My bro sprung this one on me though, saying that he had free tickets for a 'Spartan Race' that was going to be held here in Sg. I've heard several things about this spartan race, such as it was a long muddy dirty obstacle race course which sounds pretty interesting and fun. I could use some outdoor time.
Arrived at the 'Spartan Race Village'. Went ahead to collect our race packs which had our time chips and the relevant wrist bands needed to run the race and claim a couple of free stuff at the end.
Big Crowd
Made the bag drop, luckily a new line opened up and it got settled pretty quickly. Otherwise it'd have been a long wait.
Spartan Race
Our heat was scheduled to start at 1:45pm. Headed down to the start line and was greeted by the lively and friendly staff there.
1 of the guys gave us a pretty energetic pep-talk which was quite fun. He told all of us to go down on a knee and started getting us to chant 'I AM A SPARTAN, AROO ARRO ROO AROO. WE ARE SPARTANS!!!'.
'NOW GO!!!' was the queue he gave as the line was drawn and everyone just started to chiong, just like the start of any other race.
1st few obstacles just required you to crawl under some nettings and scale a few low wall which was still pretty manageable. After which, you had to run for ~2km before needing to climb up and down this triangular rope ladder above people.
Think the first leopard crawl through barb wires station came up next. It's been awhile since my army days that I've leopard crawled. I totally forgot how tiring it actually was if you were trying to do it fast. What's nice about it was that they hung lots of flags on some of the barb wires with a lot of different 'motivational quotes' - it was literally in your face. Felt that gave more spunk to the whole atmosphere and event.
Had to run another few kilometres before we reached a sand bag station. This was was still manageable (the real shit is yet to come), they packed it in some soft material which you could carry on your shoulder. It wasn't exactly light though. You had to carry it for maybe about 100-200metres? Kept changing shoulders, then gave 0 fucks and just put it on my head. =/
Reached this 'memory' station where you were given some sort of random fact to memorise based on the last digit of your head-band number. Thought that you had to recite it for someone else somewhere later on, apparently I didn't get to do so, or missed it somewhat lol.
Monkey bar station was next. This one looks and sounds deceptively easy but it's where 60-70% of the people drop and have to do the 30 burpees. Basically, the bars were all connected to the whole line of people trying to go across and everyone was shaking it like crazy. The vertical ropes that you need to grab onto to traverse across required some grip strength lol. Fell twice, but just kept trying until I finally managed to clear it on the 3rd try (not supposed to do it >1 time but fk it lol), used 2 lanes though (grabbed the other lane's stuff).
Bag pull was next. Oh my, this was actually quite heavy and I had to haul ass with my full bodyweight lol. I was pulling and my back literally came very close to touching the floor while I was pulling. The staff said that you can't let it drop, or you do the 30 burpees. You had to slowly let it down. This one really sucked, gave my hand a couple of rope burns.
A long boring run followed till the next couple of obstacles.
The first was to fill this bucket with gravel till almost the brim. Holy fuck this thing was quite fucking heavy. On top of this, the grip was super bad - the bottom was not flat, it had like this round protrusion along the circumference around the base and it keeps sinking deep into your fingers. Damn pain. Got to carry that bucket and walk through this 'relatively long' route.
A series of higher looking walls came. It looked intimidating at first, but just ran, kicked up it, pulled myself over and managed to clear.
There was also this 45degree wall where you had to climb on the underside of it and go over. Looked scary too, but was surprisingly manageable.
A mini 'Rock wall', just that its small wooden grips. Cheated abit on this one lol, grabbed the scaffolding instead of strictly the small grips at some parts.
Javelin throw. You had 1 try to hit the red area or you gotta do burpees. I psyched myself up and act like some olympic thrower, doing a 'set-up' run and tossed it. Tyco that it hit. :D
Huge tire flips before another long boring run back with another concrete carrying station in between.
When I got back to the race village area and saw that there were more barb wired leopard crawls, I was damn sian. 1 of the barbwire sections was actually quite low and this shit actually hurt a little cause the floor isn't too muddy, so your skin keep scratching on the ground, giving me alot of scars, bruises and abrasions all over my body. Fuck (Partly my fault still for wearing shorts)
1 part had to jump into a muddy water area, which soaked the shit out of my shoes. Quite funny though.
There was also a 'low rope'. It's pretty high though, did it army style by making the knots, wasn't exactly easy then though. (Shacked from the run and leopard crawls)
Slippery slope rope climb. There was some girl was stuck on it in the middle with her body flat on the tile and her hand on the rope. I tried to climb and push her up but was already having problems hanging in there myself, so I just let her drop and went to the top when she seemed like she wasn't trying anymore. =/
Fire-pit Jump
Final station before the finish line required us to jump over a pit of fire!! (Looked underwhelming though - expected a bigger blaze, but then again it's Singapore)
Finished! Got the medal, finisher's tee and a pack of 'goodies'.
Post-Race
Went ahead to get our free beer and took as much free stuff as we could from all the random sponsor companies around (cheapskate).
There was a queue to this guy spraying a jet stream of water on you to wash you up. The jet was fucking strong, no wonder fireman/police could use 'hosing' to control riots. Learnt that one then.
Took a couple of photos:
Me & Bro
Overall, the race was rather fun. With regards to the obstacles (may have forgotten to mention a few), it really ranged from ridiculously easy to quite challenging. I'd give the monkey bars the hardest rating, you really need momentum for that one.
Got bruises, abrasions and cuts all over my body, but I feel so manly right now, just like A FUCKIN SPARTAN :D
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