THE SPARTAN US NATIONAL SERIES - SOUTH
FROM A JACKSONVILLE SUPER TO THE PALM BEACHES SPRINT. AND ENDING WITH THE FAYETTEVILLE BEAST.

Some OCR weekends are about mountains. Some are about mud.
And some are about how well you can hold it together when the course is flat, fast, and gives you nowhere to hide.

Palm Beaches looked like one of those races.

No giant mountain climbs. No endless death march. Just a quick course, a fast front pack, and the kind of layout where every little mistake matters. Those races are fun to watch… and brutal to race well.

That’s what made this a good one to check in with Paul Massey.

We talked a little on Palm Beaches from last weekend, and the Fayetteville race coming up.

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Paul’s from Oklahoma, starting OCR back in the day with Rugged Maniac, then moved into Tough Mudder and Spartan. He’s done World’s Toughest Mudder twice, and this year he’s been chasing the South National Series hard — with a 3rd in Jacksonville and now a 4th at Palm Beaches. Next up is Fayetteville in early May, where he’ll be trying to finish the series strong and make a push for 2nd or 3rd overall.

I chatted with him on five quick questions after the race to get a feel for how Palm Beaches played out and what he’s planning heading into Fayetteville.

1.) So we didn’t have the fastest photographer in the Sport running around catching the action this race (shoutout Joe Martello).
So what did that top pack look like?

Paul said the top four (Adam Beach, Brent Trail, Alvaro Vasquez and himself) stayed together until about mile 1, coming into the bucket carry. That’s where Adam & Alvaro pushed the carry and started to separate from Brent and him. By the spear, Adam was already gone, Alvero was doing burpees, Brent hit his throw, and Paul missed his.

And yeah — that one stings a little more because Paul told me he had hit the spear 10-for-10 in practice before the race.

Because of course that’s how OCR works…

2.) I saw the times for the JAX Sprint & Palm Beaches Sprint were almost tied. And both being Florida courses, I assume these courses/venues were similar?

Paul says they were definitely pretty close.
Both races being Flat and Fast.
Palm Beaches had one little cliff climb and a section of running through the water, but outside of that, the feel was pretty similar.

3.) Jacksonville had some new obstacles and variations: Chain carry, Black Ropes on the rig, Cargo net crawl, Olympus variation, etc. Did Palm Beaches do anything different?

Two main things stood out. A plate drag in the middle of sandbag carry. And there was a chain carry.

4.) Fayetteville is the final South National Series stop. How does your training change up now since this will be a Beast course?

Paul says that he’s picking up mileage and focusing on some longer workouts, so the body is ready for a longer race.

He says in a peeking week, he’s getting up to around 65miles, with his longer workout being 16-18miles.
His long workout would look something like this:

2mile warmup,
8miles at marathon pace,
2×15minutes at half marathon pace or faster w/2min recoveries,
cool down to finish and hit his desired mileage for the day.

5.) If you were to win Fayetteville, how does it happen? On the Flats, the Hills, the Obstacles, the Terrain?

It would come down to my Technical Running & my Endurance.

If you want to hear more about Paul’s background in Running & OCR and some specific race recapping on the 1st Race in Jacksonville, check out the I AM A SPARTAN! OCR PODCAST here, he did with Scott back in early March.

ONE THING THAT STOOD OUT

Palm Beaches felt like a good reminder that flat and fast does not mean easy.

Those are the races where little mistakes get expensive.
Missed spear. Slight hesitation. A messy carry. A bad transition.

You don’t need a mountain for the race to get away from you.

And now the challenge changes.

Fayetteville is a different kind of test, and Paul’s answer about the next month of training is probably the big takeaway for the rest of us too: you do not need to reinvent yourself four weeks out. You just need to get a little more durable, a little more prepared, and a little more honest about what the course is going to ask of you.

That’s not sexy, but it usually works.

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So it was May 2nd, 2010 when Tough Mudder in the US officially started with their Pennsylvania event.

But let’s back up a little.
When Marketing & Registration for that Race started in February / March.

The Hype that got out there, for this inaugural Event was so freaking good, they sold out and maxed out at 5,000 participants super quickly.

It was so positive, that in late March 2010, they decided to push things further and grow and officially announced a Tri-State event in New Jersey, coming in November that could handle up to 20K participants.

These early events defined how we all viewed modern OCR, with their 10-12 mile course, with ~18 military style obstacles and a focus on teamwork over competition.

They’ve since been bought by Spartan Race but still hold the Tough Mudder branding today.
They still put on some Epic events, full of Crazy Obstacles and focus on that heavy Teamwork Vibe.