The weather was definitely not on our side today. Originally forecasted with thunder-showers, the morning started out pretty good, until got to the race arena. Temperatures were quite cool, around 11 degree Celsius with lots of clouds.
By the time our heat started, at 10:30AM, it began to rain. We were all shivering as we listened to the countdown to be let loose.
Last year, the Spartan Sprint was in July, whereas this year it is June. This a drastic time difference in Ottawa because June is still considered to be Spring, and until the Summer rolls around, we're not getting much warmth outdoors. Hopefully the Sprint next year will be during a better time period.
Here's a photo of our team: Spartacus Warriors (minus Karla and Pam whom we couldn't find at the time... boooo!).
Here is us after the race, all muddyyyy:
It was fun race, a much different one from last year's for sure. Last year's Sprint took place in Camp Fortune, where there were many more hills to run up and down on. It proved to be much more challenging than this year's race, and less muddy (last year there was no rain). Another difference I saw was that the obstacles where not evenly spaced out, which sorta, sucked!
I hope next year's race will be at Camp Fortune, with some better weather! The obstacles from this year's race was, in my opinion, a bit more challenging than last year's. Except, I recall reaching the first obstacle 15-20 minutes into the race, which was a bit disappointing. Most of the challenging obstacles were near the end of the race. The rain and muddiness of the track made running extremely difficult.
My most disappointed obstacle was the first mud crawl under barb wires. It was super long and we had to literally crawl on sharp rocks all the way through. I think the average person would have taken 6 minutes to crawl from one end of that pit to the other. Typically, an obstacle takes anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute to complete. Yeah, you see!
This year, I submitted myself to doing burpees twice; the rope climb and the net climb. My hands became so muddy and slippery that I couldn't get a grip on it. The net climb... the line up was so long and it would have delayed my run if I didn't do the 15 burpees. So I went ahead and did that and proceeded to the next station, which I had to circle some cones with a wheel barrel loaded with bags of sand. It was heavy and hard to steer.
The official times have not been released yet, but waiting anxiously, I hope they get them up by mid-week, along with the photos. I'm confident that my time was under 1 hour, but if not, I know I beat my time from last year! One of my bucket list items for this year is to beat my first Spartan Sprint time. The above photos were taken with Tee Su's camera, but Tu's friend also took some shots of us during the race, which I will share once they become live.
The Spartacus Team: Karla, David Nguyen, David Martyres, Danny Tran, Bryan Nguyen, Steven Nguyen, Mike Hoang, Jane Au, Anh La, Tina Su, and Pammy Zhang.
Living the life of a Spartan is tough, but you all deserve that title! AROOOO!
Free t-shirt and medals after crossing the finish line:
At the end of it all... we must, must, must, must, MUSTTTTT eat! FIVE GUYS!
