Miami Super Spartan - Adventure

The event is held at Oleta River State park in North Miami Beach. The Oleta Rive is located at Key Biscayne, so you can swim/kayak in the bay or the river. The park also has miles and miles of off-road bicycling trails ranging from trails for the novice to very experienced.

This description may not be completely accurate as I may have mixed up some placements of obstacles, but if it is not completely right, it is not far off.

The course began south running next to the bay. Within .25 mile you hit the first obstacle which was a series of walls, some you jumped over and some you crawled under going through netting. Continuing on you crossed part of the river, water was about knee high (at least for me), then about .25 mile later we were at the beach area for the bay. In the past years they encouraged people to swim across the inlet, but allowed wading as long as it was thigh high water. This year they were encouraging people to wade across. The first year we did this (2 yrs ago) we swam. Big mistake - shoes cause your legs to sink, no googles means you either swim blind or tarzan swim. The second year we waded across. A much better decision even if it does really work your legs over. So, this year we waded across again.

After the swim we hit a series of 6 ft walls. Thankfully, Peter and Mark were with me as they helped me clear the walls without much issue. After the walls we ran on one of the experienced level bike routes. Something in bloom in that area caused Mark's eyes to swell almost shut. At this point my foot was hurting as the trail had lots of roots and rocks which aggravated my foot injury. All this and we were probably not much more than a mile in!

We came out of that and ran on the walking/running paths next to the road and river and then turned onto the novice bike path. That was much easier on my foot. The next obstacle was the monkey bars. I was going to give it a go, but the bars were so high and spaced so far apart, that I could not reach them. Obviously these obstacles are not built for short people! So it was burpee time.
The course continued on the novice bike path for a bit. The next obstacle was another series of 6 ft walls. Peter and Mark again came to my rescue. After that we moved into the advanced bike course. Lots of ups and downs, crossings over various obstacles and tons of roots. People were doing a lot of walking by this point and Peter, Mark and I did a lot of passing. We came out of that an immediately had a "hill" to run up and down before heading back into the advanced course. After popping out again we came to an obstacle that required you to slide feet first down into a big pit of muddy water. In fact, there was a series of 3-4 of this pits that you had to move through while one of the volunteers sprayed you with a firehose. It was so hot that I welcomed the spray - except when it felt like I might lose my contacts! As soon as you climbed out the the last pit you hit the next obstacle. This was a couple of cargo containers stacked on each other. There was a cargo net that ran from the top of the containers to the ground. The obstacle required you to climb the net. Once on top there was another cargo net that spanned the space between the containers you were on with another set of containers. The best way across the next was to roll across. Once across, you climbed down another cargo net.

After that it was back into the advanced bike course for a while. Emerging from it was an obstacle where you pulled a cement block by its heavy chain attachment. The course was down the hill, straight for a bit and back up the hill on the back side. The past years they had lighter blocks for the women. This year everyone got the same weight. Peter and Mark got to the obstacle before me and were actually done when I arrived. So Peter grabbed the chain and helped me pull. A little way in another woman said something about needing help, so he grabbed hers too. She was thrilled with him. He is really a rock star at these things. Mark took over helping me as we headed back up the hill and Peter stayed with the other woman.

Back into the advanced course for some more technical running. People were now dropping like flies. There were way more walkers than runners and since it was single track it was hard to pass - especially those people that just stopped dead in the middle of the path.

Out again and this time the obstacle was carrying sand bags. Kind of the same thing as the cement weight - big circle from start to finish with a series of up and slightly down hill. I did this one all on my own.

Some more single track running and then a carry a heavy weight 20-30 feet, 5 burpees, carry the weight back obstacle. Right after that was a tire flip obstacle. Women got what looked like small truck tires, the men regular truck tires. Just 3 flips one way, turn and another 3 flips.
The next obstacle was a weight hanging from a rope hitched to a 20-30 foot high bar. You had to pull the weight to the top bar and then let it down gently. They had this obstacle last year too, but this year the weights were heavier! My first pull hardly moved the weight at all and my feet started to slip out from under me. I adjusted, by sitting down and leaning back and was able to then complete this task fairly quickly.

We were now done with the single track and ended up on the path running adjacent to the road heading into the park (we were heading to the exit). This is were there was real carnage - every few feet someone was cramped up unable to move. Made it to the next obstacle, which was a repel down the embankment to the river where you had to fill a bucket with water. You had a choice of filling it once and pouring the water over your head or pouring the water into a garbage can. If you choose the garbage can you had to fill the smaller bucket 3 times. We choose the over your head - it was hot and one time was way better than 3. Then use ropes to climb back up the embankment.

After that we were in the home stretch. Took the road leading into the park back to the staging areas where there were the final 5 obstacles. They were a rope climb, scale a 20 foot (or so wall) side ways using little blocks of wood nailed into the wall for your foot and hand holds, long mud crawl under barbed wire, run up a slanted 10-15 foot wall and then get past the "spartans" who hit you with jousting sticks.

Finished. Immediately went to the "showers" and got a bit cleaned up and then walked to the bay and jumped in. After putting on clean, dry clothes we went back to claim our free beer. What disappointment. The free beer was Pabst Blue Ribbon. :( Still, we drank it and then headed out for real food and a real beer.

We did have another water obstacle - ropes spanned the river and you pulled yourself across the river using the ropes. That was very refreshing. I guess it was somewhere around mile 4.


This is always a fun event, but man do they nickle and dime you to death. First, the race is rather expensive. Then they don't want you parking at the park, but rather at one of the nearby colleges where they then bus you to the park. They charge $5 for the bus. Of course, you need a change of clothes and a place to keep your keys etc, so they have a bag drop. They charge $5 for that. Want some after race food? No problem, pay for it (other than bananas as you cross the finish line). Have family you'd like to get into the big staging area - they can join you for $15.

Although I love running this race with my brothers, I don't know if we'll do it next year; we may look for another race like Tough Mudder or Prison Break.