Had a great weekend volunteering and running my second Spartan Race this year. This time I did the Super Spartan which is 10K unlike the Spartan Sprint which was 5K.

Anyway, it was a headache getting everything ready to volunteer each morning because of last minute changes, volunteers wanting to race, volunteer gifts getting stolen, and to an extent a communication barrier between the race organizers, the volunteer heads, and even the ski resort we stayed at. There were all sorts of missed deadlines and last-minute shuffling I had to go through as one of the volunteer organizers, I thought that deserved a medal in of itself. Yet, I’m glad I had the experience of dealing with frustrated, pissed-off people – which is inevitable if you ever want to run anything big in life.

The race itself was more reasonable compared to the last one here in Korea a couple months ago. There weren’t as many hills, but just the right amount of steep terrain to make it challenging yet not ridiculous and never-ending. Really glad I made a last-minute, impulse purchase of some Reebok All Terrain shoes that were 50% off because my 10K would have been miserable with the shoes I brought. The obstacles were set up well also. I kinda liked how they lumped together a lot of the strength-based obstacles such as the Hercules Hoist, tire-flip, and rope climb at the end to serve as an equalizer for the heavier, stronger racers to catch up to the faster, light-weight runners.

At the end of Saturday, there were a couple of performances on stage. First it was a Korean dance crew that performed well, but unfortunately for them, they didn’t have a big audience since there were a ton of flies swarming over the garbage in the Spartan Village that was accumulated throughout the day. The next performance had DJ’s and K-Pop stars rapping with profane, English lyrics – Christian conservatives and feminists alike would be up in arms against the race organizers if this was in the States. With lots of free beer added and more Reebok swag for me, all in all this was a good experience, and I cannot wait to volunteer for the next Spartan Race next Spring.

2014 Reebok SpartanRace Korea YongPyong Teaser – YouTube.