I've run this one before. This was my third Super, the second one at the Wintergreen ski resort venue. In fact, including the very first event that I ran, the VA Tough Mudder in Oct, 2011, this was the third time I'd been at this resort for a non-ski-related event.
This year's course was reportedly 7.5 miles, and there was a great deal of terrain that we covered that was the same ground that we covered last year. However, there were some pretty significant differences in the course that truly made this event a signature Spartan event.
The day started out like any late summer day with cooler temps rolling in on Afton Mountain...shrouded in fog. The fog was so dense that when I got through registration and the bag check to enter the venue, no could see the bag check tent...it was white, and only about 30 yards away, but no one could see it. The men's elite wave was supposed to head out at 7:15am, followed 15 min later by the women's elite wave. However, the fog delayed the start times, and the men didn't head out until 8am.
The fog, the rain that we got, and the cooler temperatures over last year's event made a difference. On the one hand, there wasn't as much of a risk of sun stroke, but the wet did make many of the obstacles more challenging. For example, the monkey bars this year were not just a set up from some school play ground...this year, the bars had a bit larger diameter, and were staggered with respect to height and distance between them. Add in the water on the bars, and there were a number of big tough guys doing burpees.
This time around, the organizers did a much better job with the obstacles. When you enter the venue, the first thing you see is a sign post with a map of the course and the obstacles...many of which were marked "Classified". This got the first-time participants that I talked to a little excited. I was more concerned with, "where is the Death March on the course" and "how many water stops do they have?" There were a number of obstacles that took advantage of the hills, requiring everyone to not only traverse those hills, but to do so under load. The sandbag carry included walls that you had to go over. There was also the log carry (in the same place on the course as last year), the tractor pull, and the bucket carry. This is where you fill a bucket with small rocks, carry it up a hill and back down again. It sounds easy, I know...but it's anything but. I looked for pictures of this event on the web this morning, and one thing I noticed was that in some of them, the buckets have handles. We didn't. A number of folks would put their buckets down for a rest, and the bucket would spill the little rocks.
There were a number of climbs and traverse-type obstacles, there was the Spartan-signature spear throw. They included an Atlas-stone carry this year...pick up a big, round stone, carry it across a line about 8 - 10 yards away, put it down, do 5 burpees (which is harder than you think), pick up the stone and carry it back. The tire drag was uphill this time...on the DC Spartan Sprint, it was over level ground. To make this one a bit more fun, the obstacle location was just a bush-hogged space on the slope, so while you did get to give your legs a bit of a rest, the tire might get stuck on some of the stumps.
There was also a difference in this event from the DC Spartan Sprint...at each obstacle, there was more of a tendency for the participants to actually do their burpees if they missed an obstacle. I don't know if it was because there were fewer competitors at each obstacle (no place to hide)...the terrain has a natural tendency to spread the field, as it were. I was in an early wave, so that may have made a difference, I don't know. All I can say is that when I got to obstacles and found that folks had missed it (spear throw, etc.), it seemed as though they were more likely to head over to the burpee pit and knock them out. All of them.
The venue this year was just as well-laid out as last year. Everything was well organized, down to the wash racks. The only issue was the weather...by the time I finished up around 12:30pm, there was still fog on the mountain, and it was kind of hard to see things.
My final comment has to do with the drink tag on the race numbers. We pulled the drink tags off of our bibs, and I put mine in my bag. One of the tags had the word "alcohol" on it, and when I asked one of the volunteers where the beer tent/garden was, I was told that they couldn't serve alcohol, "...in the state of VA". However, there was a booth where you could purchase a beer. At the 2011 Tough Mudder, they had beer at the end of the event. Regardless, it was an awesome event, and I greatly appreciate all of the work that went into putting it together, from getting permits to the resort folks coming in to support the event, to the volunteers who worked it. Thanks also to my fellow participants!
