Joanne and I were going to do the Warrior Dash last weekend, but due to scheduling conflicts we decided to do The Spartan Race instead. Like the Tough Mudder I did it in a kilt and I had a great time, especially with my team. The obstacles were pretty good, and overall it was challenging. A few of the obstacles were shabby in a thrown together kind of way. An example of this were the two by four blocks nailed to plywood obstacle. I idea is that you had to scale it sideways while staying off the ground. (Full disclosure, I failed at that obstacle and hyperextended my knee when I fell so I am kind of bitter). In the end it was cheesy, especially when for a few dollars more they could have had real rock climbing hand holds.

I guess the lot of it was the Spartan race was not as much fun as the Tough Mudder, and this seems to come down to a few things. First, the Spartan Race was just that, a race. That changes the atmosphere to a non-helpful event. At the TM, we were trying to help everyone else(and we had pledged to do so). This led to joking around in the middle and people pushing you over the walls. At the Spartan race there wasn't the same camraderie, in fact it was more dog eat dog. Second, the volunteers weren't encouraging. In fact they were rude, in an "I wish I was a Drill Sergeant" kind of way. This is lame considering not a single one of them did the race. The Texas Tough Mudder was supported by a volunteer group of Marines, who in most cases did the competition the next day. The final reason was that failure at an obstacle meant you had to do 30 burpees. While I am accostommed to doing burpees, it seemed a bit out of place. Often times, you wanted to try an obstacle again, but a nagging volunteer was telling you to do burpees. I can appreciate what they are trying to do, but there were skills that I would like to try a few times in order to accomplish them. A good example of this is throwing a spear. I am more interested in the accomplishment of hitting a target with a spear than I am in being punished for not knowing how. Why not let me do both, you get three spears and ten burpees per miss. Come to think of it I would do 5 spears with 10 a miss so I could practice.

Please don't misunderstand me, I don't dislike the Spartan Race. I am just saying it is not on par with the stories I have heard of the Warrior Dash, and my experiences of the Tough Mudder. This is a shame, because these kinds of activities are a lot of fun. I would do it again if it were in my area, but only if I couldn't get in to a Tough Mudder or Warrior Dash or Jail Break or Sandman or Metro Dash or Patriot Run or .... (I think you get the idea).  I had a great time, but that was because I was doing something fun with my friends, not because it was a particularly well run event. If you want my opinion it was more enjoyable to run 10 miles at the ToughMudder than to do 3.2miles at the Spartan Race, and I felt like I had accomplished something besides my ability to do burpees.