2018 Thermopylae Fitness Series

Welcome to the Thermopylae Games, Thermopylae Obstacle Course Race and Thermopylae Training Program Website.

This year looks to be the biggest yet.  We are putting the call out to athletes, coaches, schools, administrators and school boards to join the THERMOPYLETES in their 2018 competitions.

 The Thermopylae Series was created by Coach Mike Maher at Valley Creek School in the fall of 2010 as the natural evolution of the fitness programming that he had been running with athletes since 2006.  The programming, originally called Bootcamp or Conditioning, grew out of the desire to see students train in non-linear athletics such as fitness, obstacle course racing and military style training.  This programming started at John Ware school using Coach Maher's background as a strength coach, fitness enthusiast and trainer.

In 2010, the Conditioning program started at Valley Creek school and rapidly grew into a multi-grade, multi-gender, multi-sport athletic training program.  That fall, a group of grade 9 students approached Mike with the idea of creating a fitness competition that gave them the opportunity to match their skills against the best that other schools, and boards, had to offer.  The THERMOPYLAE 3K Obstacle Course Race was born.

The first race, in May of 2011, consisted of four schools who competed on a cold, sleet filled day through a three kilometre and ten obstacle course.  The finish line was occupied by a steely eyed member of the Calgary Stampeders Football club with an impact hitting pad.

Since then, the programming has evolved, the number of participating students/schools has grown, and the THERMOPYLAE OBSTACLE COURSE RACE has grown to match.  Last year, in June of 2017, Valley Creek athletes hosted over 2000 athletes on a five kilometre, 25 obstacle course with mud, physical obstacles (walls, tunnels, hills), fitness obstacles (push ups, core exercises, burpees, etc) and our own personal fitness exercises (war machines, monster makers, etc).

The race led to the evolution of this WEBSITE.  A student driven, coach focused, site full of programming, information, gear reviews, training protocols, specialist information and race specific training.

The website met the needs of those schools without fitness programming or experience in OCR, but the next logical step was periodizing training to meet the needs of athletes who's goal was to be adequately prepared for the race.  The Thermopylae Games were born.

The THERMOPYLAE GAMES is an opportunity for athletes to participate in friendly competition against other schools.  These host schools create competitions based off of a five exercise, maximal output competition.  Each athlete competes in an exercise for a total of two minutes, their score is recorded, they rest and then compete in the next exercise.  At the end, their score is tallied and goes into a team total.  This event allows training that feeds into the race and prepares athletes to compete at their very best.

This year, as we continue to evolve, we have introduced the SPARTAN PROJECT.  A series of standardized fitness tests broken into "1" and "2".  Programs that are "1" is a competition where you try to finish all exercises, with perfect form, in under twenty minutes.  You record your score and try to improve on it.  The programs that are "2" are half of the exercise workload and you have twenty minutes to finish as many rounds as possible.  There is Armour/Strength, Javelin/Cardiovascular, Shield/Core, and Sword/Agility.

The event shirts this year are "trophy" shirts.  On the back of each are all of the SPARTAN PROJECT programs as well as the THERMOPYLAE OBSTACLE COURSE RACE.  There is a place under each to write your time, rounds or race time.  Allowing each athletes shirt to become their competition year trophy.

There are four THERMOPYLAE GAMES each year.  The first occurred back in November at Valley Creek School and the second will be at the end of February at Crossing Park School with the other two to follow.  The THERMOPYLAE OBSTACLE COURSE RACE will happen on Tuesday, June 5.

If you are an athlete, parent, coach, teacher, PE specialist, administrator, school or school board, please contact: mdmaher@cbe.ab.ca or thermopylaeocr@gmail.com for more details.

Thank you for your interest,

The THERMOPYLAE TEAM