Spartan competitor changes prep in advance of World Championship

Spartans, who made up the military city-state Sparta of ancient Greece, were widely known as fierce warriors with rigorous self-discipline and strict morals. They were wired to be fearless, undaunted by pain, austere and mentally strong.

Reebok has taken on its own version of the Greek warrior in a race where competitors try to prove they have what it takes to be called a Spartan.

Spokane Valley is home to at least one of these modern-day Spartans. Last year, Alyssa Hawley competed in her first obstacle-laced Reebok Spartan course – Reebok Spartan Sprint Citi Field race in New York City – in the open group, where racers compete for fun instead of podium spots. Since then, the 26-year-old took on the pressure of elite racing and ran against the nation’s toughest competitors in Reebok’s elite circuit at races across the country.

“Pressure can be a great thing if you let it,” Hawley said. “I was able to embrace it and get excited and go out there and do what I love.”

Reebok’s Spartan Races are split into three main categories – Sprint, Super and Beast – that vary in length in difficulty, the Beast being the hardest of the three. The military-style races involve miles of often tough terrain and numerous performance obstacles that include carrying buckets of gravel uphill, climbing walls, flipping tires, crawling under barbed wire and doing burpees.

Hawley earned a spot in this year’s championship race in January after finishing first in the women’s elite group at the SoCal Spartan Super in Temecula, California, and coming in second in Temecula’s SoCal Spartan Sprint.

On Oct. 1, Hawley will race in the 2016 Spartan World Championship Beast at North Lake Tahoe in California. Racers will have to complete up to 35 obstacles across at least 12 miles of course. The first 20 finishers will be awarded cash prizes, with the first-place racer earning $15,000.

Hawley will be competing as a member of the Reebok Spartan Pro Team, which is made up of ten female and ten male racers from across the country. She was asked to fill an empty spot on the team in April after her first- and second-place finishes in previous Sprint and Super races.

Reebok’s Pro Team sent Hawley to compete in five races this summer as part of the 2016 U.S. World Championship Series to be ranked for the championship race. Hawley placed fourth out of female elite contenders, earning 1,188 points in the series.

Hawley’s first race of the series was the Big Sky Sprint on May 8 in Kalispell, Montana, where she placed seventh. Approximately one month later, Hawley raced in the Golden State Classic in Monterrey, California, where she again placed seventh.

“I was really upset after that race,” Hawley said. “Montana kind of set the bar … I just expected a lot more out of myself.”

Hawley had already proved again and again that she could carry the 50-pound buckets of gravel uphill. She could climb and jump over walls and hoist sandbags using a pulley system. But after suffering a few injuries from overtraining and putting on more muscle from lifting weights, she could not keep up with her elite competitors when running between the obstacles.

“I didn’t want to admit it, or I guess accept it, and then finally after my two seventh places I was like, ‘alright fine, I’ll start running,’ and clearly that’s what I needed,” Hawley said.

After California’s disappointment, Hawley dedicated the rest of the summer to figuring out a new workout plan, which also meant changing up her high-protein diet.

She took the vegetarian approach to drop unneeded muscle weight, abandoned her routine of lifting heavy nearly every day and started hitting the trails instead. Kurt Salquist, her trainer and the owner of CoreFit gym in Spokane, helped turn Hawley’s focus to speed training on steep, rocky terrains that resembled many of the rugged Spartan Race courses.

“Preparing on a mountain itself … is really important as opposed to running on pavement, even on a hill,” Salquist said. “There’s a huge difference from what your feet and your muscles have to do when they’re constantly slipping and clawing the ground to climb up some of this really steep, rugged terrain that we get on the courses.”

The new diet and training paid off nicely. In July, Hawley placed third of the female elite racers at the Blue Mountain Challenge in Palmerton, Pennsylvania, the third race of the U.S. World Championship Series. She grabbed fourth place on Aug. 6 at the Southeast Showdown in Asheville, North Carolina, and then bumped up to second place three weeks later at The Summit in Breckenridge, Colorado, the final race of the series.

“That one (Blue Mountain Challenge) I took third in, I was jacked because I just worked my butt off after Monterrey and I took a huge risk changing a lot of my training and nutrition and things like that,” Hawley said. “It was cool to see it all pay off.”

Her priority between now and October’s race will be on keeping up with her busy schedule – running at 4 a.m., working at her dad’s construction business in Spokane Valley and then strength training in the evenings at CoreFit.

She’s also focused on being cold.

“It might sound weird … but I’ve heard that this race is so cold that people have dropped out,” she said. Until the race, Hawley said she’ll be taking cold showers, turning off the heater at home and driving to work in the mornings without warming up the car.

“I really hate being cold, it messes with me mentally. So I’m trying to focus on that a lot.”

That mental strength is what Hawley says can get anyone through these races. Even with October’s race in clear sights, Hawley said she’s not nervous.

“I’m just trying to focus on what I’ve been doing and realizing that okay, this is it … this is what we’ve worked all year for,” she said.

Viewers can keep up with Hawley and the Spartan races when the series returns to NBCSN on Aug. 30 at 7 p.m.