by Carrie Adams
For the first time ever, Spartan Race offered a primal version of our race in Indiana coined the Founder’s Race and featuring a stripped down, raw encounter with Spartan elements. Kicked off with a cannon blast, it was anything but typical even by Spartan standards. Designed by Spartan Founders and engaging the athlete’s in the primal terrain, it proved to be one of our toughest courses to date. 70% of the participants can call themselves finishers. Here is what people are saying about the Founder’s Race Indiana.
It was my 3rd Spartan Sprint. Will be doing more!!! This was by far the most “Raw”
course out there. No fancy obstacles mainly what was already out there in nature or modified with a tractor/backhoe etc……AROO!!!!
Second Spartan Race and Third Obstacle Course race. This made all others seem like the teacup ride at Disney.
After this, I can’t wait to see what waits in Colorado!
This was my first race of any type and I am so glad I did it. Butterflies in my stomach leading up to this race almost made me back out. So very glad I didn’t. I will definitely be doing more of these types of races and every SR that comes to the area!
First race. Will do more. Race was a blast but all the people involved made it. All around friendliness and support was amazing.
Atmosphere was great, the staff was extremely supportive, hilarious, and downright insane at times. I liked how a lot of obstacles forced you to work as a team, the cannon for a starting gun was a plus, and I liked how their were not a huge amount of bottlenecks during the race.
My third this year by far the hardest you guys did great!
First race, the feeling of family, helping, cheering made the race, of course I hated the barb wire part I now know I wasn’t as ready as I thought I was, doing the Chicago super now!
This is what I say when I encourage people to come to Spartan Race: You train and
run and lift and put yourself through workouts that no couch potato would ever attempt. Now what have you done to set YOUR STANDARD? What is your benchmark of your achievement? Mine is Spartan Race. Those of you posting above, the rookies, newbs, whatever you call yourselves, have set your mark HIGH. As I shouted out to the Spartans in my heat when I went through the first barbed wire crawl, a paraphrase quote from 300 “To this challenge, give NOTHING, but take from it EVERYTHING!”
My first of any sort also, and not only am I doing another (Palmerton in July) I’m taking the better half along with me for her very first also.
My 16-year old ran her first race yesterday and by the time we were headed to the car she had changed from “I don’t think I will ever do one again” to “I will do another one, but will wear something different.” It’s contagious!
My daughter can’t wait to be old enough to do the “real” race. She ran her first junior and did the entire mile, but most of it was with one shoe! She said she could do without it and the course could keep it.
Throughout the entire race (and I was on the course more than 4 hours) everyone worked together and encouraged each other and I do mean EVERYONE. I can’t tell you the number of times that other Spartan racers made the difference in whether or not I got through an obstacle. I am simply in awe of how great this race was!
I know that my group sacrificed our finish time in order to spend time holding the nets for people and to chat along the way. I don’t care how long I was out there. I was just happy to be doing it with my family and friends!
My husband and four of our friends were with me too and we helped others out along the way but there were a couple obstacles that I needed additional assistance. Example: the 2nd cargo net, a woman stayed at the top encouraging me until I crossed over. Another was on a steep hill climb, I was near the top but struggling and two young Spartans each took a hand and basically pulled me to the top. This was just way too cool and a great lesson for me in learning to accept help too! This is why I will do another Spartan and believe me there were times I asked myself, “What the hell am I doing our here?” I knew when I crossed the finish line!
It was my first, had a great time and not in too much pain today. I’m already signed up for the Midwest in Oct. Can’t wait!
So many people have mentioned the teamwork and the willingness of so many to sacrifice individual times to help others…I spent my fair share of time holding nets and pulling people up hills or out of the mud pits too and I think that was my absolute favorite part. It was awesome to see how people who were otherwise complete strangers in most cases were so ready and willing to extend that hand and help someone out. I’m already signed up for next years and so are a couple of my friends with more planning to do so tonight or tomorrow. We’re hooked!
This was my first OCR / mud run ever, plus I did the HH the night before, and I thought it was totally bad ass. Signing up for Midwest Super and Indiana 2013 tonight!
I’m signed up for the Midwest Super on October 27th!
Yesterday was my first. June 2, 2007 my platoon was ambushed in Afghanistan and my legs were severally mangled. I have never had them tested in this capacity since that day. I absolutely loved it. I couldn’t have been tested any better and I’ll be back!
It was my first and far from last! Already signed up for next years with my girlfriend. Also going to sign up for the mid west super sprint. It was a great event well put on and run. The HH was a blast they did a great job pushing us. If this was a “bare bones” Spartan, I can’t wait to see the full on event! Maybe then they will have the spear throw and the gauntlet to run through.
