I can't remember the last time I ran a Spartan Race, but I couldn't pass up their return to Raymond James Stadium since it's so close to where I live and it's a cool venue to run a race. I was impressed with how much has changed to make registration, check in and everything leading up to the actual race fast and smooth.
One thing I wasn't a fan of was all the exercises. Aside from the fact that it's not my favorite thing during a race, any time you are counting out reps of something instead of having a clear start and finish, things get a little iffy. For example, going into the push-ups (which was really cool in the USF locker room), the people doing push-ups were doing hand release, so I did too. Then it seemed like it wasn't necessary to do those. Talking to some people after the race that run a lot of stadium races, they said it was just expected that there would be people doing the exercises differently or not doing all the reps. That was disheartening to hear, but it's hard to police those things without having a person designated to count out for each person, like in a Deka event. Logistically, that would be impossible in a race this size.
Other than that, it was really cool to see the stadium at EVERY level (so many stairs) and see so many people that I haven't seen in years.
13 май 2023
