We Are Spartans!
F&L Conquers the Spartan Race
On Saturday, August 15th, F&L’s team entry into the Spartan Race Hawaii completed the Sprint category for the first time. Five brave souls joined over 3000 participants to complete in the two day long event held at Kuuloa Ranch on the northeastern side of Oahu.
The second annual race was spread across 4,000 acres on the working cattle ranch. It began early Saturday morning and consisted of three different courses: the Sprint, the Super, and the Beast. Each race increases in distance and number of obstacles. Obstacles included rope and wall climbs, sandbag carries, monkey nets, spear throws, and tire drags. Click here to see a list of the various obstacles.
The Sprint is the shortest of the races, usually a little more than 3 miles and includes about 20 obstacles. The Super is roughly 8 miles and 25+ obstacles and the Beast 13+ miles and 30+ obstacles. Should some crazy souls feel like they could complete all three of the races, they would become a member of the Spartan TRIFECTA Tribe.
The F&L team consisted of myself, Jamie Ford, Joy Yanai, Ross Suyemura, and Stacey Hertzog. We trained hard for the past two months to prepare for both the distance of running on hills and attacking the expected signature obstacles. We knew that interval training combined with practice on various obstacle components of carrying, climbing and pulling would help us conquer the course. We even practiced the spear throw!
The race turned out to be exactly what we expected. Running through the changes in elevation and attacking each obstacle were physically and mentally challenging. Rain throughout the week provided for an extremely humid Saturday and running through the open fields definitely required a strong cardiovascular effort. There were a few racers who cramped up.
The obstacles that proved to be most difficult were the ones that required the most practice: the rope climb, spear throw, and the monkey bars. Each of us was able to complete every obstacle but we also were subject to the dreaded burpees.
Burpees are a full body exercise where you transition from a horizontal position laying flat, face down in a push up position to a vertical position with hands over head and feet off the ground. Not sure who decided that failing a Spartan obstacle requires 30 burpees but they definitely created a strong motivator to avoid failure! Burpees challenge your entire body and stress your cardiovascular system. For Spartans there are no fails, just burpees.
The Spartan Race turned out to be an awesome experience despite the burpees. It was fun running through streams and rolling in the mud. There were parts of the race that mess with your head and conjure fear of failure but ultimately they bring feelings of accomplishment when completed. It was helpful to have teammates that would motivate you to keep up and support you when the humidity and hills challenged you. It was a great community to be around and the beauty of Kuuloa Ranch is often breath taking.
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F&L did have one Trifecta entry: Talon Tengan. Talon competed in the Spartan Race held in March at Aloha Stadium and completed the Super and the Beast at Kuuloa Ranch. His experience in the previous race was one of the main reasons why I entered the race. I will lean heavily on his experience for next year, as we will enter a team to compete in the Super AND the Beast!
Congratulations to all the finishers of the Spartan Race and good luck to all the qualifiers who will compete in the World Championship in Lake Tahoe in October! Hope to see all of you at the next race in Hawaii!
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