Spartan Race Pays $250,000 in cash prizes and will be televised

I did an 8k obstacle course race and dominated all those X-Fit pretenders. I'm a scrawy but lean and athletic distance runner. These X-Fit guys sprinted the first mile to stay with me then died hard shortly after and I beat them by minutes in the end. Any good distance runner should win this race given that they have a little athletic background in other sports which transfers to obstacles.

Here's pics of the two top ranked guys

http://i.imgur.com/4pnBc3n.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/zqQenPd.jpg

And another pic of most the top guys according to their rankings anyway

http://i.imgur.com/E226TXl.jpg

It's definitely an event for the leaner athletes. The obstacle don't seem very challenging. Fitness is much more important than physical strength.

They definitely are NOT paying out $250,000 cash. It's $250,000 in cash AND Prizes, meaning mainly free race entries and season passes worth close to $1,000 each and gear. They announced the same thing last year and the actual cash broke down to $5K, $2K, $1K for both men and women. Definitely not bad, but the $250K is misleading.

The top contenders are pretty legitimate runners. Cody Moat is the defending USATF trail marathon and 50k champion and Hobie Call, who is a frequent topic of conversation on here for his claims about a sub-2 marathon, has run a 2:16.

The whole mud race and xfit thing likely wouldn't be as popular if it weren't for facebook. I'm sure a majority of people do these things so they can post a new profile picture showing how "hardcore" they think they are.

I'd like to respond to some of the sceptics on these boards and hopefully clarify a few things. So here goes. Because of the difficulty of the obstacles and the penalties given out for missing an obstacle, kenyans would not and do not easily win these races. Last week in washington some oregon guys raced. These were sub 2:20 marathoners, an olympic trials steepler, and a 13:40s guy. They looked good until they hit obstacles and then fell back very quickly. The thing is, the videos don't do the obstacles justice. They are tough even for the top guys. And the penalty for not finishing an obstacle is 30 burpees. So the people that end up excelling are typically stronger than your average runner. Next workout or run you guys do, try doing 30 or 60 burpees between repeats or during the run. Youll see very quickly that running fast with dead arms and hands is a tough thing to do. I was an elite college runner and honestly, I just can't figure out the animosity towards these races from the running community. Maybe its the elitist view that most runners have (i know I used to be the same way) or in general a hipster mentality ("great, now all these toolbags think they're runners") but here's how I see it: our country is as out of shape and unhealthy as we've ever been. Our kids will have shorter life spans than us, etc. And all of a sudden we're seeing this explosion in the fitness community centered upon these obstacle races ( spartan, warrior, tough mudder.. etc) that have made running popular and really fun. Millions of people have changed their lives and embraced fitness because of it. It actually reminds me a little of the jogging craze that swept the us in the 60s. Anyways, I think its a great thing and for those of you that have said you would easily win, please come out and give a race a try. If nothing else, I'm sure you'll have a blast. And you'll make a couple thousand dollars if you're really as good as you say you are!

^this! :)

The guy named Moat in that collage picture ran for Southern Utah. 9:0x steepler, multiple time XC conference champ.

for those who are saying they run the show as a distance runner, This can only justify someone like Galen Rupp or any other distance runner who does legitimate supplementation in the gym could run the show if he wants to. There is a reason why we are still all in pure distance running and not Spartan races.

I like the idea of Spartan races, trail racing, warrior dash, etc. because they actually REWARD the winners. Tough Mudder on the other hand lost all respect the moment they started to bash marathoners and triathletes.

If they had trained for the obstacles, things probably would have been different for the middle distance guys. Marathoners... that is probably a bit different, esp kenyans who are much more bouncy than strong.