2025 Spartan Palm Beaches
Race Review
By OCR Kings Reporter At
Large
David
Best
The 2025 Spartan Palm Beaches race was held
at the Sunset Cove Amphitheater
and grounds the weekend of March 29 –
30. The amphitheater has played host to many
national acts such as The Zac Brown Band, Willie Nelson, Darius Rucker,
Sublime with Rome, Yes and numerous others. The venue can
accommodate a maximum of six thousand people. The venue also has two
lakes for fishing and other water sports as well as picnic areas,
ball fields, a dog park and a 27 hole public golf course. There are
plenty of things to keep you busy at the venue once your Spartan Race
experience is over for the day.
Venue Logistics
The venue is evenly spaced between the Palm
Beach International and the Fort Lauderdale International airports as
well as easily accessed by both the Florida Turnpike and I-95 so traffic
delays are minimal. The venue has numerous dining and hotel options
available within 5 to 10 minutes. The beach is about ½ hour from the
venue if you need to work on your post race tan. Parking at the venue
was no problem as we parked on the grass near the entrance to the venue.
Festival Area And Race Review
The festival area was in the same area as in
previous years with dining options that included Up In Smoke BBQ as well
as Travelin' Tom's Coffee and Tikiz
Shaved Ice & Ice Cream. Spartan has now partnered with Real American
Beer so at least we Spartans now get a real beer post race instead
of the seltzer they've been handing out in prior races.
The
race was a Sprint only event week and the obstacles reflected that. The race began with hurdles then over walls
(4 foot) before coming to a slight cliff climb that included ropes to
aid in the climb. Then monkey bars, bucket carry that did include some
undulation, then a decent run before hitting the inverted wall, another
long run before coming to the six foot wall and a shallow lake crossing.
Then vertical cargo, sandbag carry, spear throw, helix and then to herc
hoist. One thing that never gets old at the Sprint events are the new
racers and watching them learn about the obstacles and herc hoist didn't
disappoint. A young man was next to me and got his bag to the top....the next
thing I know the bag was speeding down with him still holding the rope
and he goes head over heels into the metal fencing that surrounds the
hoist. The only thing he hurt was his pride as his buddies got the whole thing
on video. From herc hoist, we hit slip wall, atlas carry, plate drag, barb
wire crawl, rope climb, multi-rig, A frame cargo and the finish line. The
obstacles omitted from this years race were rolling mud, dunk wall, Z wall and the fire jump. The race weekend was well attended with over 2,900
racers on Saturday and 1,100 on Sunday. The weather was partly cloudy on
both Saturday and Sunday with light showers on Sunday morning that did
make the overhead grip obstacles quite challenging. One thing the
venue didn't have this year was a shower area, but since there wasn't really
any mud at this years venue, it wasn't a big deal and if you needed a post
race bath, just hit the lakes.
Final Thoughts And Recommendations
Even though this is just a Sprint only
weekend event, I just love this race. After pounding out Trifecta weekends in
SoCal, Houston and Atlanta, this race comes at the right time as you can relax
and have fun as well as work on your spear throw and grip obstacles. It's
also a great venue to try for your personal best time on the Sprint, but if
you do, sign up for the Sunday morning Sprint as there are a lot less
participants. This is also a great venue to bring the family to as you can fit
in two Sprints and have the rest of the day to swim, fish or hit the
beaches. Until my next Spartan race review, this is your reporter at large
for OCR Kings David Best.
• Free Spartan Race and Tough Mudder Gi...
#spartanrace #spartan #trifecta
