Never before has there been more buzz about an event in the OCR world than the Reebok Spartan races taking place this weekend.
Obstacle Racing Media is going to be there starting Thursday reporting on all the action.
Killington, Vermont is going to be the place to be September 20-22.
Television
The most compelling reason for all of the hype is, of course, the television coverage. NBC is going to be filming all weekend and plans to air the coverage on October 19, 2013. The largest chunk of filming will be surrounding the Saturday Beast-the 13 mile+ distance obstacle race.. By finishing first in this race, the winning male and female will be crowned Spartan World Champion and win a big chunk of money (more on that later). The Beast is also the last race in the 2013 Spartan Points Series and will help determine the overall champion as well. We also expect to see those cameras at the Pre Beast Feast which Spartan is throwing Friday night in nearby Pittsfield. It is the one place we know everyone will be prior to the various start lines all weekend.
Show Me The Money
The 2nd reason all eyes will be on Vermont is all that money. For the Saturday World Championship alone, there will be $15,000 given to the first place man and woman, $7,000 for 2nd place, and $5,000 for 3rd place. That’s the biggest podium payout to date in obstacle racing. The payouts for that race will go down to the top ten finishers and all ten of those people get Spartan season passes as well. Spartan Race is promising $250,000 in cash and prizes over the course of the weekend which will include the following: The 2013 Points Series payouts, the aforementioned Beast payouts, the UltraBeast payouts, and The Charity Challenge Sprint.
Best of the Best
With all of that TV coverage and dough floating around, this race is attracting athletes of all types. Coming to battle on the mountain this weekend will be:
The Olympians – From various disciplines from all over North America including-Fabiola Corona, Claude Godbout, and Anthony Famiglietti.
The Spartan Pro Team Members – Including Brakken Kraker, Hunter McIntyre, April Luu, David Magida, Tyann Clark, Alec Blenis, and Corinne Kohlen.
The Trail Bosses including – Cody Moat, Matt Novakovich, and Amelia Boone.
The Aussies – Some 20 odd Australians representing The Southern Cross Spartans including Matt Murphy, Will Lind, and Deanna Blegg.
The UltraBeast/Redemption
Last year at this time, Spartan Race brought the world its first marathon distance obstacle race. The Ultra Beast was touted as the toughest thing any of us had ever seen. It was two loops of a 13 plus mile course through the mountains and mostly self-supported. Some people quit after the swim at mile four. A huge pack, including many elites, quit when they went off course and realized they were out of the money. An even larger group called quits after lap one. In all, less than half the participants finished. Of those that did not finish, almost everyone vowed to come back next year. People who may have never had a huge goal in their life, had one. It became a war cry, Facebook pages were made and people kept their Sept 2013 calendars open and waited for the announcement.
This year those people are back for blood, along with an entirely new pack of racers who welcome a challenge. Course Director Norm Koch, who already broke the spirit of many an obstacle racer at the Virginia Super a few weeks ago, promises an even tougher course with an even smaller finishing percentage than last year’s Ultra Beast.
Finishing the Ultra Beast meant a giant glow-in-the-dark medal, envy of your peers, and massive personal pride. This year, it looks to mean even more.
Stay tuned as we bring you as much coverage as humanly possible all weekend on Facebook, Twitter, and this website. Use hashtag #RSRVT to keep up.
Matt B. Davis
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I just hope it’s not more weird Spartan crap like the so called death race. Mowing someone’s lawn to get back in the race and no identifiable winner does not make any sense.
Will Hobie Call be there?
Hobie will be there. We will be posting quotes from several racers including Hobie in the next day or so.
Why no mention of Hobie in roll call? I find that disrespectful. I’m glad he won the race. Reality check people! So biased
Hi Ethan and Mark,
As promised, we reached out to Hobie and many other top racers. Here is what they told us before the event.
https://obstacleracingmedia.com/ocr-news/2013-spartan-world-championship-weekend-preview-part-iii/
There is a forthcoming podcast with lots of interviews before and after as well so stay tuned. 🙂