Spartan Race Training

jasonsunlee
jasonsunlee Posts: 48 Member
edited November 13 in Fitness and Exercise
Signed up for my first Spartan race! Super excited to try something new! Has anyone else participated in these events? Mine is a short one (5 miler) in Castaic' CA.

How the heck do you train for one of these? Trail runs? Pull ups? Looks intense.

Replies

  • AverageJoeFit
    AverageJoeFit Posts: 251 Member
    I have done one and am planning on more.

    The obsticals are fairly upper body heavy. As far as running hills or trail running is important.

    The shorter ones don't worry too much about distence over 3 miles you won't be running that far with out an obstical.

    I do upper body strength training 3 days a week then trail running 2 days. Every mile I run I stop and do some pushups, squats and or burpees. I was over prepared for the race in the end.

    But that's me

  • kota4bye
    kota4bye Posts: 809 Member
    Push ups, burpees, and grip strength. 5ks will easily prepare you endurance wise
  • esjones12
    esjones12 Posts: 1,363 Member
    The Sprint courses are always 4-5 miles these days. Definitely train on trails and hills (even if your race lacks hills it will better prepare you to run on them). If you can get somewhere to practice technique obstacles that would help (walls, spear, rope climb). Definitely work on upper body and grip strength too. Lots of burpees, pullups, etc. Practice carrying heavy things (sandbags, buckets of rocks or weights, etc.). A good practice for the sandbag carry in a gym is a kettlebell on the treadmill at an incline. Men's bags are upwards of 40 pounds. Message me with any more specific questions....

    Whatever you do, don't just go out and start training like crazy, build up slowly or you will just being asking for an injury.
  • McCloud33
    McCloud33 Posts: 959 Member
    Depends on your goal. If you just want to finish, 5k distance is enough. If you really want to do the best you can, try and up the mileage closer to 6-8 miles. That way you won't be gassed at the end. Look at the website and look at the obstacles...most of them aren't "hard" depending on your fitness level. Walls (4', 6' & 8') , hurdles, slip wall, rolling mud, over-under-through, spear throw, rope climb, atlas carry, weighted sled pull, barb wire crawl, monkey bars, rope traverse and rig (some combo of rope/ring/bar/ball that you have to traverse) are all some that I've come across and remember.

    I've done the beast and sprint so far and have my super distance in about three weeks in VA on the ski slope.
  • gimmieonemore
    gimmieonemore Posts: 9 Member
    The intense looks are mostly marketing. Yeah, trail run and climb over whatever is handy, and you'll be happy with your performance.
  • kwtilbury
    kwtilbury Posts: 1,234 Member
    Running and circuit/interval training. You need to get used to completing obstacles/challenges under duress.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    edited September 2016
    This content has been removed.
  • jdwils14
    jdwils14 Posts: 154 Member
    jasonsunlee wrote: »
    Signed up for my first Spartan race! Super excited to try something new! Has anyone else participated in these events? Mine is a short one (5 miler) in Castaic' CA.

    How the heck do you train for one of these? Trail runs? Pull ups? Looks intense.

    Bring yourself to the brink of death, and then repeat the next day.

    Haha....no, but really it is tough. I completed the Super a couple months ago in the hills of San Jose. It was a *kitten*.

    It is a lot of upper body, so focus on that. The less you weight, the better your grip is, the better off you are.

    Oh, and do burpees. LOTS of them. They suck balls, but they are there waiting for you. In the Super, I did about 130 of them, and mentally said about the same number of F-bombs in my head.

    It is all about conditioning.
  • jdwils14
    jdwils14 Posts: 154 Member
    Castaic is in the foothills of the Grape Vine. You will be climbing some hills. Flat terrain is good for endurance, but does nothing for your calves when you need to go up hills. Start kicking that gradient up however you can.
  • jeepinshawn
    jeepinshawn Posts: 642 Member
    I was looking at doing a terrain race, similar to the spartan, I am pretty confident about the distance and walls, but the darn monkey bars have me stumped. They have a section with monkey bars and another where you go across and for grips you are hanging from those fake rock holds they put on climbing walls. I'm working on doing pull ups, right now I am up to 3 sets of 6, but I still don't think I can make the full length of monkey bars without losing my grip.
  • esjones12
    esjones12 Posts: 1,363 Member
    jeepinshawn wrote: »
    I was looking at doing a terrain race, similar to the spartan, I am pretty confident about the distance and walls, but the darn monkey bars have me stumped. They have a section with monkey bars and another where you go across and for grips you are hanging from those fake rock holds they put on climbing walls. I'm working on doing pull ups, right now I am up to 3 sets of 6, but I still don't think I can make the full length of monkey bars without losing my grip.

