Spartan Ultra Beast Hawai’i:
One hell of an idea 😉
When a friend of us signed us up for the Spartan Race ULTRA BEAST distance in Hawai’i for August 2016, we were currently climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and had no clou what was happening…
We ran the Sprint, Super and Beast distances a couple of times and are meanwhile comfortable with running trails up to 50k (like the Grossglockner Ultratrail roughly a month ago) , but had a lot of respect for the Ultra Beast. Nevertheless, as we always want to challenge ourselves and Hawai’i was a destination that was always on our both’s list, the journey was all set! 🙂
The Spartan Ultra Beast most of the times is twice the Beast course and therefore a marathon distance obstacle race with around 27 miles / 42 kilometres, but even single loops exist.
The 2016 Spartan Ultra Beast Hawai’i took place on 13th August at Kualoa Ranch on O’ahu’s North Shore. O’ahu is Hawai’i’s main island with the capital city Honolulu and therefore is easy to reach via airplane from all over the world.
Spartan Race “Hawai’ian Style” 🙂
We had to show up at the festival area the evening before the race to pick up our bib numbers, race bags and all that stuff and when we arrived, a barbeque with a traditional hawai’ian show took place.
The BBQ was funny to watch and as the Spartan Race Hawai’i is a Trifecta weekend, there were already many racers with medals from the Friday Sprint and Hurricane Heat. And we weren’t alone: Three friends and team members of our OCR team Munich Elite Warriors also made their way to Hawai’i!
Not only the day before, but also the race itself was “Hawai’ian Style”. That means HOT, MUDDY and WET! 😉
44K, 300 height meters and 60 obstacles TO GLORY! 😉
At 6am, the starting shot was fired and we were off to a merely 44k race. The first ~8k took us through a beautiful valley with great views of the ocean and surrounding mountains. We had everything, from burning sun to pouring rain and the course got muddier every second. There were many straight uphill climbs in the rainforest part pf the course and we had to hold on to trees, branches and ropes to not slip back every second step. The obstacles were almost the same as in Europe, except they were somehow “bigger”: The Bucket Carry was heavier and longer, the rope climb was higher (9m!), but thankfully we were able to deal with most of the stuff.
After roughly 5 hours we had completed the first round and reached the transit zone, where we had dropped bags with supplies and a headlamp plus glowsticks for the second round. After a short rest we were off again, knowing that we had to do the whole thing again… The second lap felt easier to run, but we had to do a lot more penalty burpees as we failed to complete all the obstacles from the first round and that time, the course was even MUDDIER and the rainfall heavier – and there were the Super and Beast Runners on the course as well, which meant quite some queuing.
Luckily we weren’t too exhausted and didn’t have to slow our speed down, so in the end we completed the course in 11 hours and 14 minutes withour any hazzle or struggle. The feeling while crossing the Finish Line is always awesome, but this time it was really special!
If you would’ve asked us at the beginning of 2016, if we would REALLY complete a Spartan Ultra Beast, we would’ve possibly denied… But as we figure out step by step, everything is possible and where the mind goes, the body will follow. Thanks again to our friend Nicole for registering us without prior notice – and to everybody who believed in us. 🙂
It was our first Ultra Beast and for sure not our last endurance type of Obstacle Race – LET’S SEE WHAT’S NEXT… 😉
We also took a short video which you can find on our YOUTUBE-Channel, have fun watching:
