Military Special Needs Network
Proudly Supporting all Military Families with a Special Needs Dependent
Orange Shirts and Orange Medals: The SoCal Special Needs Spartan Race!
In case you didn’t know, Spartan Race is one of the pioneers in the mud run and obstacle course race industry. Racers travel around the country competing for prize money on the Spartan Race Circuit.
After quite a bit of planning, the Spartan leadership team is allowing us to provide the second ever Spartan Race for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs). We held the first event this past September in New Jersey and it was a huge success!
To help our racers be successful, we created a modified half-mile course. It is suitable for ALL levels of fitness, from beginners to advanced fitness levels. It has obstacles, but was created with the intention of ensuring everybody could complete the course. Because most of the people we work with in the IDD community don’t have inclusive fitness events (or any opportunities for fitness for that matter) in their lives, making sure the racers could complete the course and succeed at this event was of the utmost importance to us.
To ensure that everyone finished and to create a positive inclusive social interaction, family members and Spartan racers ran in tandem with every participant. Furthermore, there were pro racers at every obstacle to cheer and provide additional support. Like always, Spartan racers of all ages helping each other to reach their goals. It created such a positive environment ripe with positive energy that our athletes were able to experience first hand the elation one typically does after athletic achievement. For many, this was the first time they experienced this feeling!
In our New Jersey race, every single participant finished! Watching the kids on the course was second only to the medal presentation. Seeing how proud the racers were accepting their medals and shirts is something I will never forget. Feel free to check out the YouTube video which features this event from the NJ race.
We are so excited to hold this event again. We have 50 slots available. The cost is $35.00 dollars (plus an insurance fee), but we do have a limited number of scholarships available to families experiencing financial hardship.
With that, we’d like to welcome you to the Spartan community. I am hoping that you will be able to join us, as participants, as volunteers, or just in spreading the word about this event and, more importantly, that creating and providing inclusive events are so important!
This is so important because, if we can provide another successful event, there is a great likelihood that Spartan will offer this race wherever they offer their traditional races. Based on the tears of joy from the racers, the families, and the volunteers at our first race, we owe it to the rest of the country to succeed here.
Event Information
Vail Lake Resort
38000 Highway 79
South Temecula, CA 92592
http://run.spartanrace.com/2014-Socal-Spartan-Race-Special-Needs
Contact Information
Dr. Joe Galasso
drjoe@voltwellnessusa.com
http://www.facebook.com/VOLTwell
Evan Carlson
evancarl@optonline.net
(201) 739-9300
2 comments on “Orange Shirts and Orange Medals: The SoCal Special Needs Spartan Race!”
Comments, discussion and insight always welcome!
Military Special Needs Network 
Hello! Do you use Twitter? I’d like to follow you if
that would be okay. I’m absolutely enjoying your blog and look forward to new posts.
Yes, we do use Twitter. You can follow us @MilSpecialNeeds.
Thanks!