    Rock climbing and lots of grip work are essential to crazy monkey bars and rigs in OCR.

    Also, if you haven't yet signed up for Terrian Race, I would maybe hold off.....rumor has it they were cancelling almost all their races for the rest of the season. Might be worth looking into before putting money down.
  • jeepinshawn
    jeepinshawn Posts: 642 Member
    amyrebeccah wrote: »
    esjones12 wrote: »
    jeepinshawn wrote: »
    I was looking at doing a terrain race, similar to the spartan, I am pretty confident about the distance and walls, but the darn monkey bars have me stumped. They have a section with monkey bars and another where you go across and for grips you are hanging from those fake rock holds they put on climbing walls. I'm working on doing pull ups, right now I am up to 3 sets of 6, but I still don't think I can make the full length of monkey bars without losing my grip.

    Rock climbing and lots of grip work are essential to crazy monkey bars and rigs in OCR.

    Also, if you haven't yet signed up for Terrian Race, I would maybe hold off.....rumor has it they were cancelling almost all their races for the rest of the season. Might be worth looking into before putting money down.

    I've read this rumor too, which makes me sad. Terrain-Flagstaff was probably the best laid out and most organized race I've gone to, including Spartan. I certainly hope that they just grew a little too fast and are pulling back.

    It looks like they've only cancelled three races though, and not the Eugene race (which I assume would be the one @jeepinshawn was interested in based on his location). http://obstacleracingmedia.com/ocr-news/terrain-racing-removes-3-races/

    The only reason I mention it is that the Eugene race is $30/35 today but does go up to $60/65 if you wait til tomorrow, so that might factor into the consideration.

    @amyrebeccah They have been saying that the eugene race is going to go up to $60 for months. They just keep pushing the deadline back, which makes me even more skeptical given the talk of removing races...
  • Brocksterdanza
    Brocksterdanza Posts: 208 Member
    I completed my first sprint last month... doing the best Halloween weekend and the super first week of December. The sprint i didbt really train for and did just fine... I'm also 250 pounds... i have better endurance than most folks my age. I used to weigh 325 pounds.. as for the beast, I'm doing 14-16 miles a week on trails... 2 days a week during the run, i stop every 3/4 miles and do 20 burpees, 20 mountain climbers, 20 walking lunges... 1 day a week i lift upper body... 1 day i circuit train with sprint intervals. I did 120 burpees in my Sprint... 90 of those due to knowing i couldnt do obstacles (rope climb, multirig, monkey bars) as i cannot do the upper body stuff (too much weight and not enough upper body strebgth) and the other was the z wall... thats also near impossible for a big guy.

    I am hoping that with this training i can get the beast done in 6.5-7.5 hours... if not, i will be running in darkness... haha
  • vs_shine
    vs_shine Posts: 1,322 Member
    edited October 2016
    jasonsunlee wrote: »
    Signed up for my first Spartan race! Super excited to try something new! Has anyone else participated in these events? Mine is a short one (5 miler) in Castaic' CA.

    How the heck do you train for one of these? Trail runs? Pull ups? Looks intense.


    I just signed up for my first Spartan Race!! March 2017!!
    woot woot!!!
    I've been running all year building my endurance.
    Doing boot camp style workout class 3x's a week.
    Working on my burpees :-)

    when is your race?
  • Spartan1230
    Spartan1230 Posts: 196 Member
    vs_shine wrote: »
    jasonsunlee wrote: »
    Signed up for my first Spartan race! Super excited to try something new! Has anyone else participated in these events? Mine is a short one (5 miler) in Castaic' CA.

    How the heck do you train for one of these? Trail runs? Pull ups? Looks intense.


    I just signed up for my first Spartan Race!! March 2017!!
    woot woot!!!
    I've been running all year building my endurance.
    Doing boot camp style workout class 3x's a week.
    Working on my burpees :-)

    when is your race?

    Next closest one for me is in June. May be one in Missouri so hoping that comes through.
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