Winter Spartan Race

winter spartan2

By recommendation of my friends, who participated in a few summer editions of Spartan, I decided to sign up for the first ever winter Spartan. To begin a few words about Spartan races. It is an international series of cross – country races with many demanding obstacles. Unlike other running events the route and details are not announced before the start. It creates an element of surprise and makes it more attractive. Most popular obstacles include carrying heavy things like wooden logs, sandbags, steel bars, jumping over walls, climbing a rope or crawling in mud and confined spaces and of course the signature jump over burning logs at the finish line. Many of these obstacles resemble elements of caving and climbing so I was not too worried.

Starting fee is a bit steep (around 40 euro) though you get a medal and a t-shirt. Owing to winter condition my friends did not join me for this event.

The race day did not start well as my train at 5 am to Liptovský Mikuláš was cancelled. Luckily the next one came on time and I was able to reach Jasna Ski Resort where the event was held.

The weather was winter one indeed – blizzards and wind and cloudy day. As I am used to winter mountain conditions it was more of an encouragement than a hindrance J

The route was 7.07 km, 20 obstacles, 596m elevation gain – mostly an uphill walk in deep snow and standing in line to the obstacles than a run. I did it in 2h 4 min. Despite Spartan marketing themselves as the hardest race it was not a challenge for me. Congratulations to organizers for good preparation of the event. In the future I will try to start in other editions of Spartan race 🙂

Excellent and unique addition was an ice sculpture which was also the last obstacle literally at the finish line – video how it was made below.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10153095003822904

Official race video.

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