We had waited far too long for Spartan to make a visit to Long Island, but they finally did. This dream was actually a goal of ours when I worked for SR in 2012-13 but had trouble finding an adequate and willing venue to host the race (at the time, we were planning an 8 mile Super course), but Spartan jumped on the same site that Tough Mudder has used for the last 4 years. A rather unusual choice, as the Old Bethpage Village Restoration is an open-air historic "museum" that many of us locals visited on elementary school field trips, and for that reason its one that also comes with restrictions on construction, digging, and of course any fire (which there wasn't).
1. COURSE- For anyone that knows Long Island, its very tough to find any kind of elevation without going to the north shore, and this is smack dab mid island where the best you have is a few rolling hills. The terrain, especially at this site, also doesn't offer much variety, so this race became one of the fastest Sprints ever as much of it was on either grassy fields or wide packed dirt trail roads. A few sections took you into short wooded bushwacking trails but those were still nothing to slow down the pace. The usual mix of obstacles made their appearances, with many of them bunched into mini gantlet sections of 3-4 in a row. The heavy carries were shorter and easier than normal with little incline to deal with, although it was quite muddy especially near the sandbag carry. GRADE = B
2. FESTIVAL- The main gathering area was well placed near both the start and finish lines, but almost seemed a little too "big" for the thin crowd on a crisp cool mid-November day. What we could have used more of were picnic tables or other seating. The merchandise tent was nearly an entire strip mall in length, and hard to avoid as it lined the exit. The best part of the setup was actually the registration and packet pickup housed in one of the old farm house buildings that are part of the museum- the only time the race came anywhere near touching the historic landmarks. GRADE = B
3. SWAG- This would be the last Spartan of my 2018 race season, and so (gladly) the last of the same red Sprint medal that I've collected so many of before. Same goes for the Finisher shirt, which I didnt even take, but rather splurged a whopping $30 for the collectible venue shirt you see here- but like I said, I had to celebrate and remember the year Spartan finally came to play in my backyard. Hoping they will now make this a regular visit. GRADE = B
OVERALL GRADE = B
