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Caledon pair takes home silver in Spartan World race

March 21, 2019   ·   0 Comments

The first man and first lady of obstacle course racing are back on the podium.

The husband and wife team of Ryan Atkins and Lindsay Webster, of Caledon, each earned a second-place finish at last weekend’s Spartan Race Super, held in Alabama.

A former 2016 Spartan United States champion, Atkins cut just over five minutes off his time at the season’s first Spartan Race Super in February to 58:41.

Webster, the 2017 Spartan Women’s World champion, shaved off over ten minutes of her time on the Alabama course, a grueling, eight-plus mile course of swampy terrain and 25 separate obstacles.

While Webster ended up finishing just over a minute and a half back of fellow OCR powerhouse Nicole Mericle, she said running a good race with no obstacle failures “feels like a win to me.”

“My race legs felt a little rusty with one already in the books, and I’m really happy that I was able to close a little of that gap between myself and the lead since the last race.”

Both Webster and Mericle were neck-and-neck through the first three miles of the course, though Mericle’s lead grew as Webster called it “steadily and undramatically.”

“We hit the really speedy terrain and I just couldn’t keep up with her pace.”

Admitting that running on rough terrain with changes in elevation is her usual strength, Webster said she was focused on training in the “fast and flat” to battle with this particular course.

“Flat is not really my forte, obviously, so I think I did really well,” said Webster. “I think it paid off.”

Webster, Mericle, and eventual third-place finisher Rebecca Hammond cemented themselves as the podium contenders at the spear throwing portion of the event, each hitting their target on the first try to pull away from the pack.

For Atkins, the spear throwing portion was also instrumental in his success, hitting the target instantaneously to jump into a race for second place, well behind the leader, Veejay Jones of California.

With the finish, both racers booked their ticket early to the Spartan North American Championship in West Virginia this August. To qualify for the championship, elite male and female racers must place in the top-ten during a U.S. National Series event, with a scarce amount of spots available at only 300 per gender.

No days off for the power couple, however: training begins now for the next leg of the Spartan Super race in mid-April, hosted in Seattle.

The husband and wife tandem combined for multiple Spartan Series wins in 2018, including a Spartan World Championships gold medal finish for Atkins in December

Webster previously won the Seattle leg of the Spartan National Series in April, while Atkins took the third leg in Southern California in May.

Outside of the Spartan series, the pair were part of a gold medal-winning team late last year at The World’s Toughest Mudder in Atlanta, Georgia, going by the moniker “Lindsay’s Angels”.

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