2025 Spartan
Trifecta World Championship
West Virginia
Race Review
By OCR Kings Reporter At Large
David Best
Country roads....take me home....to the
place....I belong....which was the 2025 Spartan Trifecta World
Championship that was held in Glen Jean, West Virginia the weekend
of September 5 – 7, 2025. This was the first time in the history
of Spartan Race that the Trifecta World Championship has been held
outside of Sparta, Greece. The host venue was the Summit Bechtel
Reserve or “The Summit” for short. It is a unique Scouting
facility with an expansive main property spanning over 10,000
acres. This venue, in my opinion, is the best all around venue
location in the United States as it has everything we Spartans
require for an unforgettable race experience. The infrastructure
(showers & toilets), as well as the property itself including hills,
valleys, streams and other natural as well as man made obstacles
(the suspension bridge) make this a fun and changeling venue
to conquer. There were a total of over 8000 Spartans that competed over the
three day event that included a Sprint on Friday, a
Super and an open Sprint on Saturday and the Beast on Sunday to
conclude the race weekend. As I have never competed in an event
of this magnitude before, I didn't know if I was going to like
the one race per day format......BUT I LOVED IT!!!!!! In a perfect
world, I wish all the Spartan race weekends could be done in the
same manner, but the time and financial constraints won't allow us
to do so. Being able to complete one race a day and then be able to
concentrate on your recovery for the next day's race can't be
underestimated. As we had Spartans from all over the world here
competing, I also learned that the European Spartans rule the
roost. After the Sprint event was held on Friday, multiple European
Spartans complained about the rules and starting times. In turn,
the starting times for the remaining races for the weekend were
reconfigured to suit them.
I will go over the rules they didn't like in
the obstacle section of the review. I also decided to run in the age
group competitive division as I thought, lightning could strike
and who knows, maybe I podium at the World
Championship.....Spoiler Alert, lightning didn't strike, but I didn't come in
last in my age group either (LOL).
Venue Logistics,
Travel Information
& Opening Ceremonies
West Virginia isn't the most traveled to state
in our country, so direct flights to Charleston are limited. I
was lucky to find a direct flight from Orlando, Florida to Charleston,
West Virginia on Breeze Airlines that departed on Thursday
morning. That was perfect for me as I could fly in and partake
in the opening ceremonies that were held in Charleston along
the Kanawha River at Haddad River Front Park. The park is
located about 10 minutes from the Charleston airport which made
attending very convenient. The opening ceremony included an
athlete briefing, an introduction of the elite athletes, a
parade of nations as well as a virtual map of the Sprint course we were to
tackle on Friday.
Virtual maps were also released the night
before both the Super and Beast races so we Spartans could plot our
race strategy for the coming races. A total of 28 nations were
represented with 5% of the racers being elite, 47% being in the age
group category and 48% competing in the open category. 75% of the
participants were men and 25% were women.
After the opening
ceremony was over, I was off to Beckley, West Virginia and the
hotel to prepare for the coming race weekend. The trip from
Charleston to Beckley takes about 90 minutes and is an easy ride on
the interstate. Just to warn you, West Virginia loves to collect tolls
along the route and there are two toll booths on the route.
Beckley itself has many hotel and dining options which make it
convenient and Beckley is only a 20 minute ride to “The Summit”.
The Race Weekend
The Sprint race times began at noon on Friday,
so I made sure to be there well before to hit the merchandise
tent to pick up my championship race swag....and I'm glad I did.
Entry into the venue area began at 11:00 AM and I was the very
first person in that line. They let us in and it was like a large
group of vultures attacking a carcass. Within an hour, all the
championship venue swag was GONE!!!!! It was insane and there
were quite a few people showing their displeasure in that
merchandise tent as they left empty handed and disappointed. As I have been dealing with an MCL injury incurred in Idaho a month earlier, I was unsure on how I was going to perform....but have no
fear, Rocco with Spartan Athlete Services saved my race
weekend as well as the rest of my race season. I contacted him prior
to the event and told him my situation and his response was “I've
got this” and he wasn't lying. Between the taping, soaking and
red light treatments, he had me running like a well oiled machine
once again. After receiving my pre race treatment, I proceeded
to the start line. I'm now going to review all the obstacles for the
race weekend and we started with a Four Foot Wall to a Foot
Bridge that was corded for us to crawl across the bridge and into the
corral. After the start, we meet a Four Foot Wall, Over Unders,
a horseshoe shaped Barbed Wire Crawl, Hurdles, Sand Bag Carry,
Rolling Mud and Slip wall. We then come to a water crossing
that takes us to a peninsula that held Spear Throw. We were
required to wear the flotation device provided from the time we
entered the water and on to the peninsula, perform the Spear Throw
and swim back to the starting point of the swim. We even had to
keep the flotation device on if we missed the spear throw and had
to perform burpees.
