This race was REALLY great and REALLY terrible.. I've run mud runs before so I thought I knew about what to expect, but I was seriously mistaken. I'm not sure if it was just Spartans overall are much more intense or this specific one just happened to be super intense.

As a trail runner, the course was AWESOME! It was an EXTREMELY technical single track trail, THE ENTIRE TIME that it wasn't obstacles. For my poor non-runner, obstacle loving boyfriend I enlisted, this wasn't so great. Most of the course there was honestly barely a path and we ran through many streams and small rivers. There were spots were the mud was so deep and thick your shoes almost got sucked off and other points you were wading in murky, ankle deep water, to be surprised by a knee deep hole. The path was essentially always, roots and rocks, water, or extreme amounts of mud. It also had many ups and downs.

I didn't read that the 3+ miles could be up to 5 so I was also extremely surprised to find out that course was actually 5.3 miles (but it was my fault). They claimed it to only be 4, but consensus by multiple GPS watches was slightly over 5 miles.

The t-shirts and medals were awesome! They also took great free race photos! Take a selfie of yourself after the race to run through their face recognition software and have a super easy time finding photos!

The aid stations had water. There were also port-o-potties, but runners weren't allowed to use them so that was disappointing.

The scenery was beautiful since it was trails through the middle of the woods!

Parking and race management was a mess. I believe this is the first year they put on this race at this location so they most likely will be improving a lot, but we received an email saying to be there 2 hours before our race time and thought, "There's NO WAY it'll take that long". It did. Parking alone was 25+ minutes of lines. Then we had to run to the shuttle area because we had "only" arrived 45 minutes early. Wait in a disorganized shuttle line to receive tickets we didn't actually need in the end. Then we were about a 15 minute shuttle drive to the actual site. THEN the shuttle drop off to the start was about a mile (so we had to run that too). Luckily, registration check in and bag check were quick enough.

Overall it was a really fun race if you knew what you were getting into and were prepared. Just make sure you don't have any other plans on race day and you'll be fine!

****Just an added note that if you are highly allergic to poison ivy I might not recommend this race as my boyfriend who is got a really bad case of it. I have gotten poison ivy before though and didn't have any issue.