The people who win Spartan Races are almost ALWAYS the best runners over the particular distance (whether its 10, 15, 21, 42k or whatever). This is truer the longer the distance, probably because running 5 or 10k is easy without training it at all, but running 21 or 42k is the exact opposite. A lot of fast marathon runners have entered Spartans and dominated without any other training, just because they have insane aerobic capacities, are super light, can recover from the obstacles or having to do the 30 burpees, and make up for any 'hiccups' with their insane speed/recovery/capacity.
As far as the obstacles go, usually you don't know what they'll entail exactly, but it's almost always a few forms of climbing (monkey bars, ropes, ladders, walls, rock climbing obstacles), grip strength (carries, sandbags, etc), and crawling under things.
With the above said, I believe the plan outlined below is incredibly good, and it is what I use myself:
Running plan:
- Follow a training plan that trains you to complete a race at whatever distance your race will be. Such plans almost always include runs that are longer than the actual race; so the distance itself will be fine on the day. The most well renowned plans are the ones by Jack Daniels and Peter Pfitzinger. Both of them have a lot of books with plans for different distances. Both of their types of plans include the same things as one another, however tend to be organised differently throughout the week.
Strength/Obstacles/GPP plan:
- Simple and Sinister with a few small modifications.
The swings plus turkish get-ups, not to mention globlet squats, give you everything you need to ace the obstacles! My recommendations/modifications for structuring the workouts are as follows:
1.) Crawling for 2-10 minutes (spider crawls, leopard, baby crawls, including backwards, as explained by Tim Anderson in original strength). These are amazing for mobility and core strength, they do almost everything in fact! But they also prepare you specifically for the crawling of the Spartan Race.
2. Simple and Sinister as normal.
3. Chin-ups 2-3 times per week, depending on energy levels. Consider using towels or ropes for added grip difficulty.
Notes:
- Do some stretches, whatever YOU need for you, between sets of swings and TGU.
- Use the crawling and goblet squats as a warm-up before running sessions too.
- Do however many SS/Running sessions as you can handle/have time for. I think three runs and three SS sessions is good. I usually do 4 of each, though.
- Consider doing some chin-ups, monkey bars, push-ups or other 'obstacles' every now and then while running, if you run past a park or playground something.
- This is a plan for LIFE as well as Obstacle Courses. I know this is a long post but it's actually really a simple plan haha!