Spartan Race does Long Island- 19th Century Style

“If onlys and justs were candies and nuts, then everyday would be Erntedankfest.”

-Dwight Schrute

There were plenty of reasons that I could think of to NOT run the Spartan Long Island Sprint last weekend:

It snowed on Thursday and there was still snow on the ground in places.
It was in the 30s when I woke up for the race.
There was a shuttle and Matt B Davis didn’t send me a media parking pass.
I had a lot of leaves that I still needed to rake and bag in my yard

There were also plenty of reasons that I could think of TO run the Spartan Long Island Sprint last weekend:

It was really cold out and if Kelly decided to run a Toughest or World’s Toughest Mudder then it would be good training.
We already had a babysitter lined up and no matter how many things I listed above, a respite from the children is not the sort of thing you can turn down.
From a review standpoint I had the opportunity to compare how Spartan utilized the venue versus how Tough Mudder utilized the venue.
I like racing and I have done less of it this year.

Ok, so we did the race and we had fun. Spartan Race is a well oiled machine and things like registration, bag check, parking, and shuttles (even though I hate shuttles) went smooth as usual. Oh, and the pictures came out like 4 days later. This isn’t their 400th rodeo, they have that ish on LOCK. If you found this review and were looking for in depth coverage of the check in process then you may want to keep searching, otherwise Solo will never talk to me again and my streak of never being nominated as the best OCR writer will continue.

Where was I? Right, the race! I haven’t run a true Spartan Race since 2016 when Kelly and I completed our Trifecta at Palmerton, New Jersey and Wintergreen (RIP). We did the Citi Field Stadium sprint earlier this year, but that doesn’t count as they do not roll out all of the normal obstacles. This means that we have never had the chance to try Twister or Olympus and this race would provide us with that opportunity! We were in the first open heat of the day and it was roughly 42 degrees. We were each wearing Under Armour compression cold gear and I was looking fly in my new New Zealand Akuma Jersey. The course was well marked, there were no lines and other than a slew of Dude Bros dropping the Herc Hoist from the top and the bags almost exploding upon impact with the ground everything ran perfectly (Dude Bros not pictured above). For all the hating people do on Spartan for their lack of innovation there is something to be said about their consistency and they are clearly doing something right as large numbers of people continue to frequent their events. I enjoy running Spartan Races and will look at it as a way to test myself against something relatively predictable in the landscape of OCR. Anyway, I digress! Here are my highlights of the event:

Utilization of Venue

I mentioned in my reasons TO run the Spartan Long Island Sprint that I was interested in how Spartan used the venue compared to Tough Mudder. Spartan did a few things differently that were really cool. They utilized a large indoor hall for registration. This kept people warm as well as provided a cool aesthetic as it was very rustic and cool to be inside. In fact, I believe that it is often booked as a wedding reception hall, so needless to say it beat standing in line in the cold. Other than that, the trails that Spartan used were the same as Tough Mudder, only shorter since it was a 4 mile Sprint course.

Festival Area

This was probably my favorite part of the event. After Kelly and I had gotten our bags and scoped out the always swaggy merch area I spotted a Salmon Ladder just behind the Spartan Festival Challenge set up. At my old house in Virginia I built one in my backyard and since moving to New York I have only been on the Salmon Ladder at Obstacle Athletics once over a year and a half ago, so I was excited to try it. It turned out that this was not a Spartan set up Salmon Ladder but that Danny Adair and Jovanny Hernandez of The Warrior Factory brought it down from Rochester, NY for the participants of Spartan Race to play on. All you needed to do was sign a waiver and you were able to give it a try. There was a good amount of people attempting it and I thought it greatly improved the festival area for participants as well as spectators as anyone could try it. Unfortunately, this is not the sort of thing that you can expect at every Spartan Race across the country. That being said, it is not a huge leap to say that Spartan has the best festival area in the game. The Spartan Festival Challenges alone make Spartan unique and provide something for people to do/watch in the festival area.

Spear Throw

I hit my first spear throw. I HIT my FIRST spear throw. I HIT MY FIRST SPEAR THROW!!!!! I think I’ve done something like 8 or 9 Spartan Races and this was my first hit. I was pretty stoked.

Conclusion

I enjoyed this race very much. I thought that Twister and Olympus were both challenging (even though I am a year late trying them) and fun additions to the Spartan obstacle vault. You know what you are going to get with Spartan and that is a well run, consistent product with very little deviation from their blueprint. As long as you are aware of this and set your expectation accordingly there is no reason why you shouldn’t attend and enjoy yourself a Spartan Race. Y’all come back now, ya hear!

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Keith Allen

Keith Allen is an Air Conditioning Salesman and an exhausted father of two. When not carrying his children around in Baby Bjorns he is often found cooking delicious homemade quesadillas to fuel his hunger from running OCR's