New Jersey Spartan Beast Overview

So This past weekend marks the begining of the road to my double trifecta with spartan race. So this race had some ups and downs (I will get into them, but i must say overall it was still fun) First off, Yes this race had some snow, and that was pretty cool, but the week leading up to the race nj was above 60, so all the snow that was in the promo photos was mostly gone, but still plenty on course. But all the hype about Norm being there, and it being the hardest beast ever, yup you guessed it, pure hype. It may be unfair because  have only done the killington beast last year, and it is not fair to compare the two. This one was no cake walk, but I was expecting much worse. I ran elite, and it was cool to get the course with out any back ups. But nothing was made harder, no extra weight for us, or anything like that, I like a challenge, bring it on. The venue is hard but doable, my knees are still hurting from the mountain. Guess they don't like running down steep mountains for as long as it was. The snow added an interesting element, before each hunk of snow had a bunch of ice before it. The morning on my way to the venue it was 50's so the snow that was there was hard, and made for a slippery run, it was great, and made me chuckle on the way up the mountain. There were no water obstacles, so the traverse rope was over the ground, which was weird to me but since they were concerned about the water temps makes sense. they had a traverse pipe, with tarzan ropes in between, and that was cool, even if I dropped right after the first pipe. Luckily that was the only obstacle I failed, it felt great when I got the hurc hoist, I think that the way they put the hurc hoist on the wire, and the spear I am getting decent at! The course weirded me out because the mile markers were pretty accurate, my gps got 12.53 and the poster said 12.5. I almost forgot, one of the coolest things was this

Yes that is an uphill barbwire crawl through snow!

an up hill barbwire crawl through snow! it made it very interesting, with numb hands and knees, and then right into rocky, muddy. Also this year on course snacks are back, this time it was cliff shot blocks, and they did the trick, it was the only thing I ate, and if they were not out at all the water stops, I may not have eaten anything, strictly because I would have forgotten, I had so many in my bag. Just in case you forget that you are in the middle of nowhere, at the atlas carry, just after completing the carry, I saw a deer run across the course, and I heard it spent a good chunk of the day in the area, pretty cool! (in case you are wondering I wore my new shoes, take a look at what and how I feel here

top is a drawstring bag I brought, bottom is what was used for bag check

Now for the other hand, the new BAG CHECK  (insert photo here) I understand that spartan is trying to fix a problem they have with too many big bags, but this seems like a step too far in the other direction. They are also still figuring it out. I got a bag (just bigger than a draw string bag) when I parked, and it is SMALL, pretty tight fit to put a towel, change of clothes, wallet, cell, keys, recovery drink, ect. Doable, but what about wanting sun screen, and other extra things. So needless to say I prefer to have the ability to check my GR1, instead, it reall is just a medium sized backpack. Also I heard that the venue employees did not know how to handle it, and were told one bag per car, and when you carpool, and only get one bag, that is disappointing. and then some of the volunteers were told that you could not get more bags, even though they had them, a bunch of miscommunication on that end. Later on in the day it seemed to be worked out that you could buy another one for an extra 5 per bag. But bag check is 5 bucks, and if you have a season pass it is free,or when you get biggest team all members get free: Bag check, tent, patches, and shout outs on social media and the like on race day. Another issue I had was that they moved team tent outside of the venue, past the spartan race tape, But hey it was closer than biggest loser (which I don't understand). Although they did leave us a several cases of; water, gatoraide, cliff builders bars, cliff shot blocks. So not the worst thing, just a little odd to me, and i hope that these things get straitened out in the near future.


Also, I can now say I saw the awesomeness that is Amelia Boone! at about mile 4 after the monkey bars, and mostly up a mountain, and a 15 min lead, she passes me, and so many other of the men's heat. We were walking up the mountain, and she just shuffles up the mountain, like she wasn't even winded, and I was in awe!

So until next time, keep training, race season is here
Stephen