Bright and early we set off for Welch Village, to take part in the Minnesota Spartan Sprint. Everything was running pretty smoothly until the whole 7:30 Elite batch had jumped over the wall into the start chute… then the delay started, the EMS hadn’t arrived yet and were on their way. Now there were some 170 odd guys packed together and the temperature started rising, the sweat started running and we hadn’t even moved yet, only getting under way after about 50 minutes to a rather anticlimax start.

Finally we were off, the start was straight up a pretty steep slope, it was difficult to get moving after the wait and it seemed most the other people were in the same boat, finally the top and the field of Elites started to spread out a little so could get into a comfortable pace and some smaller walls to get in the way. then it was a straight shot down the hill back towards the  start where we came into the mud pits just to get your hands all wet and muddy before taking on the monkey bars which really tested that grip, onto up and over the A-Frame Cargo net and we were back up the next ski hill.

Now as for the odd obstacles in-between and the exact order I’m a little blurry but there were more walls, a little bigger though 7 and 8 foot, an Atlas stone carry for about 10 feet, drop the stone do 5 burpees and then carry the stone back to the starting point, some amazing trail running through the woods absolutely my kind of running and a barbed wire crawl, that was forever and a day long, must have been at least a 100 meters with smooth muddy easy crawling in the beginning  and straight onto rocks that didn’t feel so good on the body as I tried rolling over them and did I mention dizzy wow.

Somewhere in there was an incline wall, an A-frame wall, sand bag carry, the Z wall climbing wall. By this point though because of the with the heat I had adopted my old WTM strategy of walking uphill’s, just keeping on moving and running flats and downhill’s which I felt worked pretty good,  flying down the hill took a turn and there was the Bucket Brigade which really just sucks, you fill a 5-gallon bucket with gravel, about 70lbs,and holding the bucket in front of you proceed to walk up and down the steepest hill they can find which just sends the legs and lower back into fight mode against you as they start that deep burn, that you think was over after emptying the bucket at the bottom but no we turned right back uphill for a steep, hot, calf burner climb.

Not to far from the finish up on the hill we came up against their version of the Rig and you are not allowed to touch the floor at all until you ring the bell at the end. it started with a hanging ring, onto a rope with a knot, chain with a ball grip, sure there was another hanging ring here, a vertical pipe with some grip tape hanging from a chain, onto a horizontal metal pipe hanging from chains, one last ring and the bell. I was a little nervous as my shoulder has really been playing up lately but I swung from grip to grip, and was really happy that I never had any pin and I actually felt pretty strong and hit the bell no problem.

Some final running across the side of the steep hills bombing through some single track in the forest I was cruising, came out at the bottom and went to pick my spear for the spear throw, only ever attempted this twice last year at the Vermont Spartan Ultra Beast and not having made the spear stick in the hay bale I was hoping for a little luck,  lined it up and missed! I quickly moved over to the burpee area and banged out my burpees, which cost me dearly, dropping me at least 15  place. sucking for air in the heat after the burpees I crushed the rope climb jumped over the fire and completed the race in 1:13:20 and placing 29th.

All in all had a fantastic time getting back out there and racing, this was a great race to see where I’m at and what I need to work on as i move toward my main focus which is the 2016 Worlds Toughest Mudder in November.

Thank you to Spartan Race for an amazing event, even if it was delayed an hour haha, I will be at another Spartan Race soon to complete my 1st Trifecta!