Runners to Race Through Mud, Water, Fire

A race that will lead runners through mud pits, over obstacles and open flames is set for Saturday.

The Super Spartan Race is set for Vail Lake, 40500 Highway 79 South at 9 a.m. The multi-stage event will be the seventh obstacle race in the international Spartan Race Series, which began last year in Burlington, Vt.

Winners will get a spot in the 2011 Pittsfield Spartan “Death Race,” set for later this year. The first-place winner of this race takes home $100,000.

Organizers plan to keep the details of Saturday’s race secret until the morning of the event, though a rough outline of the course shows an 8-mile track circling with 15 obstacles circling the lake and crossing Vail Lake Road.

Previous races in the series had racers sloshing through mud pits, swimming through moats, crawling under barbed wire, scaling walls and leaping over walls of flame.

The event is open to anybody 16 years or older. Entry costs $125, and a portion of the proceeds will benefit Homes for Our Troops, a nonprofit organization that helps wounded service members remodel their homes.

For more information about the race, click here. To register, click here.

City News Service contributed to this report.