It was my first ever marathon/race in life, and it was one of most amazing experience, I am still sore, injured, ahhhhhh, it hurts, but couldn’t hold myself to write and share this experience to you all, this is not one of those races and marathon you watch on TV or hear about (at least not for me since it was my first)
As name suggest, Spartan, (when I heard the word Spartan all I remember one of greatest warrior movie of all time “300”and off course how can you forget great Spartan “Gerard butler,” with those amazing body and fight moves (love struck) 🙂 LOL anyways coming back to the race, the Spartan sprint is no ordinary race as it tests the limits of one’s physical strength and mental fitness, these qualities are surely the force that carries racers over, under, and through the obstacles of the course. In short its battle against wind, sand, water, mud and fire.
Spartan Race is already a very popular obstacle race series around the world, with over 60 races held around the world last year. They are held in USA and franchised to 14 countries including Canada, Arizona, many European countries, South Korea, and Australia. And now it was Dubai’s turn to host and get a taste of the race that challenges fitness enthusiast to “discover their inner warrior”. Every Spartan race, however, is different.
“Spartan Race does not provide a course map or List of obstacle to their participants until race day. “
It was first Spartans sprint race in Dubai, UAE. This race event was supported by Reebok and presented by X_DUBAI. Almost 5.000 fitness enthusiasts and elite athletes participated in Spartan sprint which was held at Jabel_ali racecourse, on Friday 20/02/2015.
We had to run 5+KM race through the desert with 15 obstacles lined the course.Each obstacle has its own techniques and difficulty and if you fail to complete it successfully, you have to perform 30 Burpees as punishment, (trust me there was a lot of burpees) especially at spear throw and rope climb. And yes how can I forget about that quickly building sand storm (major obstacle) which made this race even tougher for most of participants.
The obstacles included;
- Wall of various heights in which runners must first climb over a wall, then under a wall, then through square hole placed in a wall.
- Object carry: around 100m sandbag carry and 50m rock-filled bucket carry running on uphill sand
- Barbed wire crawl: a crawl under barbed wire, around 30 m and tire flip.
- Traverse wall, rope climbing and mud pool
- Spear throw: from a distance of 10-20 yards, athletes must throw a wooden spear into a target. (95% people couldn’t do it) and I failed majorly had to do 30 Burpees as punishment.
- Running over slippery mud wall which was built at an incline (roughly 45 degrees)
- Fire jump: participants had to jump over line of flames, at end of a race before finish line.
Each athlete who finished received a medal, energy bar, Spartan T-shirt and Spartan cap. The top finishers with the best times received prize cheque of 3000USD and title of Spartan UAE.
It was massive festival area at the Spartan Race where food and beverages were served on different food stalls, as well as music to be enjoyed by all.
The highlight of the event was crown prince, His Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, participated in race, much to everyone’s excitation. He earned his medal just like the rest of us.
Overall it was well hyped, well organised, energy stealing race event,Which brought strong sense of achievement, specially to many who participated for first time.
Thank you Spartan team for bringing this event to #MyDUBAI
Aaroo!! Aaroooooo!!
P.S STAY FIT STAY BLESSED
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