So here we are, the first Spartan race of the season. I was very excited to be getting back into racing even if my preparation had not been brilliant leading into this race weekend. By that, I am referring to an Achilles tendinitis that I suffered back in the end of March which has hindered my training significantly. However, there is no time for excuses or complaining, I was here to do my best and there were some exciting new things for me during this weekend.
The first thing that I was able to do was collect my Spartan Pro band. After last year‘s performance, and the new format the Spartan are taking on this year, I was able to claim a Pro band for this year‘s racing. This means that I qualify for the Pro level races within the UK. When it comes to the international races though, I will have to get adequate results to qualify for those championships. How this looks in practice:
- Race in the UK national series races
- Get a qualifying result, within the top 20, at National level to qualify for the European championships
- Get a qualifying results, within the top 50, at regional level to qualify for the world championships
- Get to race at world championship level
The second thing that I was able to be excited about was that this would be my first outing as a Spartan Race UK brand ambassador. After applying to be a brand ambassador at the end of last year, I was honoured to be selected to be in the UK brand ambassador team. What this means is that I will be trying to grow both Spartan Race and OCR as a whole, whilst during the race weekends, I will be supporting those that are new to the sport with any questions that they may have about simply completing a race, all the way up to what is on offer from a competitive perspective.
For me, the reason why I was so excited about this was that I get a significant amount of fulfilment from helping others and allowing them to become the strongest versions of themselves. So for this, this role was perfect in a sport that I am passionate about, doing something that warms the soul.
Anyway, that’s enough preamble from me.
Let’s get into the blog!
First Time As A Brand Ambassador
The first thing that I will talk about is being a brand ambassador. As I mentioned before, this was my first time putting on the brand ambassador T-shirt and what an experience it was.
Once I had finished my race on Saturday, I situated myself on the new Spartan Hub that had been set up in the village site. This is a place that athletes or spectators can come and visit and chat to the brand ambassadors about racing at Spartan race, what the challenge will entail or get advice on taking on one of the number of obstacles.
This was a perfect place to engage with the community, both athletes and spectators, by showing them the number of obstacles that had been laid out. A lot of this also included engaging with the youngsters that were around, hopefully sowing the seeds for them to ask mum and dad if they can take on a Spartan kids race.
In my opinion, the Spartan Hub was a massive success in boosting that engagement and helping people alleviate some of the fears they may have around doing a Spartan race. Some of this success was seen through people coming back to let us know how their race had gone and even committing to more races both this year and next.
Moving onto the Sundays activities, after finishing my Super, I was back on at the Spartan Hub helping out individuals once again. This was much of the same activities as the day before. The main difference for the Sunday though was the ambassador wave for the Sprint.
The ambassador wave is a nominated Sprint wave that has all of the Spartan Race UK brand ambassadors running together to help people go through the course and show them how the obstacles are done. For me, this was mainly taking around the Optimum Nutrition team, but whilst on course I had the ability to show a number of other people how to do obstacles, with some of them succeeding for the first time and coming away with a massive smile on their face.
Very wholesome and rewarding. It just warms the soul.
All in all, I absolutely loved taking on the brand ambassador roles and really enjoyed myself. I find this work very fulfilling and when it is attached to a sport that I’m passionate about, it makes it all worthwhile.
I’m definitely looking forward to more of this in the future.
How Did The Race Go?
Beast - National Series
Not had my preparation for the whole race weekend not being ideal but then I was blessed with further complications at check-in. Due to the new format changing the login system for athletes, there was an issue getting pro athletes checked in. This meant there was a delay to checking in, which had a knock on effect to time to warm up. They did put the start time back 15 minutes but that didn’t allow for a full warmup for myself or the other athletes to happen. performing my usual ritual.
It felt good though to be lining up on the Pro start line this year. After racing Age Group all of last year, with the main goal of being good enough to race at the Pro level, to finally be there was satisfying. Here I was on the start line with not only some of the best in the business from a UK perspective but there were other international athletes of a very high calibre also there.
This weekend was always going to be a case of benchmarking where I am from a fitness point of view because I wasn’t only benchmarking against myself, I had the other Pros there to gauge myself against too.
The start of the race was a strong one in my usual fashion, but this time I may have gone off a little too strong. I guess the adrenaline and excitement got to me a little bit and suddenly the fact that I’ve not trained properly for around six weeks seemed to disappear.
