The 2015 Miami Spartan Sprint was held the weekend of December 5-6 at Vista View Park in Davie, Florida. With pouring rain leading up to and throughout the event, I wondered when I showed up first thing Saturday if maybe I’d get a chance to see Noah with his Arc. The localized flooding caused Spartan to move the parking area back to farther out locations four times much to the chagrin of the participants. They ended up having to bus athletes 40 minutes to and from the event from a football stadium. Once there, I was expecting a flat and fast course, but the rain and the man made hills of the park created a messy run with almost 400 feet of elevation gain. The festival and starting corral were located near the front of the park and by the time the first Elite wave took off on Saturday most of the park area was under water. This did provide the kids at the event with an awesome opportunity to get soaked and throw some mud around.
The 4.96-mile course started out by winding us up, around, and down the gentle hills of the park leading back up the hill to the Overalls. By this point, the hills had started to separate people fairly well. Back down the hill led us to a paved road where the 6 and 7 foot walls were waiting for us along with a new vertical Cargo Net Climb on our way to a longer than average Bucket Brigade through some of the standing water and around a small hill where we deposited our buckets for the next lucky athletes. A short jog away was a well-placed Atlas Stone carry through a rain filled ditch and back; that ditch was nearly overflowing with water by the end of the day. Most of us really started feeling the sting in the arms after these two stacked events. We then were led up another one of the gently rolling hills where the Memory Test was located. Now, Spartan told us during the pre-race directions numerous times that we didn’t have to do the Memory Test. Why there was always people standing there trying to remember it I’ll never know. Just pay attention to the directions right? Back down the hill Spartan led us through a rain filled drainage ditch and back up a hill where the Rope Climb was located and onto the Sandbag Carry down and back up the hill. The stacking of grip strength related obstacles back to back at a few locations along the way was a great way to really test a person!
This started us on the way down the hill a final time and led us to the back third of the course. The Inverted wall and 8-foot wall were the first to greet athletes on the back end of the course. The A-Frame Cargo was placed before the Spear Throw which was followed up by the Multi Rig. Again, the stacking of the Spear followed by the Rig was a great idea. If you missed that spear throw you were going to be pretty gassed at the Multi Rig. The Barbed Wire crawl was up next and wasn’t as near as long as most on a Sprint course. Athletes came right out of the crawl and through more standing water to the Slippery Wall. The end is in plain sight now and Spartan placed 3 of their Rolling Mud hills in right before the photo op obstacle known as the Dunk Wall. After getting your picture taken by the Spartan staff all that was left was to crawl out of the pit and do your Fire Jump, which was kept going during the pouring rain by a staff member constantly running across from one side to the other dumping gas as he went. After running a few post-Spartan Championship Sprints, I was pleasantly surprised at the difficulty level here. Add in the nasty conditions and you really had an Epic event.
Scott Brackemyer
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It was a great race,I was in the Men’s Elite group Saturday morning,later on the hills got worse in the afternoon lots of rain…I train in Vista Park I hope they do another race there…course set up was great enjoyed it alot…post more good read…