#208 | Bears, Barbed Wire, & Cold: The 2025 Spartan Summer Death Race Recap - Win Today

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And the storm it's coming.
I ain't quitting.
No-transcript.

(00:31):
No, no, no, no.
It's this fucking simple.
Yes, it's fucking simple, yeah.

(00:57):
Welcome to the Wednesday Podcast, a weekly resource thoughtfully
crafted to help people buildand refine discipline,
accomplish their goals, fortifytheir mindsets and be of service
to somebody in this world.
My name is Ryan Cass and I amyour host, and it is my mission
and commitment to deliveramazing episodes to you every
week, where you'll learn frommyself or a renowned expert in

(01:20):
their field.
We love helping people win inevery aspect of their lives, and
you can help us win by sharingthe show with somebody that you
believe will benefit from it,subscribing and leaving a rating
and review.
We believe that everybody inthis world is meant to do
something great with their lives, and we're here to help play a

(01:40):
role in that.
Thank you for tuning in andlet's win today.
Well, I live to tell the tale.
2025 Spartan Summer Death Race.
The opening audio that youheard there.
That is from the 2022 SpartanSummer Death Race.
You can go on YouTube and it'sone of the first videos that

(02:03):
pops up.
Butister, that's Don.
He is the task master and hewas yelling at us in a very

(02:32):
similar tone and may have evensaid the exact same things to
some people, so that was veryresemblant of the things that we
heard over 72 hours.
I'm really excited to sharethis episode, and what I'm going

(02:54):
to do is my best take on therecap, and I've written
everything down to the best ofmy memory and have gone back and
looked at other folks' recapsand want to help create the
experience for you as to what my72 hours in Pittsfield, vermont

(03:17):
, looked like during the deathrace.
So we'll go through that andthen, as always, so that there's
something to walk away with,I'm going to extract some
lessons for you, some thingsthat I learned that I'll
certainly be applying andreframing in my mind, but then

(03:38):
also for you to incorporate intoyour life.
That's one thing that we alwaysaim to achieve with every
episode is that it's not just metalking or interviewing
somebody, but that you are beinggiven a tool each and every
single Monday that you can putinto your arsenal, and this

(04:01):
experience offered plenty.
As I go on about the race, thequestion why?
Is likely going to pop up inyour mind why the heck did you
do this?
Why the heck did you stay in?
Why the heck would you sign upfor this.
I go in depth as to why Idecided to do this.

(04:22):
Go back to episode 206.
That's two weeks ago.
But to reiterate very simplyand briefly why I chose to take
on this challenge in the SpartanSummer Death Race, there's a
multitude of reasons, but reallyI love discovering, continually

(04:45):
discovering, what we are trulycapable of as beings, when we
push past adversity, push pastthe voices, push past the noise,
what we really have inside ofus, and I believe that the best
way to do that is throughendurance, through extreme

(05:07):
endurance events, whether it's amarathon, ultra marathon.
I believe that is one of theeasiest ways to really
understand what you have in thetank.
Now, there's other ways thatyou can find out what you have
in the tank, but I believe thatendurance is the best way

(05:27):
because it's a you versus youbattle at all times, and that's
what I love to do.
So I will continue to take onextreme challenges.
This is certainly not the end.
I can already tell you I willbe back at this race at some
point in the future and I willcontinue doing extreme things.

(05:51):
Not sure exactly what all thatentails yet, but this isn't the
end and I don't believe thatthis is the furthest that I can
go and that we can go.
So I've got some even crazierthings in mind, or perhaps crazy
.
A lot of people also may bethinking along the way, and I'll

(06:14):
just cover this.
Get this out now.
You might be thinking you arecrazy for doing this.
You are crazy this because I'vebeen hearing some of this and
I'd say you're damn right thatI'm crazy.
I'm crazy motivated to inspirepeople, to show people what they
can do.
I'm crazy dedicated to thismission of helping people become

(06:39):
unshakable and I'm going to putmyself in the most challenging
arenas so that I can help peopleconquer their arena.
There we go.
That's why I was there Nowgoing into the.
Let's just get straight tobusiness.

