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Spartan West Palm! What a race this turned out to be. I had many doubts on this format coming into this year; how would qualifying go? Why is qualifying a third of the length of the final? Could lower level athletes sell out to knock out the top contenders? Will this actually be a good race? So many questions, and they all were answered. Overall, I loved this event.

High Octane racing is what the new Spartan 3k Format holds. It’s very fun to watch both in person and on the broadcast. It keeps the viewer locked in. Surprisingly, it’s also extremely fun for the athletes. I suppose I only speak for myself here, but I thoroughly enjoyed the qualifying rounds and the quick turnover and transition that was required to compete here. Gone are the days of slow jogging for 2+ hours and casually completing obstacles. Spartan is exciting.

Since this is very new and experimental format, Spartan is literally building these courses from already built locations and putting them together best they can while still catering their normal product for the masses. So Steve and Gary had their hands full with this one. The only failable obstacle on the course was the multi-rig. Everything else was some variation of a wall - Z-Wall, Over-Wall, Dunk-Wall, Inverted-wall, etc. After arriving and scoping out the course I was disappointed with what was presented as far as challenge, but the course truly doesn’t matter because the athletes will make it a race. Obstacles, easy or hard, will always create challenges for the racers. Running as hard as you can into a 6ft wall, hurts. When you’re racing at this high level, intensity is the deciding factor of obstacle difficulty. So with that in mind, I respected what the course would ask of me, and I began piecing together my plan.

I knew I probably wasn’t the fittest athlete in attendance. I’m still building back after everything I lost from last year and things aren’t always as smooth as we hope them to be. But fortunately, I’m a good racer. I can get a lot from myself when it matters most. And I mean, I’m the 3k world champ so… I felt confident! I figured the first round was going to be the learning experience of the day to get familiar with everything, then we could strategize from there.

The first round was scary...Read Full Article Here