It was a miserable cold and snowy winter, my OCR best bud and I trained at least twice a week every week all winter through snow, ice and sub zero weather at times to be ready for the Spartan Race Beast course on April 18, 2015 in Vernon, NJ. We were running anywhere from 10-35 miles per week to prepare with a couple 10+ mile runs in there by themselves on frigid days. The prep made us as ready as you could be for a beast course. It was a grueling 13 mile obstacle course on a ski mountain that still had snow on 50-60% of it! We paid $40 for VIP parking right at the base of the mountain so access was very easy to the course and there was virtually no traffic at 6:30am.

Once we received our race packets we were in the door basically at the start line, we stretched and did a very easy warm up jog before funneling into the starting corral for the 7:30 elite heat start. I wore my camelbak for hydration and to stash a few chews. The gun went off and we took off straight up a ski slope covered in snow and mud. And for the next 3 plus hours there was a series of giant uphill climbs followed by very steep downhills with a number of great obstacles thrown in to torture the athletes. The most exciting part of my race was the spear throw, which I nailed for the first time in competition! By mile 11.5 I had started feeling the effects of some cramping in my quads which was expected but spartan did a great job with chews at every water station on course and there were plenty of water stations. The most difficult obstacle was a treacherous barbed wire ice crawl directly up a slope at mile 11 which slowed pretty much everybody down except for the most elite of competitors. After the final ascent at mile 12 the cramps were gone and I cruised down the final rock laced downhill to the rope swing and fire jump to cross the finish line. I finished in 3:51 good enough for 129th place, but most importantly I went burpee free for the day nailing every single obstacle! The obstacles were all usual spartan toys, monkey bars, walls, mud, barbed wire, bucket brigade, sandbags, rope climb, dunk wall, etc....too many to remember but I think it was 34 in all.

The after party was awesome in typical spartan fashion with the sponsored pros mingling with the everyday joes, and tons of food and drink! The swag was great as well with a sick beast finisher t-shirt and stylish medal with my beast trifecta piece included. The only compliant was that a few obstacles were not prepared well, the spear throw had 15 or so spots but only 4 or 5 were ready to go as well as the final rope swing having the same issues! I would give the overall day 5 stars and the course was the best one I have run to date!

The Shine On 5k in Burlington is a memorial run for the wife of a friend of mine who passed away 5 years ago. It is a relatively flat 5k course with a couple of decent inclines, but today was much more difficult because it was 85 and humid at race time. The race attracts about 200-250 local runners looking to run for a good cause. The race has beautiful scenery along the entire course and begins and ends at the local high school on the track. There is local businesses and plenty of things to do for the whole family to enjoy including a bounce house for the kids. There was a one mile kids run before the 5k and a dolphin dash once around the track for the young ones right after the 5k.

The race started fast and ended faster with the top 8 or 10 runners breaking away early posting sub 6's for the first mile plus, I was in 5th at mile one and then the hills rapidly showed up and I fell into 8th at mile marker number 2. Then the last decent quarter mile incline slowed everyone but the top 5 or 6 guys and one woman, I was stuck in no mans land for the last mile which can hurt you because you can't catch the guy in front of you and no one behind you is going to catch up. With that being said I cruised into the finish in 8th place on a very hot and humid day.

Post race was fun with a DJ playing music and plenty of free food for the runners and spectators! I finished first in my age group so I got a gold medal for my effort, with my wife finishing 2nd in her age group and my younger brothers taking 2nd and 3rd in their group as well. Overall it was a very fun family friendly event for a fantastic cause!!