Round two of the Spartan Race UK National Series took us to the infamous Midlands. It was infamous last year due to the significant amount of mud that was on the course, in particular Rolling Mud, where the Tough Mudder race the weekend before had properly turned up the ground. For me, this wasn’t too much of an issue however there were some athletes that didn’t take kindly to the amount of mud that was on the course. If you want to read more about this, I’ll let you head over to the blog that talked about last year.
Let’s get onto this year’s race.
As I said before, this was the second race of the Spartan UK National Series which was the Super distance. For those of you that are new to Spartan race, the Super is a 10k run with 25 obstacles. I won’t go into too much detail about the basics of Spartan, but you can find more details in my blog here where I cover the basics.
The series race wasn’t the only important race that was going on this weekend. Spartan hosting the British OCR Championships as well. This meant that the course had the basics of a Spartan race, but some of the obstacles had special additions to them to make them more technical and give the course that British OCR twist.
This was also the first time that I was going to be volunteering at a race. As a brand ambassador this is a requirement, but I shall get onto the full details in the next section.
So all in all, it was a very busy weekend on site especially when you factor in the standard trifecta weekend races as well.
With plenty to get through, let’s get on with the show.
First Time As A Volunteer
As part of being a Spartan Race UK brand ambassador, one of our requirements is to conduct at least a day and a half of volunteering. This was my first time volunteering for Spartan race, which also had the small task of being a volunteer referee on one of the obstacles for the British OCR Championships.
Arriving on the race site at 0630, I headed to the volunteer tent and was issued my refereeing t-shirt, cap and British OCR vest. I was briefed on which obstacle that I was going to be on, given the rules for the obstacle reference to all the races that day, and then given time to stock up on supplies before being taken out on course.
First half of the day was spent refereeing the British OCR Champs, which primarily entailed ensuring that the athletes went over the obstacle correctly whilst I was also able to enjoy race in front of me. If an athlete was unable to complete the obstacle correctly, then it was my job to ensure that they conducted the penalty loop as per the rules.
Moving into the second half of the day, This is where I was more volunteer and a brand ambassador. Whilst ensuring that people are going over the obstacle correctly and safely, because it wasn’t a competitive race, I was now able to use my experience to help people complete the obstacle.
This was probably the most fulfilling part of the weekend whilst I was volunteering. There were so many individuals that had never been able to take on Stairway to Sparta 2.0 for a variety of reasons. So to be able to cheer them on and give advice on how to tackle the obstacle, then seeing them overcome the obstacle, was so fulfilling.
As for the second day of volunteering, this was only a half-day. I completed my race in the morning, at lunchtime I then went back onto volunteering duties, this time was put on the finish line. This initially started off as me removing timing chips from race finishers before moving over to handing out t-shirts. Who knew that handing out t-shirts would be so challenging at times? Especially when you had individuals needing to continuously change the size that they want or were impatient and we’re grabbing t-shirts, which led to them being given the wrong size and then coming back.
To top it all off, this was compounded by someone knocking over my cup of tea, which didn’t go down well. This was majorly upsetting.
Though to be fair, a contributing factor to my mood would’ve been the performance in that morning’s race which didn’t help matters. Hopefully I didn’t come across too grumpy to those and they were still able to enjoy the full experience of finishing their race, getting their t-shirt and enjoying the rest of the village site.
By the end of the weekend, I have an increased appreciation for those that volunteer at every event.
How Did The Race Go?
Super - National Series
Once again training had not been optimum leading into this rate but this time I was feeling a lot better about things as I had been slowly integrating more running and CV sessions into pre-race training.
The race started pretty well for me, with me being in and around the top five positions. As the race developed I did fall back a little bit into one of the groups of three who were occupying 5th, 6th & 7th. The running felt good, and I was feeling pretty confident with where I was placed.
Then it all went horribly wrong.
After doing a crawl through the trenches into a double muddy barbed wire crawl then back through the trenches, I had now got a decent amount of mud on my hands. I thought I had removed enough of this sludge from my hands in time for the next obstacle, which was Beater.
Apparently, that wasn’t the case.
As I reached for the first bar after the Beater, I simply was not concentrating and managed to slip off the obstacle. This meant I had the pleasure of going through the penalty loop. What I thought was just a lot of running back-and-forth, turned out to have the added bonus of a double cargo net which really added a lot of time to my race.
I particularly remember seeing a number of athletes go by in a group and successfully complete the obstacle whilst I was under one of the cargo nets.