There were a total of four Spear
Throws for the weekend and I made three of four (missed on the
Sprint). There were two Spear Throw obstacles on the Beast course.
Then on to A-Frame Cargo, a Barbed Wire Crawl, another A-Frame
Cargo to a new obstacle called Tilting Ladders. It's similar
to monkey bars, except there are three ladders on a swivel and they
move as you tryto make your away across, similar to Monkey Bars.
On to Atlas Carry, Inverted Wall and up a decent hill to
Bucket Carry. Now the Super/Beast obstacles begin with Twister,
Bender, Olympus, Stairway To Sparta, then down hill to the
Tyrolean Traverse. Now comes the serious down hill part to a small
creek and a major uphill the West Virginia venue is famous for,
we then hit the Suspension Bridge that does move a bit and
once off that, we tackle Eight Foot Wall, Plate Drag, Spear
Throw #2, a Sandbag Carry combined with a Barbed Wire Crawl (yes,
both at the same time), then Armer and to the Laser Pistols.
Now the last time I handled a Laser Pistol was at Spartan Race
Jacksonville two years ago. Here, we had to stand behind a table and
put three shots in the black part of the target in 30 seconds
before moving on. So I step up and my first two shots hit the black
part of the target. Do you think I could hit it a third time???? You
guessed it, NO WAY! I then moved onto Monkey Bars. Monkey Bars is
usually a Sprint obstacle, but it was on the Super/Beast course
only and the spacing of the bars can only by labeled as
quite aggressive. If you didn't have your boarding house reach going,
you were out of luck. Seven Foot Wall was next, then Ape
Hanger (failed both days....I think I have a mental block on
it!!!!!), Z-Wall, Six Foot Wall, then a crawl under the foot bridge we
had to cross to enter the corral, another Barbed Wire crawl to Rope
Climb.
Rope Climb was the obstacle the European racers were
complaining about. The rules for this race stated the racer climbs to
the top, rings the bell and in a controlled fashion, lowers back to
the ground...no dropping from height onto the
mats. They were incensed they couldn't just drop like they do in the
European races. Then on to a Chain Carry. There were three different
configurations for this obstacle. The Sprint was just a chain, the
Super was a chain with a cord in the middle you had to duck under and
the Beast was a Chain & Sandbag carry. Multi-Rig was next
and it had two different configurations. The Sprint had rings
to the pipe back to rings and the Super/Beast had rings to the
pipe to ropes (made both the Sprint and Super, but slipped on the
Beast...tired, I guess.....LOL!!!). The final two obstacles
were Herc Hoist ( I was happy as I heard no bags dropped at this
event) and Fire Jump to end the race. The alley leading to the Fire
Jump was lined with all the flags of the participating nations, which
was really cool!!!!
Final Thought And
Recommendations
It was a very enjoyable experience to
participate in this World Championship. But I will tell you, that wasn't
a West Virginia race. I've raced West Virginia three times and
this race was a pedestrian race compared to the other two I've
completed. I saw online that a Spartan racer took the map
from the race in Greece last year and compared the elevation to
the race in West Virginia and the elevations were very similar.
It would have been a sight to see what the foreign racers would
have done if they ran the West Virginia course from last year that
was set up by our friend and Spartan tormentor, Darth Vader AKA
Tyler Andrew Spencer!!!! I can only assume they cut down
the elevation as there were more obstacles then on a normal
Spartan race course.
After the Beast race was completed on
Sunday, Spartan held their award and closing ceremonies and they were
very well done. The only recommendations I could make for the
future Championship events is to order MORE Championship Swag!!!!
It would have easily sold. The other is to not listen to a
few European racers whine that it's not how it's done in Europe.....you're not there!!!! you're in the good old USA and if you don't
like how we do it then don't attend....sit home on your sofa drinking
wine and eating goat cheese!!! I did mention earlier in the review
about me competing in the age group division. I'm glad I did it
once, but never again!!! As I entered the corral for the Sprint, I was
looking at the other racers and they had a very serious look on
their faces. In the movie, “The Dark Knight” with Heath Ledger as
the Joker, he takes a citizen and says “Why So Serious”?!! I
so wanted to do the same to the other Spartans in the Corral that
weekend!!!!LOL!!!!
I am now off to Seattle and Spartan Pan
American World Championship race weekend, so until my next
report, this is your OCR Kings Reporter At Large, David Best,
bringing you all the “BEST” Spartan offers us!!!!!
• Spartan Race Sprint 2025 (All Obstacles)
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