This is Sparta, sort of

5 PAX posted for a special kind of Sunday afternoon beatdown in the bowels of Sparta or to locals, the backwoods of Nocatee. Yes, Nocatee is the 3rd best selling community in the U.S. and if they would just advertise that there is a Spartan Training Course here, we’d be #1. The PAX parked at YHC’s house and knew they were in for a special treat when YHC took a minute to stow away machete and shovel back in garage. Off we went as we mosey’d down a nicely paved golf cart trail towards the tree line.  

The Warmorama

We ain’t got time for no warmorama…it’s 75° out in February and we just mosey’d 3/4’s of a mile down a paved trail where the PAX arrived at a fork in the road. The easy road is right, the hard road to the left. It’s time to get comfortable being uncomfortable. Sparta

The Thang (Sparta)

1. The first obstacle was Bear Crawl Hill. Bear Crawl Hill is the side of a parkway and has about a 60° or 70° grade (Tank or Peg the engineers could tell you). This obstacle required PAX to bear crawl up the hill three times as a team. 
2. The next obstacle was only a stones throw away and involved a team carry of an approx. 15′ plastic pipe for 100 yards. 
3. Mosey down a nondescript trail into the woods where some trees had naturally been fell precisely over our trail to make for perfect army crawls and jumps. 
4. We then mosey’s to an opening in the woods were YHC had strategically placed 40lb coupons for a shoulder sandbag mosey back out of the woods. 
5. Drop coupons. More moseying Sparta
6. Ah, here we are at Burpee road. A trail cut through the woods to run power lines to who knows where…YHC had pallets with coupons and rope for a vicious version of catch me if you can. 10 Burpees at each light pole while partner drags said pallet with rope down trail. Rinse and repeat until PAX and YHC had gone 3/4’s of the way down trail. 
7. Another 3/4’s of a mile mosey over to a crossroads. It was either the road to somewhere, nowhere, over there or I have no idea. Sparta
8. We chose “the road to nowhere” This is an old, beat up half sand, half brick and asphalt road. It may have been paved with good intentions…but PAX couldn’t tell. YHC had done his prep work and strategically handpicked chunks of asphalt for PAX to carry in a Battaan Death March style under the Florida sun’s now intense 3:30 afternoon heat. 
9. At the end of “the road to nowhere” is a 15 foot tall mound of rock that we scaled
10. We then jumped over a 6′ power box for no reason as we mosey
11. Take stage right down under the power lines towards a mud bog and some sand hills when YHC gets a novel idea to crawl through a nice shiny sewage pipe as we head to our makeshift pull-up bar.
12. Pull-up bar was some sort of iron construction equipment at about 7 feet tall but worked perfectly for YHC’s intentions. 5 pull-ups + 1 muscle up and over. All PAX succeeded. 
13. We crawl through a couple more concrete drainage tubes and now its time for choices. Take the easy, broad road to the finish or the hard, narrow path through the woods again. All PAX passed the test and took the hard, narrow path. YHC was proud as he had also done some clearing earlier in the day on this narrow path. Look, squirrel! 
14. More moseying Sparta
15. At the end of this path were buckets filled with dirt for a 300 yard bucket brigade finishing at the smallest shovel flag known to man. 
16. Final obstacle was the Spartan spear throw. All I can say is…we need more practice, but fun nonetheless. 
17. Mosey the 3/4’s of a mile back to YHCs house. 

All PAX were thoroughly tired, smelly and covered in dirt so YHC felt proud. Total time: 1 hour. Total distance 4.3 miles.

Mrs. Bada Bing had ice cold water to cool us off and we all had some good mumblechatter about our intentions for the rest of the day feeling one step closer to Spartan Warriors. Sparta

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