Splendid.
After this mistake, the rest of my race was me trying to fight back to get back in touch with the group that passed me. Though I will admit that there wasn’t much in the tank to be able to push even harder. I had already been near the red line.
One thing I did enjoy about this race was the number of carries that it involved. I love a good carry! I love a good carry even more so when it has the added challenge of being combined with other obstacles. Even though my face doesn’t look like it at the time, I really enjoyed the sandbag under the barbed wire into the plate drag.
With just under a mile to go and the final collection of obstacles, I was able to catch up with 11th place. However, after putting in all the effort that I did try and catch up with the pack that overtook me, I simply didn’t have it in me for the final burst to try and pull away. Even more so because the athlete I was racing with had just had a gel giving him that last bit of energy that he needed to get away from me.
It was pretty cool for us both to nail the spear at exactly the same time, but even the adrenaline boost from doing that couldn’t give me enough to keep up. Thankfully, I had a decent enough gap to the 13th place where I could push to the line, but not be too worried that I was gonna be overtaken.
In the end, I finished in 12th place. For me, I was and am very disappointed with the outcome of this race. It just goes to show how one slip up like I had can change the resort so significantly especially on one of the shorter races.
Big lessons were learnt that day and it ignited a fire within me to make sure that I come back stronger than ever next time.
Course Thoughts
Moving onto my thoughts about the course. I unfortunately didn’t get chance to see the course in its entirety for the Beast nor did I see how the Super became the Sprint. So I will only be able to comment on the Super race.
The first thing it comes to mind, which is maybe not surprising for this Midland site, is that this one seems to be a particularly muddy affair again. Not as muddy as the last iteration and maybe surprisingly so with the Tough mudder weekend being afterwards this time. But there were still particularly muddy zones with the trench crawl and the double (or would you say triple?) barbed wire crawl. One thing to note on this front is that there was the anticipation of a water crossing, but this had to be removed in the race buildup due to safety reasons. Though when I say water crossing, this is only a wade rather than a swim, unlike Pippingford.
One thing I like about this course, was the number of carries and the challenge that they individually brought. As you may know by now, or now you do if you’re new around here, I love a good carry. This race had great carries featuring a decent distance for the chain carry, atlas stone, bucket carry (though was disappointingly light), and the sandbag carry which had to be dragged under one of the barbed wire crawls up hill, then used as your weight for the plate drag. That was particularly spicy, and I loved it.
Yes, I know, the face below would say otherwise. The camera man just caught me at the wrong moment.
Lessons
Effective Way To Tackle Slippery Hands
Ultimately, this was my downfall during the race. I ended up with muddy and slippery hands from a number of back-to-back obstacles. Though I thought I’d done enough to clear that off of my hands, I was clearly wrong.
As to how I would tackle such an issue, there are a few things that come to mind. The first one is through me improving my overall grip strength so that this isn’t an issue in the future. The second thing is for me to find an effective way to clear mud off of my hands after such an obstacle. The final contributing factor that I could tackle is having better and more positive visualisation coming into an obstacle and ensuring that I have full focus and concentration whilst I’m doing it.
Never Give Up
This one is more of a reinforcement than a lesson. I could have gotten into a mood and given up when I came off the obstacle that I did. However, I used the anger and frustration to fuel me to keep driving forward in the hope that I was able to catch up some of the places that I had lost. So this is obviously a positive that I can take away from the race weekend.
Consideration For Nutrition On Shorter Races
This is something that I haven’t really thought about until this race weekend. Typically, I do not take nutrition or hydration solutions on course when I race in the UK. I have up to now purely relied upon what is provided on course through the water that is given. It has only been during world championship races or an ultra that I have considered needing nutrition and hydration. This has been driven by time on course and/or the weather for that race.
I’m only thinking about this now for UK races because of what was mentioned by the athlete that finished in 11th place as to why he was able to pull away from me. In a post race conversation, he mentioned that he had a gel just before I caught up with him, which gave him that energy to pull away.
This leaves me considering utilising at least intra race nutrition for UK races to try and ensure that I can keep up with the UK’s front runners.
Well, ladies and gentlemen that raps up the second 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 or my thoughts on being a volunteer debut. If you are interested in seeing more Spartan Race content, whether that be in blog format or through more visual formats, sure to follow me on Instagram, Facebook and/or Twitter to see other content streams and be one of the first 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.