Well, I’ve ran a couple of Spartan Races in my days, and I have got to say that this was a great race, especially considering the lack of some of the more traditional obstacles. The terrain was absolutely awesome, and you did a great job of putting it to use. I liked how there were two rope climbs and log carries. Kept it challenging, but don’t think it felt the least bit redundant. The barbed wire crawl was awesome. Breaking it up like you did made it much more challenging mentally and physically than it would have been if you would have just made it one long stretch. Personally, I think the race had all it needed to be a great event, and would rank it in the top three of hardest “Sprints” to date.
My first and it was awesome. I loved the barbed wire. I need to perfect my rope climb. I
think the terrain was the best character in this obstacle course. Some of those ravines and gullies were brutal. I feel like there was a really important mental part of it to, just when you thought you were thinking you were in the last leg, there was another hill to climb stepper than the last. Aroo!
If you made it from start to finish, I don’t care how long it took you, if you stayed in the game and came out the other side. There is not any Spartan Race you can not do! I know I’ve done sprints, supers and the Beast. If you got through the founders race you can do them all!
For the distance…one of the toughest.
This was my first Spartan Race but not my first Obstacle Course Race I have done 2 Warrior Dash’s and a Farmathalon and this was by far harder than the 3 of those put together. One of those was on a ski resort so it was literally on the side of a mountain. The total distance was about 10.1 miles for all 3 and total time of about 127 minutes. My time Saturday was 123 minutes for the 4.3 miles!!! That’s pretty crazy. Definitely feel a little pride for completing this one.
This was my 3rd Spartan Sprint and by far the hardest! It didn’t have all the staple obstacles but I liked the change up. It was challenging and ultimately that’s what most people want, no matter what the challenge is. I LOVED the extra three feet of barbed wire around the corner, it was such a mind screw lol. And the team spirit was everywhere!! great to see strangers working together. And will I do another??? I’m doing 5 more this year AROOOOOOO!!!
The barbed wire was great! My group was fortunately narrow enough in the hips and shoulders to roll through parts of it – work smarter not harder, right? I loved all of the mud pits but my favorite was the pond swim because it caught people off guard.
I was going to hold back my two cents but I’ll toss it in. This course was a monster! I really love Spartan Race and can comfortably say I have an idea of what obstacles I will encounter. This course destroyed any other I have been to! You may not have climbed a wall, balanced a board, moved over the ninja wall or even thrown a spear, and I hear that. Let me tell you, no one but you who showed on Saturday will ever do what you did. Anybody can do the standard Spartan obstacles anywhere, some people have them in you back yard to train. No you guys had the most grueling, spirit draining, ego deflating, humility building course I have ever done or even seen. And on top of it all it was freezing! I personally say to each and every one of you who completed the course to register for the Beast in VT! If you did this four miles you can do the Beast. If this course didn’t break your spirit right in the beginning at the Devil’s Backbone, or that barbed wire, or those damn hay bails that just seemed to keep coming with water on either side. If you dragged your self out of those mud pits and climbed those cargo nets. Nothing can stop you!
Tags: cornfed spartans, Indiana
earned himself a World Record for the effort. In addition to his Mt. Vinson assent, Noel scaled Everest, Denali, Elbrus, Aconcagua, Kilimanjaro and the Carstensz Pyramid. He’s seen the world from the highest peaks on all seven continents, but he never stayed to admire the view. Instead, he raced down to sea level by running, skiing, biking, or kayaking over hostile terrain at top speeds. In the process of completing his goal, these peaks, he and his wife Lynne Hanna, an accomplished mountaineer in her own right, raised over 130,000 euro for 
That craving for adrenaline led him to adventure races like the Eco Challenge along with endurance running like the Bad Water 135 and the marathon Des Sables. It was during that time of adventure and endurance racing when Joe Desena approached Noel about creating a new kind of challenge. “Make it a race that would break all who took part. That was a given,” he recalls.
Growing up in Peoria, IL, Andy Weinberg, 41, always loved the water. He swam competitively in high school and college, and when he did his first triathlon in high school, he fell in love. At the time there weren’t many people doing them, and after college Andy spent a couple years really hitting the triathlon circuit. He burnt out with swimming after a few years and decided to focus on running instead. Admittedly never “super-fast,” he trained consistently and did 11 marathons in one year alone.
What would you do if you were alone in the middle of the densest woods in Maine and the battery on your headlamp died? In the midst of a competitive adventure race (involving paddling across lakes and towing canoes through the woods), you bushwhacked off-trail to find the next checkpoint, which had eluded your team. You left your teammates behind on the trail, with a heavy cargo of canoes—and your spare batteries.
lives. We look for short cuts, gadgets, and processes to make things easier, seeking what we consider personal fulfillment. We believe that there are things we can do and things that we can’t, and we become conditioned to that distinction. It creates our everyday reality and it makes us feel secure, because we think we know what to expect of the world and what to expect of ourselves. Enter Joe DeSena, the man who will turn that world upside down.
