There is a trend in fitness suited for only the best: the athletes with endurance and a drive for excellence and a challenge. Spartan races, as they are called, are hosted all over the world and are a new fad in the fitness world.

The most often held races, and the easiest, are Spartan Sprints, which are roughly 3 miles long and riddled with many various obstacles. After successfully completing a Spartan Sprint, the racers have the opportunity to compete in a Super Spartan race. These races are eight miles of running in mud and conquering twenty different obstacles. The top three male and female finishers of these races are then given the opportunity to compete in the Spartan Beast race: twelve miles with at least twenty-five obstacles.

Finally, whoever finishes the Spartan Beast race is invited to run in the Spartan Death Race. This is the highest level of the Spartan Challenge endurance events. The Spartan website states that “… the Death Race is designed to present you with the totally unexpected, and the totally insane … making giving birth look like a walk in the park.” That it does. This race takes around forty-eight hours to complete with no set distance or number of obstacles and it challenges the racers both mentally and physically. On record, it is said that ninety percent of the competitors who run in this race will not complete it. Although the numbers aren’t great, most serious Spartan competitors are striving to run in the Death Race at some point in their lives.

Two AHS sophomores have already begun their journey up through the ranks of the Spartan races. Sophomores Colton Rolls, a returning Spartan Veteran, and James Long, who just began his Spartan journey, competed in the Spartan Sprint on May fourth at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, Colorado. According to Colton, this was his second year competing. He said, “There weren’t many changes since last year except the track was set up in reverse so the starting line in the previous year was the finish and vise versa.”

Colton said he came across the Spartan Challenges while on Youtube, and he signed up for a Sprint in Colorado last year as soon as he heard of it. James Long, on the other hand, found out about the competitions through his father in California, who competes in the Spartan Sprints there.

This daunting obstacle course requires a lot of training, according to most competitors. Colton, after his first experience, had searched for a good way to train for the Spartan Races. After much research, he came across Cross Fit, another more recent movement in the health and fitness world. In addition to his Cross Fit workouts, about three weeks prior to the Race, he incorporated more running into his regimen. James, on the other hand, did not train for the race and said he regretted it. He says he knows it would have been a lot easier to complete and with a better time if he had done something to ready himself.

Blood, sweat, and occasional vomiting, said James, that was what he left on the course, but the feeling after he crossed the finish line made it all worth it. Colton finished a good deal ahead of him and was waiting for James and the rest of the competitors from Alliance who ran the race. Covered in mud and sweat, with big exhausted grins on their faces, the Alliance “team” reunited victorious, or at least as finishers of the race.

When it comes down to it, both Colton and James plan to compete in other Spartan Races in the future, after much more training. In addition to the Race in Colorado next year, which they both plan to attend, Colton has also signed up for another race in October of this year in Lincoln, Nebraska, to further his experience with this type of competition. Colton and James have each proved their worth on the course. Now, the question is, are you Spartan enough?