TOUGH MUDDER & SPARTAN RACES

Tough Mudder and Spartan Races

Thinking about doing a Tough Mudder or a Spartan Race? Do it!!!

I am a huge fan of these adventure races and I am so happy they have become so popular. While road races and regular running is an awesome workout and I know a ton of people absolutely love to run, I can't say I truly love pounding the pavement for hours. I definitely feel like I'm much more built for jumping, running, hiking and crawling through the mud than I am for a long distance run. If you're considering taking on a Tough Mudder or a Spartan race this year I'll be doing training sessions for both and here is my review of both and some tips so you know what to expect!

Last year I did the Spartan Sprint in Amesbury, the Beast at Killington the Tough Mudder at Mt. Snow and am back for more this year. The idea of both races is the same but the feel of each was different.

TOUGH MUDDER

The Tough Mudder was about 9 miles with 25+ obstacles and it is more of a team event than the Spartan Races. Large teams show up in fun costumes and stick together through the race. They have a great team oriented pump up at the beginning which was a big plus! The Tough Mudder doesn't individually time you but you can check your time when you finish. We had a great team with about 8 of us staying together the whole time. It's super fun, lots of team work, everyone waits for each other and helps each other though the obstacles, and not just our own team, it's definitely a bgroup mentality at this race. They have water/Gatorade stops with bananas and snacks every couple miles. You can skip any obstacle without penalty (and many racers skipped the electric obstacles).

"ELECTRIC EEL"

I was pretty worried about being electrocuted on three of the elements. The first was the "electric eel" where you crawl though muddy water under barbed wire with electric wires dangling down just waiting to zap you. We decided to go for it and it really wasn't too bad, I was only shocked twice and it's very quick. I've heard mixed reviews of the shocks and maybe there are some wires that are more loaded than others but no one on our team felt like it was too terrible. If you think about it, with the multitudes of everyday people that sign up for these races, they can't really shock you all that badly. The next one was 'dark lightning'. This one was the worst because you can't see anything. You crawl through a small opening in the mud into a pitch black tunnel where you know electric shocks are waiting for you. The electric wires hang from above but if you wait for the lightning flashes though, you can see where the wires are hung and crawl through and avoid them. The last one is the finish line where hundreds of long wires hang blocking your way to the finish. We decided to go for it as a team and just ran though. We got shocked a couple of times but again,  the shocks are not too bad, just a little zap.

Finish Line - "Electroshock Therapy"

Beyond the electric obstacles, the tough part is just resigning yourself to running/hiking up and down a ski mountain all day. Every time you come down and think, "we can't go up again!" you do. It's mostly a mental game, once you decide that you're okay with hiking up and down Mt. Snow all day you'll be fine. Along the way you'll run into monkey bars, the 'arctic enema' an icy water bath you have to submerge yourself in (which felt pretty great in mid July), log carry, balance beam over water, a 15 ft jump into the lake (which was awesome!), there's are watery tunnel crawls and crawls through tunnels under ground, lots of 8-12' walls to scale, and tons more!

You will be muddy and you will be tired! At the finish line you get your bright orange Tough Mudder headband and a beer of course!

                                                               SPARTAN RACES

The Spartan Races are my favorite, I love both the TM and the Spartans but the Spartans are definitely harder and more competitive. This year we are doing all 3 distances, the Spartan Sprint, (3+ miles/15+ obstacles) Spartan Super (8+ Miles/ 20+ obstacles) and The Beast (12+ Miles/25+ obstacles). The Sprint is a great one to start with, super fun and short but still challenging. If you're new to this and just want to try one this was a great starting point. I haven't done the super yet but we are doing it this year in New Jersey! (9/7) We did the Beast last year and it was by far the best race I've ever done! It was super challenging but so much fun! Well worth it and our Tough Mudder team from last year is going up to try to Beast this year!

Spartan races are all individually timed with points given out for your placing. I'm a competitive girl so I really appreciate this type of motivation. The Beast is definitely harder than the Tough Mudder, not only because it's longer (last year was over 13 miles) but the challenges are harder and there's less of a silly 'lets-dress-up in-costumes' vibe, there's no time to stop and take photos or hang out and eat snacks along the way. We had a team of 5 which ended up breaking up into 3 groups. We tried to stay together but it's very difficult to do it as a team. I would pick a someone who is in similar shape to stick with so you don't end up alone. There's a lot of 1 track running trails so it become difficult to keep a group together. Honestly it's easier to move though a lot of this with only 1 other person and everyone on the trail is still super nice so don't worry if you get separated or need help with an obstacle.