(07:00):
I know y'all are likely like ohall right, tell me the details,
tell me the details, tell methe details.
So, pittsfield, vermont thisrace takes place at Joe DeSena's
farm.
Joe DeSena is the founder andCEO of Spartan and this was also
really cool because I had Joeon the podcast two years ago and

(07:21):
Joe was the first big name thatcame on to win today and I
remember when I reached out tohim I thought there is no way
that Joe is going to reply to me, but you don't know the answer
to a question that you don't ask.
So I sent him a message onLinkedIn and crafted out this
great message in my view, sentit out, don't hear anything for

(07:44):
three weeks, and then he repliesback and from there he came on
the podcast.
We exchanged text messages.
He wanted me to help his sonwith some stuff with goals,
which was really neat.
So we've actually been able tokeep in touch.
So it was really cool to alsodeliver on my word because I
told him I will do this race.
To also deliver on my wordbecause I told him I will do

(08:07):
this race and I got to meet Joea few times, talked to him for a
little bit and now helping himout with potentially getting
involved with Spartan involvedat the Citadel.
So we'll see there.
But he's got this beautifulfarm in Pittsfield, vermont,
which is kind of in the middleof nowhere, as you would expect
a farm to be.
I drove from Charleston, southCarolina, on Tuesday, dropped

(08:33):
off my dog at my mom's housejust outside of Charlotte and
then I was on my way to Vermont.
Why did I decide to drive toVermont?
Why did I decide to driveBecause, again going back to
episode 206, there was a lengthypacking list, one of which
involved an ax and a handsaw andthings that I really didn't

(08:55):
want to show up to CharlestonInternational Airport with for
potential fear of retributionand ending up on a TSA random
checklist for the rest of myflying career.
But in all seriousness, withthat as well, the last thing

(09:15):
that I wanted to have happen isI get to Vermont and there's
lost luggage, a lost bag, andthis packing list was quite
extensive.
So I figured, hey, why notdrive?
What an opportunity to go andlisten to books and podcasts.
So I made it to Vermont aroundTuesday night, so I had plenty

(09:40):
of time to get everything Ineeded ready and finalized on
Wednesday before all of the funstarted on Thursday morning.
This race can last up to 72hours.
So Thursday morning to Sundaymorning is what I was prepared
for and, I believe, whatparticipants were prepared for,

(10:01):
and I knew that I was there togo the distance.
There was no other option.
There was no quitting.
The only way that this isgetting cut short is if
something happens to memedically or if I am cut by the
staff for whatever reason, whichwe'll probably get into here in

(10:22):
the future.
So, as I'm at my Airbnb, I'mabout two miles down the road
from this farm Riverside Farmand I knew that from previous
videos and information that'savailable online about the race

(10:43):
that we're definitely going tobe getting into the river.
And so my place was right on theriver and it's Vermont, so it's
not a very warm place and we'reonly a couple months from snow
being off the ground there,meaning that snow stays on the
ground until April, may and thenwhen it melts it goes straight

(11:05):
into the river, straight intothe ponds and streams, so water
is cold.
My place is on the river.
I decided to do some eveningand morning cold plunges and get
myself acclimated with theriver water, which I actually
found to be quite peaceful, andI was sitting in it and laying

(11:29):
down.
I mean, it was chilly about Iwould say about low to mid
fifties, but I keep my coldplunge at home at 46 degrees and
I spend a lot of timepracticing cold exposure.
So this river was relaxing andI figured I'm going to get in
this thing on my own will firstbefore.

(11:51):
I'm sure that I'll be doingaqua burpees and all sorts of
fun things in this river that Icouldn't even imagine doing.
So that's what Tuesday andWednesday morning looked like.
And then on Wednesday, the daybefore I remember, I ran by the

(12:12):
farm just to see what might bevisible from the outside.
But I really didn't want tospoil any surprises for myself,
and Spartan actually told theparticipants don't go onto the
farm until the event starts.
So I honored that.
But I wanted to see if therewas something maybe on the

(12:34):
outside, so went for a nicelittle run, calm before the
storm.
And the day before the race therace director said that they
were hosting a pre-race meet andgreet and we're on a call about
three weeks ago with Andy Hardy, who's the race director.

(12:56):
She's been the death racedirector for quite some time.
She had mentioned this pre-racemeet and greet and of course

(13:19):
I'm thinking as well as many ofthe other participants, some of
us were're feeding us nails andbarbed wire for dinner, which
that would make sense.
But this pre-race meet andgreet was from 4 to 6 pm.
So as the day is going onWednesday, you know I've enjoyed
a nice little cold plunge.
I got lunch at the generalstore, which is really cool,

(13:42):
like a little farm general store.
I'm thinking in my mind okay,I'm all packed up now.
Do I go to this meet and greetknowing that it's probably not a
meet and greet, or do I skip it?
But then now I'm upset atmyself because I'm only skipping

(14:03):
it for fear of potentialadditional physical training or
PT.
And then I'm thinking, well,why the heck are you here, all
right to test your limits, topush yourself.
So why the hell does it matter?
If the pre-race meet and greetis actually a trick and it's
nothing but PT, you didn't driveup here to not get your butt

