the lot to the venue. This was decidedly sub-optimal for the Mo’s as we live equi-distant to both venues: no reason to drive 30-minutes to Rutland to take a bus 30-minutes to Rutland and 30-minutes back, when we could drive 30-minutes to Charlton and take our chances.
As it turned out, mid-way through the morning, an official announcement was posted on the race Facebook page that the lot in Rutland was full, and for the rest of the weekend parking would be at the venue in Charlton. Just really messed up logistics: according to the page, they called some 22 different parking lots (again, ostensibly because the original and apparently final lot was unusable), contracted a slew of school buses, brought a bunch of people out of the way and likely inconvenienced a good number of folks who didn’t check the FB page when they were ultimately going to park in Charlton. Dumb. And a complete fail.
I didn’t much like the venue, at least for a Spartan race. Because it’s a moto-cross, there are bike trails, paved areas, and the like where the Rutland Scout Reservation and the Carter & Stevens Farm, both previous Boston Spartan venues, at least feel a little more rural in feel. I like the Spartan brand because they tend to avoid these moto-cross venues: Terrain Race, Rugged Maniac and lower-market brands use these venues, so it feels like Spartan is in a cost reduction mode with this place.
This was my first obstacle course race of the year – my shoulder was really giving it to me by the last race last year, so I deliberately laid off the OCR and concentrated more on street running. My shoulder was sore by the end of the day, but it was fine the next day as I avoided any jarring yanks on it (which did mess with my performance, I’m sure of it).
I’d forgotten the difference in degree of difficulty between the Sprint and the Super – I’m really looking forward to the challenge of the Boston Super in August now, even though it’s in the same venue.
RESULTS
TIME (CHIP) FULL COURSE 1:30:48
RankingOVERALL 2034/ 4521
MALE 1489/ 2696
M45-49 171/ 278
Of specific note, we all finished in sequential order, which makes my heart happy.
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You are a running machine turning into a madman! … Cheers to your accomplishment and dedication. Think back to when you started running, and then pat yourself on the back. Congrats to your Bruins.