The Beast is similar to the Tough Mudder in that you need to resign yourself to going all the way up and down Killington all day! I wore my Nike+ tracker so you can see the course and the elevation. At the highest and last ascent we were at 3,758 feet. 

The obstacles include water filled trenches, muddy wet crawls under barbed wire, walls to get over, under and though, rope climbs, monkey bars, a Hercules weigh pull, a rope crossing, sled pull, log jumps, bock carry, a memory test, cargo net, spear toss and a swim to the middle of the lake where you have to climb a rope ladder and swing across ropes to hit a bell (I didn't see one person actually complete this successfully). If you don't complete an obstacle you have to do 30 burpees!

The end of the race was awesome, we climbed the the very top of the mountain where there was a fantastic view and yet another rope climb. Throughout the race we decided to try and run anytime we were going downhill or flat. This race has only one water stop (around 6 the mile mark) so it is imperative that you bring your own water and whatever else you may need. (They mention this about 100 times when you sign up...listen to them!)
I really preferred this survival style race, lots of people brought GU or energy chews along. I definitely suggest getting a small camel-pack, they will fill it up for you at the water stop. I brought a camel-pack of water and a small Gatorade and I felt awesome the whole time. My running partner was a guy who was bigger than me and he definitely was happy to have his GU chews and more Gatorade Just plan accordingly for what you're used to having and what you need for a long race.  DO NOT DO THE BEAST WITHOUT WATER!!!

FOR REAL...

At the finish you get a medal, a T-shirt and a banana! There is an awesome fire jump right before the finish line and there is always a photographer right there to catch your awesome leap over the flames. Another plus for the Spartan Race was that they give their pictures to you for free!! They only had photographers at a few key spots but we managed to get great pics of everyone on our team and it's awesome that they are free. They also had outdoor hose showers with free Dial for men which was amazing! It's so nice to have some soap at the end of this because you will be disgusting and covered in mud.

Both races are awesome and you should definitely do all of them!!

Feel free to shoot me any questions you may have about the races or about training and feel free to join our team for any of the races

Tough Mudder Boston           10-12 miles - 6/1 - Gunstock

(we don't have an official team for the TM but there are a bunch of us going up.)

http://toughmudder.com/

Spartan Sprint New England, 3+ miles/15+ obstacles -  8/10 Amesbury Sports Park 

Spartan Super NJ Tri-State,   8+ miles/20+ obstacles -  9/7 Mountain Creek Water Park

Spartan Beast VT,                12+miles/25+ obstacles -  9/21 Killington Ski Resort

Spartan Team: 'Muck Savages' 

http://www.spartanrace.com/

Tips:

Try to go as early as possible for both races, the lines for the obstacles get really bunched up the closer you get to the end (more so in the TM). It's tough when you get to the end and have to wait in line to complete an obstacle when you're ready to just finish. Especially for the Beast, we watched people come down the mountain with headlights on and it is a rough race in daylight, you definitely don't want to end up in the dark. It's also way muddier and the more people have gone so I'd suggest doing early Saturday if you can.

Wear shoes with great grip that you don't care too much about. You can clean your shoes after but they'll never be the same. I like to wear last years running shoes and throw them out after.

Bring a change of clothes with you and a towel, there is a bag check so pack a bag with some dry comfy sweatpants and also sandals or new dry shoes, you'll definitely appreciate it when you're done.

Wear tight light clothes. You're going to be wet all day so wear clothing that is as tight to your skin as you can and light, dry-fit style materials are the best. Don't wear a cotton t-shirt, it will weigh you down all day. I like to wear 3/4 leggings that cover my knees because your knees will get cut up.
Wear gloves, your hands will be shredded from all the ropes, logs etc.

If you can roll sideways under the barbed wire do it! It's much easier than actually crawling.

Both races have ropes over lakes, for the TM there was no way to get above but my suggestion, if you can, is not to get underneath and like a monkey but to get on top of the rope and pull yourself across, that way your arms and legs don't have to hold your the full weight of your body and it's much easier. I did this for the Beast and it was so much easier and faster.