Monday, October 19, 2015

Spartan Race Kuala Lumpur Kicks Off

One of my favourite obstacle course races, the Reebok Spartan Race has officially landed on home turf and I AM NOT AROUND TO JOIN IT!

In all due fairness, I had already waaaay beforehand, booked and paid the super expensive registration fee for Spartan Race Sydney Super and Sprint in pursuit of completing the Trifecta this year. So on the very same day, I was in Australia killing myself in their crazy new innovative 300 obstacle (which you can read about in the links at the bottom of the post), Malaysia got its first taste of a Spartan Race.


What opened up as only a Saturday event soon saw organisers opening up Sunday as well as more and more Malaysians signed up for the first ever Spartan Sprint. Held over 10 and 11 October 2015, on a super rare break from the annual haze (no thanks to Indonesia), the race saw over 10,000 participants flock to Setia Alam for a 6.5km course with 25 obstacles throughout the entire race.

While most Malaysians would usually take under an hour to complete a straight 6.5km distance of pure running, the Spartan Sprint quickly showed them that there was more to it than just covering a distance. To successfully complete a Sprint, one needed to complete the obstacles along the way, failure to do so incurs a 30 burpee penalty.

Malaysia's introduction to Spartan saw them take on the Atlas carry and cargo net climbs and of course, several Spartan signature obstacles - the rope climb, spear throw (my favourite!) and the epic fire jump at the end. As you can already imagine to conquer one of these races, one needed to be an all-rounder in terms of endurance, skills and fitness.

About the same time I had finished my Spartan Super in Sydney, I received news that two of my Original Bootcamp friends had emerged as the top two women winners for the elite category. Woot woot! A massive congratulations to Colleen for coming out as champion for her debut Spartan Race and also to Pasree for coming in second and also as the Women's Master category winner. Looks like all that training with OBC has really paid off for all of us.

Third place for women went to Lim So Ee while Rushad Nanavatty won the Men's Elite category. Second and third place went to Cheang Cheng Tan from Malaysia and Ian Deeth from the U.K., respectively. A total of RM30,000 in cash and sponsor prizes were awarded to the winners in the first Reebok Spartan Race in South East Asia.

Spartan Race also introduced the Spartan Junior category for kids to start their Spartan journey young. The Spartan Junior Race for children between the ages of 4-13 was won by Matthew Trott in the Boy’s category and Siobhain Doyle in the Girl’s category.

With Spartan fuel running through many now, I can imagine many are gunning for the Trifecta next year. For a Trifecta to count, all three categories of Spartan races consisting of the Sprint, Super and Beast or Ultra Beast has to be completed within a calendar year (January - December). The good news is participants can join any Spartan Race in the world to get the Trifecta just as I did in Australia.

Now with Spartan kicking off in Malaysia and Singapore, I am going to aim for a Southeast Asia Trifecta in 2016. No more Australia for me! Maybe Korea....

The next Spartan Race Kuala Lumpur is a Super category (hello, blue bling!) and is already open for registration. It is scheduled to take place on 20th March 2016, Sunday at once again, a mysterious location owned by SP Setia Bhd Group.

You can register here --> http://bit.ly/1NPQDhw and soon you can earn one of these sets!


Psst: the Trifecta designs changes every year depending on Spartan Global's decision.

To read about my journey to Trifecta, you can click on the links below:
Spartan Beast Melbourne: http://bit.ly/1VzsNp6
Spartan Super-Sprint Sydney ANZ Stadium: http://bit.ly/1OxmbIV

At the meantime, I will be tackling Spartan Sprint Singapore next month (15 Nov) to get my first taste of a Spartan Race in Asia. Drop me a comment or an email if you are gonna be there too!

Aroo!

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