This soon caught up with me though. At around mile three, the lungs were burning and I was certainly in the pain cave. Those six weeks I’ve not training had definitely come back to say hello. I watched the other athletes overtake me one by one, leaving me in a position that was outside of the top 10. One thing I did notice during this phase was that my obstacle proficiency wasn’t the level of some of the other Pros, slowing me down in comparison.
Thankfully, at around mile eight the cobwebs had disappeared from my lungs and I was able to be back up and running again. I managed to reel in those that were in front of me and start regaining positions that I’d lost. For me, the longer distances have always been a favourite and I find that I thrive more the longer one of these races goes on.
Coming into the final set of obstacles, after missing the spear throw and checking behind me to see how close 10th place was, I was a little too confident in how much time I had. This caused me to switch off mentally and just cruise into the finish line, only really focusing on how I was going to start the year with a great finishing pose.
Then I had a sudden awakening.
As I was leisurely coming down the A-frame, the athlete behind me came tumbling past me hitting the floor before I did. This suddenly brought me back into the real world of the race that I was in and sparked an epic sprint finish where I was able to just about pip him at the finish line. Looking at the results though we both ended up with the same finishing time.
That one was a bit too close for comfort.
Overall, this left me in ninth place in my first Pro race which I was fairly happy about. This left me reassured that even with my six weeks off from injury, I was a lot closer than I expected to those leading the pack. Alongside this, there were obviously plenty of lessons to be learnt about where I need to take things in the future.
Onwards and upwards.
Super
The Super was the first time that a competitive wave had been conducted within the UK. In principle, all seem to make sense as to how it would work but there was only one way to find out whether it would survive first contact.
Lining up on the start line, I noticed that the field was significantly lighter from the day before. This was due to there being another race that day that counted towards the UKOCR league. So if anything, this was my opportunity to try and get on that podium, if I could.
With the check-in going a lot smoother this time round, I was able to get a full warmup in before the start of the race, which meant that I felt a lot better on the start line plus I’ve had a Saturday’s race to clear away the rust and the cobwebs.
The start was another strong one, with touches of it being a little too strong at times, but overall I felt a lot better in my running and didn’t feel like I was going to blow up as quickly as I did on the Saturday. This meant that I was able to settle into a more sustainable pace from the beginning and just enjoy the run.
From early doors, I noticed that I was in the leading pack for the race noting that those around me were those that I had been racing the day before. With me falling into a similar position as I had the day before, I was feeling confident that I could get a good result.
Though it was only a competitive wave race, with their not being any significant prizes on the line, this was one of the most enjoyable races I’ve been part of. The reason why I say that is because during the race, the lead changed several times. As the course evolved, different people would thrive on those different sections. From a spectators point of view, this would have been a great watch.
It got to the point where you had the leading four runners of the pace group one wave all running the penalty loop for the spear after a collective poor performance. Coming down to the last few obstacles, unfortunately the leader of this wave was able to pull away and got the win by 13 seconds, with me crossing the line in second.
That wasn’t the result signed and sealed though. With this format, you may have an individual who doesn’t know where they would stand within a Spartan race field. So they may put themselves in pace group two or three.
And that is exactly what happened this time round.
There was an another athlete who put themselves in pace group two, but when they crossed the line, their time was significantly faster than the rest of the field, putting them in overall first place. This pushed me down from 2nd place to 3rd place, leaving me just above the line for a podium.
This brought about a level of jeopardy as I waited for the other athletes to cross the line, hoping that none of them were able to beat my time. The closest someone came was within two seconds of knocking me off the podium but thankfully they didn’t.
So this left me finishing in 3rd place overall gaining my first delta of the year.
As to what do I think about the new competitive way format? Well for me, I believe that it is doing what is set out to do. It gives opportunities to other athletes to earn their Pro band when racing and that jeopardy once you have crossed the finish line if you’re in a more advanced pace group, means that there is a level of excitement and engagement even when you have crossed the finish line.
Sprint
Compared to the other races, the Sprint was a much more subdued occasion, where I was able to take around the nutrition sponsor for Spartan Race this year in the shape of the Optimum Nutrition team. This comprised of both supporting them through the course by showing them how to complete obstacles that they were unsure about and help round them up for their PR team so that they could get the right of photos and videos during the run.
Overall, this was a very enjoyable run where I got chance to engage with the Optimum Nutrition team, hopefully planting some seeds for them to come back and race again, as well as finishing off the trifecta for the weekend.
