Race Recap – Spartan Sydney Urban Sprint 9 February 2019
What is a Spartan urban sprint?
An urban sprint is an entry level 5km Spartan race with about 20 obstacles held closer to city centres on flat terrain. Urban sprints attract a lot of newcomers to OCR who can try out the sport in a less intimidating and less extreme environment. The distance is short. The terrain is either fast mown grass or pavement. The obstacles are core Spartan obstacles. While there are a few more challenging obstacles like Z Wall, monkey bars and rings, there are no difficult or dirty obstacles like 8 foot walls, water crossings, or muddy barbed wire crawls. You will finish the race quite clean as there are no water or mud obstacles. The festival area usually has great viewing opportunities out onto the race course. The Sydney Urban Sprint was held in the Olympic Park parklands on short cut grass similar to running on an oval.
Why would someone like me who likes mountains, mud and techy terrain travel to Sydney to do an urban sprint?
I did this race to build confidence as the races I feel most comfortable doing are 21km with 800m or more vert. Short distances scare me. Flat races scare me. The sprint distance used to be 7km and has been reduced to 5km as part of a global Spartan move in 2019. The first National Series race in 2019 is a Sprint. To qualify for the Spartan World Championships you need to place top 10 in the overall National Series, so doing well in the Sprint is essential. I did more flat speed and tempo work to prepare for the distance and coming races. I always feel very anxious for the first OCR race I do each year, so it is good to have a race before the National Series begins. I also love seeing all my OCR friends and regardless of outcome you leave feeling that OCR community energy.
What was the race like?
The course was mown grass with evenly spaced obstacles. It was nice to have evenly spaced obstacles rather than clusters of obstacles which is the norm in most other locations where it is more difficult to transport the obstacles around the course. This also meant there was never a large distance of uninterrupted running where you could make up time, so making any mistake on a single attempt obstacle could be fatal to your race.
The first part of the race was over some evenly spaced four to six foot walls. It was crowded and on two walls I had people coming up the wall bump my hands or feet from behind as I jumped off the wall. I had expected it to be crowded and for some bumping to occur so was ready for this. Having the wall on a bend was a bit of a planning mistake so early on in the course because turning the corner while jumping an obstacle requires you to accelerate on an angle, and given the agility difference between a lot of elites it led to congestion. There was then a bit more running followed by a cargo net crawl (thankfully much looser than in Bright and on soft grass) followed by a farmers carry. I was the leading female by this point but not by much. The farmers carry was two 25kg water jugs. I had to put the jugs down twice, but understand the other females also found this carry heavy.
Running back towards the festival area there was an inverted wall then a Z Wall followed by the Hercules hoist which was extremely light. Not sure if I just got lucky with a light bag or the weight for Urban Sprint is less than normal. I find the weight for Hercules hoist can vary enormously between races and whether conditions are dry or wet. The men were really congested at this obstacle, so their weight was clearly comparatively heavier. I was just placing my bag on the ground and running away from the obstacle when other elite girls arrived at the Hercules hoist. There was then a torsion bar overhead carry, tyre obstacle, balance beam and a sandbag carry, followed by rings and the monkey bars evenly spaced with running in between. I had managed to build about a minute or so lead by now, but I knew I needed to keep pushing in case I missed the spear throw obstacle. The last kilometre of the race was super quick, with the course winding around the festival area and including a rope climb before the spear throw. My throw was close to sticking (the target next to the one I was aiming for) but bounced off. I did the 30 burpees as quickly as possible, trying to stay positive because it was likely I would be passed by the second girl if she stuck the spear throw. Despite my burpees seemingly like they took a very long time, I finished and no other girls were in sight. I ran towards the final obstacles, a cargo net complex followed by an A Frame cargo. I crossed the line and Jade came in second about a minute after. She had a clean race, not missing one obstacle, including spear throw.
I really appreciate the opportunity to practice a sprint before National Series starts on 2 March 2019. The Urban Sprint format is a good way for first timers to experience Spartan and it was great to see a few of my gym buddies and CrossFit friends have a go. One thing that the Urban Sprint made clear was that a Sprint is never over until the finish line. It is likely that high failure rate obstacles like the spear throw will be put near the finish line in Melbourne for the National Series, so even if you have a bad start failing an easier obstacle, there is still a chance of doing well. There is no time for counting numbers or strategising in your head. Instead of worrying where everyone is relative to me, I am just going to go hard the whole sprint and if I fail an obstacle do the burpees as fast as possible and continue as fast as possible.