Crackneck

I’d been training for the Spartan World Championship for the past few months with running, sprint work, boot camp, gym training, obstacle training, lots of hill work and swimming. This was mostly done in the early hours of the morning before commuting to Sydney for work. So, 4am – 6am. Luckily I wasn’t the only crazy Spartan training at this time, and I only got really fed up with it once and told off a tyre that I was dragging up a hill. So with all the training behind me I headed off for Killington, Vermont . I was going solo on this flight (most of the team had already flown out the day before). After getting dropped off at the airport I boarded the Qantas flight to Dallas, Texas. Settling in with my food, and wonderful snackables located at the back of the plane, I watched a heap of movies, didn’t really sleep and then staggered around the Dallas airport while sleep deprived and eventually got on my next plane to Boston. Off at Boston and to the car rental place where I picked up ...

Tough Bloke was the very first obstacle race I did back in 2011. High Tide the bootcamp I train with had organised a group to head down for the day so I’d driven down with Lesley and run around the course in the 10am wave (just after the elite runners). I’d found the course easy apart from Hell’s Gate (the traverse rope), which I’d failed at miserably. This year however I was trained up and ready to conquer that rope! There were two OCRL races to compete in. The Saturday afternoon 2 lap wave and the Sunday morning 1 lap, sprint wave. The Saturday it was raining, which made the drive from the Central Coast down to Appin south of Sydney most unpleasant, I stopped for lunch at Campbelltown, and wasn’t really sure how or when I should eat for an afternoon race as I’ve only ever run first thing in the morning when I basically get up eat a few bananas and then go run. I ate way too much for lunch and seriously regretted it on the second lap that arvo. Getting to the Scout Park was easy en...

Dad and I flew up to Brisbane the day before Spartan , we were on the same flight as some of the top Central Coast Obstacle Course Racers; Matt , Ryan, Matt & Jarrad. Once we got to Brisbane we picked up our hire car and headed out to Ipswich . The weather was terrible; it was cold and raining. I have NEVER been to QLD when it was cold I actually thought that it never got cold there. Dad had a sleep that afternoon while I went off and did some exploring around Ipswich. I found Queen’s park and wandered around the very impressive Japanese Gardens. That evening we met up with the other OC racers for dinner. Everyone, especially me was very nervous about tomorrows race. The next morning was foggy and cold, but at least it wasn’t raining. We headed out to the course early, parked and I picked up my race pack. I met up with everyone else at the OCRL tent as they were all trying to stay warm and prepare themselves for todays race. After a bit of a warm up, I got geared up in my Bounce ...

I flew down to Melbourne the afternoon before the race and checked into the YHA before heading out to Docklands to scope out where the race would be taking place. The start line was being setup and all the volunteers were very busy. I followed the course around the waterfront, past the parallel bars & monkey bars and got as far as the ramp at the finish line. The parallel bars and ramp both had me worried, I’d never done parallel bars before and the ramp looked really large. The rest of it seemed to be mostly running, so that didn’t worry me at all. The next morning I was up early and headed for Docklands. The OCRL racers were in the last wave so I had plenty of time to pick up my race pack and drop my gear around at the OCRL tent, which was located about 500m away at the finish line. There were plenty of League racers all getting ready to run. I found Deanna at the start line with a heap of other League racers, some of whom I recognised from Facebook but hadn’t met in person b...

I’d had this event in my calendar as Mud, Sweat & Bears, I rather liked the idea of bears on the course… However turns out it was “Beers” not “Bears” and I was a little disappointed. This was the first obstacle race that I’d traveled and stayed overnight for. Mum and I drove out to Wagga Wagga on the Friday and stayed at a motel in town. The event itself was on a property just outside of town, and we headed out there early the next morning. The event was well laid out with parking close to the registration and a gathering of little tents near the start and finish line. There was a good selection of about half a dozen obstacles visible from the spectator section. I joined the other League racers at the OCRL tent and set out my supplies bag with them and also with mum near the finish line. Leah & Lachlan, two other Bounce team members were getting ready to race. We were all entered into the Toughest Nut wave, which required a minimum of 4 laps completed to be classed as a Mud...

The Spartan Sprint started very early for me when I got up at 4am to make the drive to Picton, south of Sydney. It was a non-eventful drive and we made it to the course, with it’s large Spartan logo spray painted on the grass. The setup looked great, I particularly liked the spear targets which were giant wooden Spartan men with straw bale targets sitting at belly height. I joined the other elite racers at the start line for the 8am elite wave. The MC got the racers all amped up mostly using quotes from 300 , everyone was ready to charge and then we were off. I sprinted straight into the first dam and waded through it, then started on the uphill and under the first barbed wire crawl, it was very low… I actually had to army crawl most of it, then back to running up the hill and over a sloped climb (with ropes to help us). Back down the hill and into the muddy pits where there was a mound of mud followed by a water pit. I jumped from the mud pile as far out into the water pit as possibl...