Race Review: Spartan Super Melbourne

It’s official I am a Spartan.

We all know how devastated I was when the first Spartan event I entered in 2014 resulted in my first (and only) Did Not Start.

Spartan never ended up releasing the 2nd event in Melbourne in 2014 due to conflicts with fire restrictions and the CFA (country fire authority). If they had I of course would have done it then.

Ten months would pass before I could officially call myself a Spartan.

On March 7th, I with 3 other teammates completed the Spartan Super at Lake Dewar near Ballan.

Would I have done this event without my teammates?  Properly, but I wouldn’t have had as much fun.  We all kept ourselves accountable.  We all had our strengths and we all had our weaknesses, but we all crossed the line together.

There were plenty of “well played Spartan, well played” moments.  The first obstacle was my first “well-played moment”.  It involved carrying a sandbag around a 500m loop.  Right at the very end, however, you had 1 attempt to cross a balance beam. Needless to say, I lost my balance and failed.  Yeah, 30 burpee’s right off the bat.

Next time I will practice carrying a weight (I’m thinking Miles here), while on a beam to simulate race conditions for next time.

What I loved about the location of the Super event was the following:

1. It was right off the highway, with no missing turns, fantastic signage
2. Parking was nice and close to the event village.
3. The interweaving of the course.  No matter where you were you would always encounter other Spartans at different stages in the race.

There are of course some obstacles I need to work on. The 8ft Berlin wall is one of them. Without Paul and Nate’s help, I wouldn’t have been able to get over it.

Another obstacle that got me was throwing a 5kg medicine ball over a 7ft wall. Knowing that my arms didn’t have the strength to throw the ball over, I knew my legs would be the driving force to complete this task. This involved squatting and trusting upwards. Of course, my ball teeters at the top and falls on the wrong side.  30 burpee’s for me.

The traverse wall was the other obstacle that I failed at (right at the start too). I think next time I will take my shoes off so I am more aware of my feet.

I totally nailed the Hercules hoist. Obviously, all those weighted squats paid off.

Had no chance at the Javelin throw.  At least I attempted it.

The last obstacle was the rope traverse.  Let me tell you this took all my strength and I was utterly exhausted. Like a turtle, I got there in the end.

Together we crossed the line, and I became a Spartan.

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Have you done a Spartan event?