Any influencer or blogger will tell you that the first post on a blog should introduce yourself, your unique perspective, and quickly lay out reasons the reader should keep looking at your blog.
I’m definitely not influential, and the only unique perspective I have is what people’s shoes look like as they run past me in the burpee pit of the Olympus Wall. So you should TOTALLY keep reading…right?
Maybe. Up to you.
I’m writing this blog as much for myself as anyone who might come across it—Spartan Races have quickly become a big part of my life, dinner conversation with my wife, Instagram feed, and parenting style so I wanted an outlet for things that usually make Sara’s eyes glaze over.
One of those things is revisiting my year of races. I did two races (both sprints) in 2018, so this was my first “real” season of racing.
My first ever exposure to Spartan was the 2018 Dallas Stadium (now Stadion) Sprint. Like their marketing says, I definitely knew at the finish line. I was hooked. I had a group of five buddies signed up to race with me at the Dallas sprint in October. Both of those races were fun and reinforced that this is something I wanted to lean more into.
…but they also showed that I was slow, weak, out of shape, and a burpee magnet.
With two kids and a work addiction, I don’t work out as regularly as I want. But in 2019 I focused on grip strength and being able to do a sprint without hating myself. I tried four or five different workout methods (not to mention how many plans I went through), but after trudging through a Super in San Antonio, almost quitting and dying during the Beast in Big Bear, I got my first trifecta at the Stadion Sprint in Dallas and was doing way less burpees than the year before. Cardio wasn’t where I wanted, but obstacles were better.
My double race weekend—Beast and Sprint—in Dallas in October (long story) saw some cardio improvement, but still getting passed by AARP racers two heats after me.
But to complete my double trifecta in Laughlin, Nevada I put together my most complete race—and more importantly, one I never thought I could do when running my first Super in March. Because everyone loves reading race reviews, I’ll have more on that in another post.
My point is that even in a short year, people like us who have jobs, marriages, kids, and life can still get better at this sport and make progress. It can be easy to get discouraged by the Robert Killians and Nicole Mericles of the world because they workout for a living so of course they can keep up this ambitious training schedule. But “open racers” like us can still be better over a year.
This blog is for me and any other Spartan who has to plan a workout in between work, soccer practice, and a Costco run. The Spartan who has beaten themselves up for eating food that came in a bag because we were craving it. If you’ve laid awake the night before a race terrified, wishing you’d done extra training sessions instead of staying caught up on The Mandalorian, I’m with you.
Suburban Spartan 