It was a very warm and sunny day on April 8th over in Sevenoaks. This venue was the host of the Spartan race season opener in the U.K. After waiting since October 2016 to take part in another Spartan race, I couldn’t wait to get back on the dirt track and beat last years time. Not having been to this venue, I didn’t know what the terrain would throw at me but I knew two things: it was going to be hot and that it was a Spartan race, it wasn’t going to be easy!
Preparation
The advances I have made in my training since my first Spartan race this time last year have been great. Rather then weight training to get bigger, I focused on functional training. Crossfit inspired things like rope climbs, pull-ups, dead hangs, box jumps and burpees were the base of my workouts. I had been doing a lot of running also so that wasn’t going to be a problem for me this time. I had also dropped weight so I knew that would take pressure off of the upper body obstacles. I was ready to hit this race hard!
Logistics
The event village was really buzzing, after taking forever to find it. The signage wasn’t the best so that caused quite a few competitors to get lost. We ended up walking for an hour to the wrong part of the estate which was miles from the actual event. Luckily we managed to find the middle of the race where we were driven to the start line.
As this was the Sprint, the race was approximately 5/6km. A very different venue to the 2016 Stratford Olympic Park. This race was filled with dirt tracks and hills! The hills were actually the hardest sections of the race. Every time you faced a steep hill you had some type of carry: logs, tires and sandbags. Without my trail shoes I would have been pretty screwed!
The regular obstacles like traverse walls, 4-8ft walls and the atlas stones returned as normal (the atlas stone was particularly tough this time). I managed to smash both the hanging ring and monkey bar rigs this time, which I was really looking forward to as I had been focusing on grip and upper body strength leading up to the event. Hard work does pay off in the end. The barbed wire crawl was tiring as usual and the spear throw screwed me over once again (I really need more practice in that department); 30 burpees for me!
As with every Spartan race I have done the finish line was guarded by a three 8ft walls then the glorious fire jump (the wood was stacked a little higher then previous jumps) to mark the end of the race! All finishers received a brilliant medal which had been redesigned for the 2017 season (it looks brilliant by the way) and a newly redesigned finishers t-shirt which is a better material then last years.
My Thoughts
This was my second Spartan Sprint but my fourth Spartan event in total. Everything I expected in terms of obstacles was there which kept it in line with the Spartan Race brand. The biggest difference was the course itself. This was used great and the obstacles were laid out evenly over the distance. You never felt as if you were running to long without needing to do an obstacle.
There were no long ques for obstacles and the race flowed very well because of this. Drink stations (2 of them) were placed in great spots and the combo of gels, water and ginger root refreshments made for a great perk up on a very hot day.
Only negatives towards the day was the event signage and fact that the postcode given was the span of a very big estate that covered a few miles. Some might think that the lack of mud and water was a negative but I actually liked the idea that this race had something different to offer; it’s also a guarantee that some of the longer distances to come this year will have a lot of mud and water to wade through.
All in all I thought it was a tough Sprint but it was a great event and as always, this Spartan race didn’t disappoint! Can’t wait for the Super in May!
Did you take part in the St Clere Sprint? What were your thoughts? What did/didn’t you enjoy the most? Let me know in the comments below.
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