What is a Spartan Race?

my next competitive race, current training, and what's next

Hey everyone and welcome to another running article!

First of all, if you are new, welcome! Make sure you are subscribed and you can get these letters straight in your inbox!

Today I wanted to share about my upcoming race in 2 days!

This Saturday, August 3rd, I will be entering my first competitive Spartan race!

That small sentence may have invoked quite a few questions, so let me see if I can answer them all!

What is a Spartan race?

A Spartan race is a specific type of Obstacle Course Race (or OCR). That is the generic term, Spartan just happens to be one of the top brands to put them on.

The owner and founder of the Spartan races has taken the brand a long way and it even looks like he may finally get OCR in the next olympics!

This style of racing is still first and foremost…a run. But intermingled throughout your run are different challenges, or obstacles.

These take many different forms and sizes. Some might be a big set of monkey bars, different variations of monkey bars, crawling under barbed wire, carrying a sandbag a certain distance, a rope climb, getting up and over a wall, and more!

When you fail an obstacle, you get to run a penalty lap. It used to be burpees, but they have since changed to more running 🙂

You can check out their website for all their obstacles if you’re interested.

The fun part of the race is that none of the competitors know exactly which obstacles will be at their race.

For instance, I’m doing a Spartan Super, which has 25 obstacles. If I look at the list of possible obstacles for a Super race you can count 40. So when I go into the race, I don’t know the exact 25 obstacles I will face.

That being said, there are some obstacles, like the spear throw (yup, throwing  a spear like a true Spartan warrior) that are in every race.

Lastly, I just said I’m doing a Spartan Super. 

What does that mean?

To give a reference, they have 3 main race types you can do. They each go up in distance and number of obstacles:

• Sprint: 5K and 20 obstacles

• Super: 10K and 25 obstacles

• Beast: 21K and 30 obstacles

They also have a Stadion race that takes place inside a stadium, as well as Ultras that cover 50K with 60 obstacles! But the ones above seem to be the most popular and comprise what they call the Trifecta.

Then there are a whole slew of other types of races, some called death races, winter races, trail races…on and on it goes.

What is the competitive heat?

Ok, ok, before I dive too far into the weeds, what is the competitive heat??

Well, when you sign up to do a Spartan race, you have 3 options:

• Elite

• Age Group

• Open

Open is what it sounds like. 

It’s open to everyone and is more about having fun. That means the penalty loops for failing an obstacle are more on the honor system, completing an obstacle to its entirety is more of a personal choice, etc. You get the idea. You’re just there to have fun and remember what it’s like to be a kid.

Elite and Age Group are both considered competitive heats. This means you must complete obstacles or penalties, and reviews will be done if you are a winner. It’s still all about having fun, but a little more serious fun.

Age Group is like what it sounds, there are different awards for each age group rather than just one overall male and female winner like in elite.

Age group is also typically a good starting point for competitive racing (that’s what I signed up for), as the elite racers are more seasoned. It’s kind of like amateur vs professional. They are both competitive, but one is a higher class.

The last thing to note is that Spartan races don’t start with one giant herd like a marathon. It’s broken into waves. 

Elite goes first with their own waves, then age group, and then finally the open heats. This helps cut back traffic on obstacles and ensures (especially for competitive heats) that you don’t have to wait to try an obstacle.

How did my training change?

Last we talked, I was still recovering from plantar fasciitis. It’s part of why I stopped writing. I wasn’t running, I was bummed out, and so my motivation to write also went away.

But I did take time off running and my plantar fasciitis did go away! And my motivation came back!

Since running again, unfortunately, I can still feel a little nagging in my foot. As such, this is kind of what my training has looked like and will continue to look like even after the race:

• Monday: 5 miles at an easy pace and a strength workout

• Tuesday: a harder quality session with faster paces, intermixing some monkey bars and hanging. Usually around 6 miles. A heavy leg strength workout in the afternoon.

• Wednesday: 45 minutes on a stationary bike and a mobility workout

• Thursday: 45 minutes on a stationary bike and another strength workout

• Friday: a harder quality session with faster paces, intermixing some monkey bars and hanging. Usually around 6 miles. Strength workout in the afternoon.

• Saturday/Sunday: either resting both days or potentially a longer run

I also mixed in some runs up steep mountainous terrain, which we have plenty of. Oftentimes, Spartan races will have steep hills to run up.

In my strength sessions, I would also focus at the end of most sessions on some specific grip work like hanging or exercises targeting the forearms.

The biggest difference, though, is the stationary bike. It usually takes me about 45 minutes to run 5 miles, so in my head 45 minutes on the bike is equivalent. It’s also about how much my mind can take, even while reading a book.

In terms of my plantar fasciitis, though, I do think adding the bike in has made the biggest difference.

My plan is to continue with the biking until the foot is fully healed, that way I don’t have to stop training altogether.

What’s next?

Well, at one point in time, I told you all my next plan was to run the Emerald Isle marathon in October.

However, with my latest injury, my training has gotten off to a slow start. And now with this race coming up and my injury still nagging, I don’t think I can really give my training my all to hit a new PR in the marathon in just about 12 weeks.

So…where does that leave us?

It leaves us with the announcement of my actual next marathon…The Asheville marathon 2025!

That’s right, the marathon that feels like I just finished, will be my next chance at qualifying for Boston and Chicago.

After this Spartan race, I plan to ease back into more dedicated speed workouts with my running, slowly pushing the paces up to where they need to be for Boston qualification.

That will take me into December, where I will officially start a long training block for the Asheville marathon 2025!

After that, I might be attempting my first ultra marathon next summer…but stay tuned on that!

With my race coming up in 2 days, my next article will be a great recap on the race, what went well, what I’d do differently next time, and potentially when that next time will be!

Until then, run with joy!