E-commerce in-charge, May Taqi and Business System Analyst, Ali Zainal recently took part in the “world’s best obstacle course”, the Spartan Race.

The XDubai Spartan Race took place in Mleiha, Sharjah this November, which is a preserved ancient site, located just 60km from Sharjah International Airport and soon to become a UNESCO heritage site.

The Spartan duo have practiced hard, but never imagined the race to be as hard as it was, describing it as the “toughest race courses of their lives”! The two sat down together to share their experiences, and try to encourage you to take part, because the first step towards believing you can do it is registering for the race. Read on for a glimpse of what you can expect.

Back in April this year we started our Spartan journey in Bahrain with the ‘Sprint’ race, the easiest of the three Spartan races. It was a fun and exciting 2.5 hours to complete a mere 7km with 20+ obstacles. The timing didn’t matter - what was important was to finish the race as a team. We named our team ‘The Burpee Dozen’, because burpees are what you need to do if you don’t complete an obstacle.

What’s so great about the Spartan races is it doesn’t matter who comes first, it’s about having fun and always carrying your team spirit. After the ‘Sprint’ race, our excitement only grew stronger. We knew we had to complete the ‘Spartan Trifecta’, which is finishing the ‘Sprint’, ‘Super’ and ‘Beast’ races. That brought us to the Spartan Race in Mleiha which had more than 2,400 participants. A 21km race course with 30+ obstacles in the middle of UAE’s desert, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We were sponsored by a Kuwaiti company, purely for our efforts and team spirit. Eighteen of us from Bahrain, Oman, UAE, and one member from the Maldives sought out to complete the ‘Beast’! It was a brutal 7.5 hours. There were times we thought that we couldn’t make it, but we still kept going. This was a race course we’d never have expected, aside from the obstacles, the terrain was tough as climbing up and down mountains, trekking through sand dunes for kilometers in the burning hot sun is no easy task. Going through a natural lake in the middle of the desert and getting stuck in the mud, from rock climbing a mountain with no support and finishing off by jumping in a pool of ice - as crazy as this may sound - it was all WORTH IT!

A big take away from this race was that truly nothing is impossible. We saw racers of all ages, differently abled people, and even a father who had his baby strapped to his back! The feeling of accomplishing something of this magnitude with the best Spartan team there is…well, there’s no comparison out there! Even with not being able to move from the muscle pain after the race, the team is already getting psyched to tackle the Spartan ‘Super’ race next April 2017 in Bahrain, to officially win our Spartan Trifecta! The bigger the team the better, so if you’re up for the challenge, anyone’s welcome on our team!