Hurricane Heat – Spartan Race

Such a unique event within an event – it needed it’s own page. Hurricane Heat regular, and 12h reviews here!

3 thoughts on “Hurricane Heat – Spartan Race”

  1. Paul Jones

    This is a bit of a look back to the 2012 Hurricane Heat – the one year anniversary HH. This was the one that changed everything.

    Todd Sedlack and Tommy Mac led. The cast and crew was a veritable who’s who of New England / North East OCR – but we didn’t know it back then.

    When we look at the photos from that HH, we’re surrounded by people we now know well, we now call friends.

    Safe to say, that HH was life changing – and everything you could ever want.

  2. mikedlif@gmail.com

    this was my second Hh so i had a idea what i was getting into and after the 2013 and quiet a few people saying that one was not as fun/ good as 2013 i was hoping they would go back to what people liked.

    The highlight of this event was us having to carry our one odd item from the gear list ( a candle) and we had to light it and do the entire barbed wire crawl ( dunk wall and all) while keeping it lit.

    Where this event fell apart was since this event was a taping for the NBC sports network show the elites started extra early so we had to be off the course and out off the course by the time they started so we spent about the next 3 hrs doing P.T. in the village area and about 30 mins of burpees with Joe so he could show off for the TV cameras. so we got about a hour getting muddy and on the course and 3+ hrs just doing P.T. .i know because of this it turned me off the idea of HH because the way it was sold / described in the beginning was you would be on course doing it forwards, backwards, sideways and in ways not normally done.

  3. Amy

    I wasn’t sure about writing a review on the HH or not, mostly because I wasn’t sure if it was like Fight Club, where we aren’t supposed to talk about it. Before the event I can say that it made me the most nervous I’ve ever been going into any race, even my first Spartan, because I had no idea what to expect. I hadn’t talked to anyone who had done one before, and everything I saw on Facebook made me concerned (“Don’t ask questions. Don’t be late. Don’t be too early.”). My biggest fear going into it was that everyone would hate me because I would hold them back. I’m definitely on the old end of the Spartan demographic, I’m small, and not some kind of super-fit-powerhouse type. I’ve had a lot of medical issues over the last 2 years and am definitely not in the shape I was in even a year ago. I’m happy to say that my fears were unfounded, but I’ll get to that later.

    Gear in hand, we were within the last 20 or so people to arrive, thankfully most of us were on the same bus so we stuck together. I will never make the mistake of being too late again, should I ever do another HH. We weren’t penalized for it, however we didn’t get a chance to get settled in or talk to anyone before we got started. On the other hand, rumor had it that the person that arrived first (about an hour early) was doing burpees for a very, very long time, so I don’t think I’ll get there that early either. We were instructed not to have any valuables with us since bag check and the entire festival area would be closed down, so all we had was what we were required to bring according to the gear list.

    We were broken up into 3 groups by alphabetical order of last name. Within our groups we ended up switching around to line up by height, and back to alpha order again, and so forth. This reorganization went on several times and was obviously part of trying to get our groups to work efficiently together. The results were less than stellar, and for taking too long we were assigned burpees, mountain climbers and other fun things like leap frogging and rolling down the hill at another team, sort of like human bowling meets red rover.

    After becoming sufficiently warm, which didn’t take long considering how hot it was, we went through the festival area to a field. I was taken back a bit as many people clapped for us. We were quite the centers of attention as we went through. I heard several people ask each other “Who are they?” or “What are they doing?” as we passed by. We stopped to sing the national anthem, collected some high fives from spectators, and went on to the corn field to learn the Warrior Ethos. The Warrior Ethos is: I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade. As our Krypteia Cookie’s said: “Finishing first here makes you a dick.”

    We worked together to lift a comrade over hay bales without their body touching any part of the hay, and later to lift 3 of our comrades over a 6’ wall without them touching it. Sadly, we didn’t seem to understand the part that the person being carried wasn’t allowed to climb over the wall so we were chastised accordingly. We organized into two groups and hiked for a bit carrying a couple of sandbags with us, and carried them over the cargo net climb and the Tyrolean traverse.

    Following this we hiked back into the fairgrounds while shouting the Warrior Ethos, and earned a trip to the showers, where we laid down in the hose area and got soaked with frigid water. It felt wonderful and awful all at the same time. We went to the nearby Hercules Hoist and everyone got on a rope and we tried to hoist all of our bags up, and lower them all down at the same time. This was one of the more successful team synchronization events of the day. We were finally communicating effectively! All of this fabulous togetherness earned us a trip to be covered completely head to toe in the world’s richest, darkest, muddiest mud. I mean head to freaking toe. Much to my pleasure and surprise, Cookie also coated himself thoroughly! Next was a roll in the hay. No, not THAT kind of a roll in the hay, but literally, a roll in some super awesome sharp hay that stuck to us and poked us to bits. BUT WAIT, we hadn’t had enough rolling!

    We followed a trail through the woods and ended up at the bucket carry loop where we all got to roll around the 1/4 mile circle. Between my vomiting husband (sorry, honey) and the pungent remains of what looked like a bird explosion, it was a rough cycle. We broke again into 3 groups to go around again – one group doing burpees, one doing crab walk, and one doing bucket carry.

    So, the bucket carry…long story short: I injured my back during the bucket carry and spent every day for 7 months in pain. Thankfully, I found the most gifted masseur ever and I’ve recovered a lot, however, the bucket carry is in my head forever as The Thing That Ruined Me. I’m still struggling and not where I was before my injury, but I’m getting there. When my group was told that we were doing the bucket carry I think my heart physically dropped. It sure felt like it. I filled my bucket as instructed, and started around the circle, and that’s where the fear took over.

    Like I said in paragraph 1, my biggest fear was that everyone was going to hate me for not being able to do the bucket carry and for holding them back. I was the last in the group, and while I tried to keep up, I was struggling from the first moment. We took breaks but it wasn’t enough and soon my back burned from the shoulders to my tailbone. Eventually I absolutely could not go on one more step, and that’s where my entire day changed. All of these strangers came to me, demanding to give them my rocks with NO judgment in their voices, just concern. They begged me to give them more! I left a few in my bucket and cried the rest of the way around the circle – not because of the pain I was still feeling, but because I had been so wrong about what to expect from the people I was with.

    The rest of the evening was just fun – throwing the rocks we were instructed to bring at a bucket to see who could hit it; an absolutely KICK ASS rope climb relay contest (are these people half ape?!) and a nailbiter of a spear throwing competition with a finish that should be featured on Sports Center!

    Afterwards we collected our tshirts (very cool!) and dog tags (love them!) and pie piece (meh – I’m not doing an endurance trifecta) and organized group pictures. Shuttle buses were there to take us back quickly and without any problem, just as they had been there to deliver us to the farm.

    So after All. Those. Words. here’s what I say about a Hurricane Heat. TRY IT! You might like it. You might not. Every experience is different. You might get something out of it that you never expected.

    Pre race communication: Good. It would have been nice to know that we didn’t need our drivers licences to prove our identities but what sick SOB would pretend to be someone else to show up at one of these things?! The mandatory gear list was helpful, though we never did get to use that Sharpie we brought.

    Teamwork: GREAT. I was expecting a bunch of super-ego people there and got NONE of that. This would be different with every event, but I think it’s still worth it.

    Challenge: Very good. You have to pay attention, really listen, and look for the obvious solution sometimes…AND DON’T TOUCH THE TAPE.

    Overall: A very positive experience for me, and maybe…just maybe…I’ll do it again…once my legs don’t look like angry kittens attacked me.

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