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2019 Race Recap #18: Boston Spartan Super

It seems I say this with every recap of late. Race day was not my day. I sucked. It was horrible and I hated every minute of it. Last week I ran a half marathon and then a 50k the next day. On both I wrote more than a few excuses. For this race, there was no excuse. I sucked.

I ran terribly. I failed almost every obstacle there was to fail. I actually accepted a leg up on one obstacle (“The Box”) that I’d never seen before. I’ve run probably 15 Spartan races and there was stuff I’d never seem – this is generally a good thing – but it told me that I’d not done what I needed to do.

I signed up for the 10 AM heat because it was advertised as a SGX Coached Heat. I knew I wasn’t going to “race” it, for years now I’ve been dealing with a rotator cuff injury and rather than getting it surgically repaired, I’ve been taking a wait and see approach – I mean, in my day to day life, I do just find without having had my rotator cuff repaired. In a fine example of “how to show your customers you really don’t care,” there was no SGX coach. The MC was desperately calling for someone, but there wasn’t anyone on site. No one. They didn’t care enough to have someone there. That pissed me off and started my day on the wrong note. (as an aside, as of this writing, Spartan has not responded to my comments above on the Facebook event page).

Not that having a coach would have substantially helped my race, but honestly I was really hoping for the coaching and Spartan couldn’t have cared less – they didn’t have a coach on site. Unforgivable in my opinion. An epic fail.

I’m not a fan of the facility. It’s a motocross track and while there’s a lot of wooded area, the RD basically takes the track and uses tape to direct traffic. There is plenty of opportunity for the motivated cheat to cut the course. If you’re charging $150 to run a race, you need to do do better. I paid $50 on a coupon I got because I ran the Super last year so perhaps I shouldn’t be so pissed off. And yet, here we are.

My running hasn’t looked very good lately, and I’m sure it has to do with my recent job change – my commuting time having exponentially increased – but I also know I haven’t done the upper body work I should. This race was such a train wreck that I don’t even want to talk about it. I failed so many obstacles that I should have conquered I’m actually embarrassed.

Another day perhaps, but my shoulder is still not right – it may never be right and I should probably take that lesson. I know I said last year that I was probably done with OCRs, but did want to give this one a shot. With this in the rearview, I am pretty sure I’m done except for the one off Sprints.

Results

2:42:08

Ranking

OVERALL 1364/ 4542

MALE 1137/ 2896

M 45-49 97/ 263

2019 Race Recap #11: Boston Spartan Sprint

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.

Probably my all time favorite fire jump pic.

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.

2018 Race Recap #45: Rugged Maniac New England

It’s hard to call an untimed event a “race,” but it is still an opportunity to go out an challenge yourself. Even better when you can do it with your kids. The thing I love about this race is that it’s designed to be attainable, it’s not about consequences for not completing an obstacle, but rather about the joy of participating. It’s just fun, and if you fail an obstacle, it just means you get a little more wet.

We bought the additional laps – RMX – and I had hoped to get three laps in, but time constraints only allowed for 2, which, as it turned out, was more than enough – I was ridiculously sore the rest of the day for some reason. You might think that after having done, I don’t know, 8?, obstacle courses this year I wouldn’t be as messed up basically playing in the mud, but here we are.

The course this year clocked about 3.5 miles. It’s held on a BMX track so there’s some decent elevation changes that can be challenging. There’s nothing really innovative about the obstacles – essentially the same from previous years – but that’s okay, because they’re just fun: trampolines, inflatable water slides, hanging on a rope and sliding across water. It was great seeing some first timers out there, having fun and pushing themselves. 25 or so obstacles packed into the course ensures that it’s never too long before you hit one.

It’s reasonably priced, fun, and a good time to be out with friends and family. This is my fourth time running this particular race at this venue and I keep coming back because it’s fun, affordable and doesn’t take itself too seriously. Here’s their sales pitch on the RM website:

Picture this: You arrive at Motocross 338 on September 29th or 30th with a carload of your most adventurous friends. As you step out you notice the people around you admiring your group’s coordinated “Avengers-in-bathing-suits” costumes and your on-point Hulk-green body paint. In the festival, people are already riding the mechanical bull and playing beach volleyball (Rugged Maniac is definitely more than just a mud run), but you’re more interested in the stein-hoisting contest on the main stage. You make a note to sign up for that and the pie-eating contest after you run. You see obstacles in the distance – mud-covered people jumping over fire, bouncing on trampolines, rocketing down a huge water slide – and your surging excitement confirms what you already knew: Today is going to be awesome!

Now, by virtue of the fact the race is untimed, there are no “results” per se. My self timing of the two laps netted about 7-miles in 2-hours and a couple seconds. The plus side of a mid-morning heat is that by the nature of the marketing (above) the majority of folks come out later on, yet the day’s temperature is perfect. By the second lap, the course was pretty full, which meant delays and bottlenecks at some obstacles – there would be people waiting at the fire jump for the course to clear, then they’d go, and at the end of the jump, they’d stop and gather creating a bit of a hazard for those in the jump and of course exacerbating the bottleneck. A little supervision by the volunteers would have been helpful there.

All in all, though, it remained true to the reason we did it: it was fun, lowkey and a good experience together.

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:

TIME (CHIP) FINISH 2:35:47

Ranking

OVERALL 366/ 554

MALE 306/ 409

M40-49 109/ 139