Race Recap: Spartan Sprint Minnesota

Spartan Sprint Minnesota 6/9/18 Welch Village, MN

Weather: Low 70s, cloudy -> raining -> thunderstorms

Trails: Ski mountain. Massive grassy hills with muddy sections.

Distance: approx 3.8 miles, 21 obstacles

Set on Welch Village ski resort, this race is part of Spartan's new Mountain Series. I had received nigh on apocalyptic warnings about the enormity of the hills and considered myself well-prepared. Upon arrival at the event (smooth check-in) and seeing it in person, I knew I'd be in for quite a day, quads-wise. I was concerned about the weather holding up, so I asked to get into an earlier wave. The earliest they'd put me is 12:15, even though I'd signed up with my trifecta pass so I wasn't trying to "get a discounted morning time." The gatekeepers at the corral let me in for the noon wave, anyway.

First thing we did in this race is run (hike) up the black diamond run of the ski hill. This was steep, slippery, and crowded. You could tell immediately who was wearing their old running shoes instead of actual OCR shoes or trail shoes. Tip: ALWAYS wear OCR or trail shoes. The same terrain that makes someone else fall and sprain something, you can jog down like a mountain goat. Anyhow, the hill went on and on but nevertheless we persisted. At the top was a 4' wall, then back down the giant hill. At the bottom of the hill were two 5' hurdles that got us right in the babymakers, then back up a hill to Olympus, which I failed terribly. I need to figure this obstacle out eventually. Slick feet didn't help. Thirty burpees! Some ladies and I talked about what foods motivate us, and it turns out I was the lone soul on Team Taco (vs their Team Cake). Back down the hill and through mucky woods to the sandbag carry, where I made damn sure to grab a WOMEN'S sandbag this week, and sure enough it was easy peasy, aside from the mud everywhere. 

After that it was a short jaunt to the rope climb, which I immediately failed. Thirty burpees! And I found a patch of grassy area so I didn't have to get too muddy, score! Turned the corner all "WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS?!" to find a barbed wire crawl through mud. For good measure, they sprayed us with cold water in the last 15-20 feet and we had to crawl through a giant puddle and I yelled "MINNESOTA, YOU ARE DEAD TO ME! I WILL ROOT AGAINST THE VIKINGS TWICE AS HARD!" Next was an inverted wall (wrongly labeled Vertical Cargo on the map), which was a few inches taller (and muddier) than last week's in Ohio but I still got up it solo. 

Immediately after the inverted wall was the Atlas Carry. All I saw was a field of flags on sticks and giant balls everywhere. I asked the volunteer sitting nearby what we were supposed to do and she wanly said "I think there's, like, some smaller balls over there..." WT actual F. She seemed to have no idea what an Atlas Carry is, and the field was so disorganized that it wasn't even slightly intuitive. Fortunately several veterans helped everyone piece together that you pick up a ball (red for women, black for men), carry it a certain distance, do 5 burpees, then pick up the ball again and carry it back. The balls weren't in their proper spots so it was hard to tell what we were supposed to do, and there was no sign explaining it. The volunteer was really important on this obstacle to get everyone going, and she dropped the ball (DAD JOKES!). Terrible. Anyway, the ball was like 50 lb and awkward to pick up but I just got my forearms kind of under it and rolled it onto my hands.

We hit the 2-mile marker and I was on a pretty even 32-minute mile pace, which I was frankly thrilled about with such a crazy hilly course and one burpee obstacle each mile. We finished ascending the mountain again and did the A-frame cargo net. At this point it had started drizzling and we were all concerned about being on this giant metal structure on top of the mountain, which gave us the motivation to get up and down quickly and jog down the hill to the next obstacle, a 6' wall. It was a bit over 6', actually, but I got a boost from a couple good people! Continued down the hill to the Rolling Mud (worse this week than in Ohio) and the dunk wall (which didn't let you cheat this time). Held my nose and covered my eyes, and the photographer was like "you should do it again without your eyes covered so I can get a better picture!" Sorry, man, I have to keep my contacts in my head guaranteed. Immediately afterward was the slip wall, which was not muddy at all, merely wet. Much easier to get up and down. Barely needed any strategy.

It was raining pretty hard by this point and the festival/crowds were directly in front of us with the spear throw. I kept in mind all my practice from last week, geared up, threw it, nailed the tip into the hay, HOORAY!...and the spear just went WOMP WOMP sad trombone down onto the ground. Dammit. It had enough accuracy, but not enough "oomph." Gotta combine accuracy and oomph next time. Before I could do my burpees, though, the volunteer started yelling "there's lightning in the area, we've gotta get off the course." Confusion. Go where, exactly? We all made our way past the next obstacle (Twister) and exited through the fortunately-nearby finish chute. I stopped my watch at 1 hour 25 minutes, just before 1:30 PM. Got my bag and headed out to my car as directed to wait out the storm.

Here's where it gets bad. I immediately discovered that I had only 1 bar of phone service. There wasn't a strong enough signal to make phone calls, let alone access the internet. So I had no way of finding out what the weather report was or seeing what updates Spartan was providing online. (Turns out the latter was ZERO, which is infuriating.) I was able to send and receive texts from my husband who said the radar looked awful but there were no Spartan updates. Around 2 PM I drove my car a bit closer to the main festival so I could hear announcements on the loudspeaker. There were none. At 2:30 I jogged through the deluge to find a volunteer who had been told absolutely nothing about the status of the race but said the radar looked awful and we'd only seen 1/10th of what was to come. I realized by the time the storm passed they might just close the whole thing down anyway, and I had a 3-hour drive home, so I sadly took off my chip and left. [It turns out they did reopen the course at about 3:30-4 PM...nobody knows for sure because Spartan NEVER ANNOUNCED ANYTHING.] There were a lot of people upset about the total lack of communication. It is difficult to wait indefinitely without any food or water for a race that may never start back up, and it is unforgivable that the race officials couldn't at least give us the same delay updates they'd deemed appropriate for the elite racers that morning. The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. I've enjoyed the Spartan events I've done in the past, but their response to my tweet to them today was very "we DID update you, you're wrong and we're right." It doesn't make me want to give them my money, that's for sure. I just hope there are no weather delays in my three other Spartan races on my calendar, because obviously the organization cannot handle them.

Pros:

-Course. Very challenging and nicely spread-out obstacles. 

-Volunteers were for the most part very nice and trying their best to deal with the weather delay. Any participants who took their wrath out on the equally-clueless volunteers deserve a good slap.

Cons:

-HORRIBLE communication about the weather delay. This is totally inexcusable. No social media updates on any platform in the afternoon, and volunteers were not told anything to pass along to participants.

-HORRIBLE response to complaints about said communication issues. Spartan's official position seems to be "you're wrong, we're perfect, eff off." They are the Donald Trump of race companies.

-I didn't see any photographers until the dunk wall. 

-Atlas Carry volunteer sucked. Make sure volunteers know what their obstacle is, at least.

Race Grade: D. The course is basically what saved this one. I am honestly (and sadly) hesitant to sign up for future races because of the "we don't give a shit" attitude from the Spartan corporation.