Last September, I attended the Spartan Race World Championships in North Tahoe Lake, Olympic Village, California, under the impression that I’d be covering the event in conjunction with the watch brand Luminox, which is the official timekeeper and watch sponsor of Spartan and was celebrating the release of the new Spartan-branded watch.
I thought I was headed there to interview athletes, check out the sites, and get an idea for what this Spartan thing is all about. Well, within 24 hours I found myself at the starting line of the 13.5-mile Beast race, decked out in race gear, a guy built like Leonidas from 300 shouting “AROOH-AROOH” at the top of his lungs. I was out of my element. Turns out that the “optional VIP obstacle course race” listed at the bottom of my press invite was really not optional (unless I made a big fuss, of course…but that’s not me), and that the VIP obstacle course race was the pro-level course.
Admittedly, I freaked myself out a little. I’m 210 pounds and train like a strongman, lifting heavy weights for not a ton of reps. I eat every two hours, and the last time I ran a mile was in high school gym class. I’ve never once entertained a 5k—let alone a freakin’ half-marathon with a 3,000-foot gain and a total elevation of 9,000 feet.
The race took me just over six hours to finish. Along the way—and in between barbed wire crawls and plunging into a sub-40 degree pond—I got a lot of thinking done. My mind wandered from thoughts of “why the f%$k am I doing this,” to, “man, my job is pretty cool,” as I took in the beautiful views of Squaw Valley, back to “WHY THE F$@K AM I DOING THIS?” I wish I trained for this thing. So after I got back, I reached out to Spartan’s Director of Sport & Training Initiatives, Joe DiStefano, to see what I could’ve done better.
If you ever find yourself in a similar situation—roped into doing an obstacle course race by a group of friends last minute or you’re overcome with the desire to try one out—these tips are for you. And be sure to embrace the experience. Even though I was exhausted and irritated, wet and muddy, finishing that race was one of the mentally hardest and rewarding things I’ve done. Will I ever run a Spartan Race again? Eh, maybe. But if I do, I know I’ll be better prepared.
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Be Realistic
“The advice I would give to an un-trained racer is the same advice that I might give if they trained for it, and that’s just to go in with proper expectations,” says Joe DiStefano. “Very few people are running a Spartan race. You know, it’s a day in the woods. You’ve got a fanny pack full of Cliff Bars or something, and it’s just one foot in front of the other. You get the same medal if you come in first or last. So if you enter a race untrained, yeah, you may not have a smile on your face for the majority of the race, but you probably will at the finish line.”
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Leave Yourself Time to Train
If you plan on tackling a race over a 5k (or 3.5 miles), be sure to actually—ya know—train for it. You’ll have more fun (trust me on this), and won’t feel like a burden to your group of friends if you aren’t racing solo. “Twelve weeks is a good place to starts,” says DiStefano. “If you’re fit enough to own a sprint (a 3.5-mile race), in 12 weeks you could get in good shape for a Super (10-12 miles), and if you finish that, another 8-12 weeks can get you in shape for a Beast (13.5 miles).”
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Change Your Training, But Only a Little
When I asked DiStefano what are some changes guys and gals should make to their routines to get race-ready, I was surprised when cardio didn’t come up.
“I would say dead-hangs are a huge component,” DiStefano told me. “There’s a lot of grip needed, a lot of hang obstacles, I’d say if there are two things you would want to incorporate, it’d be loaded carries that last over five minutes and dead-hangs.”
DiStefano likes rack carries (where you hold one or two kettlebells in the front rack position, elbows up and pointing outward), as “they force you to breathe into your diaphragm,” and, “you’re going to be sucking wind when you’re carrying an 80-pound bucket to your chest.” As for dead hangs, “I like to say if you’re entering your first race, be able to do a one-minute dead hang.”
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Prepare for the Climb
Throughout your first Spartan Race—and presumably all OCRs—you’re going to be climbing a lot. Ropes, cargo nets, walls, you name it. But the hardest climb for me was the constant—and literal—uphill battle I faced ascending not one but two mountains. When DiStefano and his crew were first tinkering with the Spartan Race, he turned to soccer players—who posses top-notch stamina—for their initial test runs.
“A lot of them ended up getting back injuries,” DiStefano explains. “They don’t run uphill. And what I learned was if you lack the ability to run uphill, you lack the dorsiflexion [aka ankle flexibility], and if you lack that you start using your lumbar spine.”
This makes sense as my lower back felt like it was bashed in by a flaming sledgehammer towards the end of my race.
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Learn the Spartan Standards
Below, DiStefano breaks down the strength and endurance goals that aspiring OCR racers should aim for.
Dead Hang: Men & Women, 1 min. (Aim for 2-3 minutes, DiStefano says.)
5K Time: Men & Women, under 20 minutes
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Prepare With These Moves
Kettlebell Pause Squats
Joe Di says: “I like to do front squats with kettlebells—to keep the weight on the chest—and with pauses. Spartan races are very aerobic, so a set of squats can’t be 10 minutes long. We may hold a the top portion of a squat for ten seconds, so the entire 10-rep set takes about two, two-and-a-half minutes.”
Do It: Clean two moderately weighted kettlebells up to the front rack position and squat down, keeping your torso upright and knees pushed out. Once your thighs are parallel with the floor, explode up and hold that position for 10 seconds.
Burpees (Within Reason)
Joe Di Says: “It’s funny because the burpee at Spartan is no longer an exercise, it’s a penalty, and after a while they start to look very sloppy and wormy. So in training, we reduce the volume and improve the technique. There are better ways to improve your conditioning, say, by hopping on the fan bike. Once you can do 30 burpees without ruining your day, maintain that. Doing 100 a day isn’t better.
Do It: Stand tall with feet shoulder-width apart. Squat down and kick your hands back, planting your hands on the floor so you’re in a pushup position. Do one pushup and then kick your legs back underneath your hips and jump up. That’s one rep.
Dead Hang
Joe Di Says: “You should be able to survive the monkey bars and things like that if you can do a dead hang for one minute. Every 30 seconds or extra minute you can add to that is going to make you even more prepared. For frame of reference, ever single pro team athlete can do three minutes or more.”
Do It: Hang from a pullup bar with a shoulder-width grip and have someone time you to see how long you can hang from. Distefano notes: We use accumulations to build up our dead hangs. If you let go, pause the clock and then start again. So, it may take you two minutes to accumulate a one minute hang.”
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Gear-Up Right
The only suitable race gear I had on me was a cotton T-shirt, gym shorts, and, worst of all, Nike Metcons, which are flat and tread-less. I consulted with a Spartan employee during our tour of the course and ended up in the gear shop with a short list—Altra-branded trail shoes (which had drainage for the mud and water, proper support, and deep slugs to help me dig into the gravel), and compression shorts to help prevent chaffing and wick moisture in spots you definitely don’t want moisture.
The last piece of gear, provided by Luminox, was one of their Spartan Race-branded pieces. I was a little skeptical about having a heavy-duty watch strapped to my wrist for 14 miles but ended up thankful for it. That thing is hella durable, looks badass, and came in handy when, towards the middle of the race when I was huffing and puffing, I’d use it to work in intervals of a minute (one min of running followed by a minute of walking). You don’t need to be decked out, but those three items will do you some good.
