Spartan Super/Sprint Asheville NC 8/3/24

Aug 6, 20246 min read

Updated: Feb 9

The Area

Asheville, North Carolina (Asheville Overview, 2024) is located two hours west of Charlotte, NC, and two hours southeast of Knoxville, Tennessee, at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Asheville sits where the Swannanoa and French Broad Rivers meet, and the nearby Pisgah National Forest is a well-known destination for mountain biking, trail running, and off-road racing. The town of Asheville has long been known as a vibrant artistic center, though in recent years it has become more of a tourist destination. Nonetheless, Asheville is a great town for a weekend, especially in the summer when it is cooler, sitting at 2,000 feet above sea level. There are a variety of restaurants and concert venues (Asheville Music Scene, 2024), and it is one of the largest microbrewery towns in the country (Asheville Breweries,

2024)

Old Venue

Until 2019, the Asheville race took place in Grove Rock Quarry at the base of Black Mountain, near Mt. Mitchell State Park. This active quarry (Hedrick Industries Quarry, 2024) extracted granite primarily for road bases and driveways. Aggregate Base Coursea mixture of ABC, ABC-M, and #17 aggregates, is widely used for road construction, creating a constant demand. ABCM rocks are also known as ABC stone, Crush and Run, Crusher Run, or Crush N Run.

If you ran the old Spartan Asheville course you got used to ABCM aka Crusher.

The old course incorporated features of the quarry and major ascents up Mt. Mitchell, making it one of the most infamous on the race schedule (Spartan, 2019) until 2019, comparable to Palmerton in terms of Super difficulty. It was part of the 2016 National Championship Series but faced several challenges. The festival area had poor drainage, and rain left the venue submerged under two feet of water in 2019; vendor and Spartan equipment had to be towed out. Due to the venue's nature, it was difficult to transport obstacles and support up the mountain, and in 2018, a dehydrated racer had to be airlifted off the course. This led Spartan to enhance course hydration (anti-knucklehead provision). Veterans reminisce poetically about this venue (I am among them). It was a challenging course with significant climbs, evoking memories of Rambo 2 (perhaps not for everyone) when he was breaking rocks in prison (Rambo: First Blood), but it posed logistical issues. After Covid, the venue changed, but we still hope for the Black Mountain return.

New Venue

The new venue is in Mill Spring about 30 minutes east of Asheville making it still very accessible to Ashville but not near Black Mountain. It is now hosted at Tryon Equestrian Center (Tryon Center, 2024) a sprawling facility with ample parking, a huge open-air

Under the large tent at Spartan Asheville, participants enjoy a refreshing break from the heat following the race.

permanent tent, and bleachers surrounding a sandy area where horse competitions are held. It has easy access to the highway and it’s a fantastic facility. I have run several 50k trail races here with the fantastic Upstate Runners Series (Upstate Running, 2024) at other times of the year and there is plenty of room to route trails a variety of distances. But the dynamics of the race have changed. Once a course harder than Palmerton is now a fast track that is great for spectators, ripe for PRs, and a great entry-level course for first times. If you were going to talk a spouse into going to a Spartan Race with you, the Super Sprint weekend outside of Ashville is a solid recommendation.

2024 Course

The course this year was a little different than last year but had a similar feel. We started from the horse corrals past the new construction for about .25 miles on relatively flat terrain before heading downhill into the woods, crossing streams and winding through tree-

Participants congregate near the final obstacle course at Spartan Asheville 2024, located in a spacious area close to the finish line, eagerly anticipating the completion of the demanding race.

Competitors face the "A" Frame obstacle close to the finish line at Asheville 2024.

covered runnable trails. At around mile 1, the Super went left, and the Spring went right. The Super course went up what is the largest series of hills grabbing about 3 miles of runnable up and down a fire road before coming back to the Sprint course. At mile 4ish the Sprint/Super course went through a stream and then up a steep (but not long) incline before coming back out near the festival area. This was a fast track with the Elites finishing the Super in 56:00 and the Sprint in sub 32:00. There is no doubt obstacles were primarily front and back-loaded for this race. When the course split Bender and four others were reserved for the Super, but they had all others in common. The dunk wall came at the end, as it has in the previous version before Slip Wall and then we ran the gauntlet for Herc Hoist and finished with Rings. I thought obstacle placement was pretty cookie-cutter for this race but the fact that most of the obstacles were in out in the hot sun made it a challenge, especially for the overhead obstacles like Bender, Rings, and Multi-Rig.

Course Issues

There has been a negative trend this year that should be mentioned. Like the Cincinnati race, there were multiple races on the course at the same time. In Cincy, it was an Ultra, Beast, and afternoon Sprint finishing up late in the afternoon on Day One. In Ashville, it was a morning Super and an Afternoon Sprint. What I think is happening is the afternoon Sprint heats are being completely booked resulting in a lot of runners on the course in the late afternoon. In Cincinnati, it was problematic around the already slow-moving uphill barbed wire crawl. In Asheville, it meant that the steepish hill around mile 2 of the sprint and mile 5 of the Super got completely clogged up. On Saturday their wait was around 15 minutes to some reports (Interview with David Best, 2024). It is hard to fault new runners, however. Anyone who laces them up for one of these events for the first time has my respect. I realize that looking up a hill that you never thought was a part of the deal can be daunting and possibly dangerous. Just because I go bushwhacking off course don’t you are in my way, it just means well … I don’t know what it means. But I do know that the course designers should think of this and not expect everyone to get funneled into something where passing is almost impossible. We want everyone to have fun and overcome whatever they need to overcome, but not at the expense of bringing things to a halt. If you ran this race and had similar issues, I recommend you open a ticket with Spartan. I have, they need to know if negative items are impacting our race experience. Keep in mind that Spartan recently laid off Trailmaster Hammond and Garth so the newer course designers may not be aware. Let’s make them aware that they need better course flow to accommodate newer Spartans.

Festival Area

Compared to the fiasco of 2019, the new venue is a great place for spectators and anyone hanging out after the race. This venue is sunny and hot (bring sunscreen) and the covered tent area is a great place to hang out with friends, visit vendors, and grab some food. Rocco

Rocco Castellano at the race venue, showcasing cold plunges and recovery tools with Athletes Services.

from Athlete Services was there helping folks with cramps and introducing new racers to cold plunge. But I do have some BREAKING NEWS. Hero Aid Hydration (Hero Aid, 2024) is now the finish line sponsor! This is a true sports drink, unlike the now-retired Fit Aid which I don’t think anyone liked too much. It tasted good and the team on site was pumped about the new partnership with Spartan, but don’t take my word for it I like gas station coffee.

Summary

In the heat of the summer, you can have a solid getaway with your crew or spouse and get your Spring and Super completed as part of a weekend in a cool town. The course is not brutal which means it is a good intro for newer races, racers who want to step up to a Super, or anyone who wants to jam a Super and two Sprints together in a weekend. I would advise getting the earliest start times you can to avoid course layout difficulties and encourage anyone to contact Spartan to make them aware.