However, old habits die hard. I missed the spear again.
Swiftly moving on!
Course Thoughts
This is a new section to the blog that I am including in to not only inform you as the reader what a course may entail but also to be an avenue for feedback. I will give a short overview of each of the distances, explain what I liked and didn’t like about them, and hopefully alleviate any fears that a newcomer to the sport may have.
So let’s get into the Beast course and its design. The course overall was very similar to that of last year with some sections that were completely different, freshening up the challenge. I was a fan of it last year and this year was just as good, if not better. The order of the obstacles changed, it flowed nicely and had some great running sections, even if they were hilly in places. It was one of those courses that flowed so well that the miles flew by and before you knew it, you were in the final stretches. The sandbag under the cargo net near the end was a fun combination, as well as the bucket carry into the Herc Hoist.
Moving on to the Super Race, the course designers did a good job with this one, where they were able to route the course in a way where the obstacle order changed, the challenge was a different one and really freshened up the course. In the past, it’s been a case of just rerunning the course with sections cut out but this time round, they did a good job with this one! Additionally, they had different obstacles on the course that weren’t there on the Beast.
Last but by no means least, on to my thoughts on the Sprint course. Experiencing this on the Sunday, meaning it was a little drier that the Saturday which wasn’t ideal in some places, it was still an enjoyable course for me, which says to me that it was well weighted for those new to the sport to have a good challenge. It felt fresh instead of it being just running the same course again but cut down.
Lesson Learnt
With any race review comes the lessons to be learnt. Sometimes it can be quite hard to pick out the lessons to be learned from various different races, especially last year when it was a successful year. This year though with me taking on the Pros, this will highlight various different areas that I am most likely lacking in. So let’s get into them.
Don't Go Off Too Fast
This is a lesson that I have highlighted in the past and will be highlighting again after this race. For where I was fitness wise, I went off far too quickly. I let the age old problem of the adrenaline and the excitement get to me. That and it may be old habits of being used to leading from the front in most races last year, where the tactic for me worked most of the time. The only thing that I can think of that can mitigate for this poor decision-making is that I didn’t know where I stood in the pack against these athletes.
To get around this, there are two approaches that I can take at the same time. The first one is ensuring that I am back into full training prior to the next race so that those strong starts can be backed up by the required fitness. The second approach is for me to recognise which athletes I am similar to in ability and stick with them when it comes to pacing.
Take It All The Way To The Finish Line
Lesson number two from the weekend is that I need to take it all the way to the finish line or else I could be losing out on key positions. This was first seen in the Beast race where my cruising into the finishing line nearly cost me 9th. In the grand scheme of things I was pretty fortunate to have not lost that position. Then at the Super race, though I wasn’t at risk of losing any positions from those in the same group as me, I was within two seconds of losing third place and my place on the podium.
Method to tackling this is ensuring that I am concentrating all points of a race and that I remember what the new formats bring, and stay constantly aware of my race when it comes to taking on those in the same pace group as me.
Obstacle Proficiency
The final lesson for me to learn from this weekend is that my obstacle proficiency needs to improve. My running ability has always been pretty good for the sport and is what I have relied upon for much of last year. However, as I moved towards the pinnacle of the sport, the differences in running ability are smaller and smaller. This means that ability to take on the obstacles in an efficient manner is going to be key to success. The less time taking on obstacles, the more time I can spend running. In addition to that, the time spent on obstacles soon adds up, and when totalling up what you could save, this could be the difference between getting the result that you want versus the result that you dream of.
So how will I go about this? What I said about my training not going as planned and recent times, I will start to incorporate more sessions at my local obstacle gym which my team is based at, whilst being coached through better technique at Spartan obstacles.
Well, ladies and gentlemen that raps up the first Spartan race UK 2024 race review. I sure do hope that you enjoyed it and found it insightful whether that be my comments on the course, my thoughts on the ambassador debut or my thoughts on where the competitive waves are going in the sport. If you are interested in seeing more Spartan race content, whether that be in blog format or through more visual mediums, be sure to follow me on Instagram, Facebook and or Twitter to see other content streams and be one of the 1st to know when I release the next blog.
If you’ve read this and now you’re wanting to take part in your first ever Spartan or had the fire in you reignited to return to the sport, I have the perfect opportunity for you! You can head over to the Spartan Race website and use my code, SRUKBA-REECE-CC for 20% off.