(14:27):
kicked and not sweat.
So, freaking, suck it up, dude.
So we get an email that daythat says if you're going to the
meet and greet, bring all ofyour required gear, all of your

(14:47):
required gear.
So then I'm thinking, okay,maybe this meet and greet really
is the race starting the daybefore, which, at this point,
I'm fully prepared.
I'm thinking do I need to checkout of my Airbnb?
Because I will.
If that's what it takes, that'swhat it takes.
I'm here to go all the way, tobe there at the end, to win, to
finish.
So I show up, I put everythingin my car, all the rucksack with

(15:12):
everything the ax, the handsawall the random things we had to
bring in the ruck.
The ruck weighed about 30-ishpounds and this also had water
bladder pounds, and this alsohad water bladder, food,
electrolytes, everything andthen a 27-gallon gear bin.
So this is where we could haveany additional clothing.

(15:35):
We thought we would need extrashoes, extra food, electrolytes,
because at times, which wedidn't know when we'd be able to
go to our gear bin and stock up, which was very useful,
especially for people likemyself that did not have a crew
member there with me.
So I've got that.

(15:55):
And then I've also got my 55pound sandbag, which we're
required to have on us.
And this year, one thing thatwas different is there's a
required uniform for this year,so in previous years you could
wear whatever you want.
Obviously, you want to wearsomething that is able to dry

(16:18):
quickly, that can withstandwater, that you have no problem
getting absolutely trashed,because it's probably going to
get ripped apart, it's going toget dirty, it's going to get
muddy, it's going to geteverything.
So we had to bring black pants,black cargo pants, white cotton

(16:38):
shirts and a black or armygreen windbreaker, so you could
bring as many white cottonshirts as you wanted.
You could bring as many pants,as many shoes, as many
windbreakers as you wanted, butyou always had to be wearing
some sort of combination of that.
There was no bring your ownstuff, bring your own favorite

(17:01):
orange windbreaker.
That wasn't allowed, which Ithought was pretty neat, having
gone to the Citadel, that theywere making it more uniform this
year, I pull up to the meet andgreet and I'm thinking, okay,
all required gear.
Well, maybe I don't need toactually be wearing the uniform
right now, because maybe that'sfor tomorrow.

(17:24):
So I'm wearing shorts and myt-shirt and I pull up to the
farm and from a distance I seethat there's roughly 75% of the
folks decided to come to thisand they're all wearing their
required gear.
So they're wearing their blackpants, their white cotton shirts
.
I see from the distance thatthere's some people doing

(17:46):
burpees, and so now I'm thinking, all right, yep, it didn't take
a rocket scientist to know thatthis is not a barbecue and meet
and greet.
This is the race may as well bestarting.
So I change in my car into therequired gear and get out, park

(18:12):
my car, get out and again, I'mfully prepared now for them to
say you're stuck here Like this,is it Bring all of my gear over
and we go through gear checkand they're listing off every
item that we have to bring.
So the saw, the hands, the ax,the hand saw, flint and
magnesium, fire starter,emergency safety blankets,

(18:37):
headlamps, sandpaper, bamboostraws Very weird.
Again, I'll cover that oneBunch of random things that you
wonder what the heck are wegoing to do with this?
They check all of that and Ipassed gear check, got my race
bib early, which was nice, andthen I got an orange chip.

(18:58):
No idea what this orange chipis for, but they said hold on to
it and make sure that you donot lose this orange chip.
And then they also gave anenvelope and in the envelope you
opened up there was a challengeand then they gave you another.
They gave you a punch card andon that punch card, every 25

(19:23):
reps of the challenge you wouldget a punch.
The challenge was, by the end ofthe race you had to complete
550 tire flips and there weretwo tires on the farm.
For the men it was about a400-pound tire, for the women
about a 200, I believe, about a250 pound tire.

(19:43):
These things were freakingmassive both of them, and we
knew that by the time this wasover, we had to complete 550
tire flips.
This was actually the Juneentry.
Challenge was 500 tire flipswith a tire that weighed twice
as much as you, and I had justdone that the week before.

(20:04):
I hated that challenge.
That was very difficult.
It took me about four hoursfresh, so, not having worked out
at all, now I'm thinking howlong is this going to take after
I've been going through anabsolute beating.
So I'm thinking through howthat's going to work out.

(20:29):
But you can do tire flipswhenever you have the
opportunity and I decided totake a bet on that.
We'll cover that.
But yeah, and then in thatenvelope there was a black chip.
So I've got a black chip and anorange chip and I've got a
punch card with 25 punch circlesfor every 25 reps of tire flips

(20:59):
.
That have to be bought off bysomebody on staff.
And then shortly after that, mygear is checked.
My bib is good.
Now I see a bunch of my fellowparticipants.
They're all lugging a bunch ofheavy stuff around.
So what do we do for the nexttwo hours?

