After Spartan Wales was postponed to later this year, Spartan Midlands 2021 became the first UK Spartan race after lockdown. This was also my first OCR race out of restrictions, however Spartan (much like TM) had a number of protocols that were to be followed. Most people, however didn’t wear their mask in the village (although, I do see this a pointless). Masks were mandatory within the start pen and spaces were marked on the floor for social distancing
I ran with a facebook running group – “British Born Chinese” who are just a bunch of Chinese people who like running. Some members have done an obstacle race before, but many of them were fresh meat! How did they get on? Check out the video below. I managed to get all the obstacles, apart from the barbed wire crawl.
Spartan Midlands 2021 – YouTube Video
Obstacles Gallery!
A lot of the old favourites were on course including Spear Throw, Z Walls, Twister and rope climb. Beater, a new obstacle (think monkey bars that pivot around a central point – like a beater/whisk on it’s side). Some obstacles had a Whilst the course itself was a little longer than advertised (13km I think) and was a change up from Spartan 2019 – felt like a lot of elevation (was over 300m elevation gain. Im pretty sure I remember the old course being flatter, but that may have just been poor memory.
Final Thoughts
Many of the group want to do another Spartan, so I don’t think there is any higher praise than that. The course was long and very runnable – some parts maybe up to 1km between obstacles. The event village had a lot of atmosphere compared to Tough Mudder London West but this was out of lockdown restrictions, people seemed to stay around and the event village area was much smaller. I dont have any other Spartan races booked (apart from the Stadion, but that doesnt really count) they’re all either clashing or just pretty far away. But I would like to take on a few more (and hopefully, unlike the European Champs, not get cancelled)
If this is how obstacle racing is going to be post restrictions, then we have nothing to worry about!
