Ever consider doing a Spartan Race? During the holiday football bowl season, you may have seen the ads for a series of similar races all along the West Coast. Spartan Races are a series of obstacle races that range from three miles all the way to marathon distance.

Not too long ago, I decided to give it a try. My first Spartan Race back in September 2014 took place at the Mountain Creek Ski Resort in Vernon, N.J. My running parter, Zach Evans, and I did the Spartan Super, a grueling nine miles filled with over 30 obstacles. Zach and I participated with very little training and we quickly found out that was mistake. Despite the difficulty of the course and lack of training, we finished at the three-hour mark.

Skipping ahead a year and two months, it was time for me to do my second race. This time I had different partner and a different race location. Ben Johnson is my roommate and running partner. He comes from a small town in western Pennsylvania called Curwensville, which is much smaller than my hometown-Tamaqua. We met at Penn State in the Rec Hall Fitness Center. Go figure.

We both moved to Miami to pursue our dream careers. He works for a well-known architecture firm, Kimley-Horn. I work for Fast Twitch Performance Training. All types of people come for training ranging from people simply looking to retrieve their lost athleticism all the way to professional athletes.

Two small-town Pennsylvania gym rats doing a southern Florida Spartan Race. It was going to be an interesting day.

Ben and I volunteered to work at the race, providing some help with all the chaos that Spartan Race brings-along with while avoiding the race entry fee. We were expecting sunny skies, but our expectations were soon shattered as it started to pour all day. It just so happened to be a record-breaking rainfall weekend for southern Florida. Nature would not be giving us a break.

Despite having to stand in ankle deep water for seven hours, helping the Spartan Race staff was entertaining. While I was helping in bag check, Ben was out on the course taking pictures. Ben was able to see all the runners going through the course, but he was stuck in the downpour while I was under a tent helping with the bag check.

Many different types of people come to these events. There were the first timers, the occasional runners, and the hardcore “elite” runners. The apparel of all the runners was vastly different. Many wore long sleeves and long legged pants to avoid being scraped going through the course, while others went shirtless or wore limited clothing. One person who stood out was the bear-like man wearing only a speedo and an ear-flap Christmas hat with the poof ball on the top.

Finally, 2 p.m. came around, and it was time for us to race. Ben and I entered the starting gate, which was a lake by the time we were able to run. Right out of the gate was an uphill climb providing an intense warm-up that had me gasping as I reached the top. There was small flat patch before we were began to run downhill and reach the first obstacle, full body submersion in a river that was about 25 yards wide. Since there were torrential downpours all day, being in the water was not a bother.

The next couple of obstacles were more challenging. They consisted of climbing over walls that started at six-feet high and progressed to ninefeet by the end of the course.

While we were running the course, every step in the mud threatened to suck our shoes right off our feet.

We ran until we reached the next obstacle – the bucket carry, one of the most challenging on the course. A bucket was to be picked and filled with stones up to the brim and carried 100 yards down a dirt path and another 100 yards through a knee-high river. A full bucket weighed around 50 pounds. The objective was to not put the bucket down, and I was able to carry it the full 200 yards.

Right after the bucket carry was the atlas stone carry. For this obstacle, an atlas stone, which is a huge solid stone that strongman competitors lift onto the platforms during competition, was carried across a river that was waist-high. The stone weighed 75 pounds. Upon reaching the other side, we completed a set of five burpees, or up-downs. After the burpee set was finished, the stone was carried back across the river.

The most challenging obstacle of them all was having to pull a 135-pound sandbag off the ground with a single pulley and that just about took all the remaining strength I had left.

The last stretch of the race was the most interesting. It started with the spear toss, just like the Spartans did during the battle of Thermopylae. The spear had to hit the target on the first throw, or else doing burpees was the punishment. Next was climbing up coral mountains and dropping down into the muddy pools beneath them. There were three hills and three pools to be climbed and dropped into.

Finally, the finish line was in sight. However, it would not be crossed before jumping over a line of fire that rose three-feet high.

Ben and I approached the fire and cleared as we crossed the finish line with relief. We were met by Spartan Race staffers who hung the finisher medals from both of our necks.

As I looked at the medals, I had a feeling that I was going to make adventure races a regular part of my life.