(21:20):
We're moving heavy stuff aroundfrom barn to barn.
Hours, we're moving heavy stuffaround from barn to barn and
we're basically doing manuallabor Great business model from
Spartan, by the way.
You'll find out that we did abunch of free labor.
We're paying to get torturedand do free labor.
Genius, who thinks of that?

(21:42):
Who thinks of that?
So two hours you kind of get tosee who's who and you get a
good mix of who you're going tobe working with and who are the
people that want to take thelead, who are the folks that are
likely or might be gettingtargeted.

(22:03):
I'm glad I went and got to seethat.
But, yeah, spent the next twohours moving a bunch of heavy
stuff around and then on ourgear list we brought a
five-gallon bucket, a normalbucket, and then a four-gallon
ash bucket.
And for those that got therethe day before, they had us go

(22:26):
run down to the river, which isabout from our base area.
Running down to the river isabout a little less than a
quarter of a mile and they saidgo and fill up your buckets with
rocks from the river, likeflathead rocks, and fill up your
buckets to where they're about75% full.

(22:49):
So now you're doing a doublefarmer's carry with these
buckets full of rocks and youhave no idea what these rocks
are for where they're going, whyyou're carrying them.
These rocks are for wherethey're going, why you're
carrying them, but you go andfill them up and we took it to

(23:15):
the base of a mountain and thenthey had us filling up bags of
cement about 80 pound bags ofcement and we're putting all of
this stuff on the base of amountain that we're likely going
to be using the next day whenthe actual race starts.
But that was day zero.
There is no meet and greet,there was no actual barbecue.

(23:36):
It was work but we did get ourbibs and roughly 75% of people
showed up to that.
So I'm thinking man, this isgoing to be fun.
We've got the cadre, which arebasically the Spartan staff
members that are yelling at usalready.

(23:56):
This is bringing me back to myfreshman year at the Citadel.
I'm laughing at this stuffinternally, thinking, oh my God,
I'm reliving my freshman yearexperience and I actually loved
that experience at the Citadelso much.
And then I'm seeing who istaking this stuff personally and

(24:17):
I'm wanting to tap them on theshoulder and be like hey bro,
hey sis, this is a game.
You got to play the game.
So I go back home that eveningdown the road and they tell us
to be ready at 7am tomorrow.
Don't be one minute late.
So knowing that, spartan, I'mthinking okay, this means that

(24:43):
everything is really going toget started at 6.45.
So I get a pretty good night'ssleep and go do one final
voluntary cold plunge in theriver, and really it was an
opportunity to just be gratefulfor everything.
And soak in the environment, Imean absolutely beautiful.

(25:03):
Soak in the environment, I meanabsolutely beautiful.
This is a place I would go toin the future just to vacation
and go hike and spend timerelaxing.
So now I wake up on Thursdaymorning around 5.30 or so, make
sure that I'm pounding myelectrolytes and water and carbs

(25:24):
and not knowing exactly what'sto come, get over to the farm at
about 635 and I'm one of thefirst people there and I'm a
little surprised and I'mthinking is this a prank or did
I go to the wrong place?
I have no clue.
Rank or did I go to the wrongplace?

(25:47):
I have no clue.
Why is there not a thousandcars here at this point?
People start rolling in.
A lot of folks that were therehad already completed a death
race before.
This wasn't their first rodeo,so clearly they knew some things
.
Now the check-in was.
It was again beneficial doingit the day before and it was

(26:08):
also another opportunity to goand do burpees and move our
bodies until the folks that didnot go to the check-in the night

(26:34):
before or the meet and greetthe night before until they had
all of their gear checked in andbought off.
So that was about an hour ofour time while that happened.
So nice, good sweat.
In the morning it's about 60degrees and overcast and we knew

(26:57):
some rain was going to becoming in that day.
So after we did that, now it's8 am, we're all huddled up and
the race is starting.
So Andy Hardy, the race director, is introducing herself.
She's introducing the staff andthey're called the cryptea,
which I believe that's the Greekword for cadre.

(27:19):
But this is I'll just keepcalling them cadre from here on
out.
I'll just keep calling themcadre from here on out.
This is again the staff members.
These are folks that havecompleted multiple death races.
They're military special forces.
They've got some prettydecorated backgrounds in a
variety of disciplines.

(27:39):
So these are people that knowwhat it's like to be going
through what you're goingthrough.
These are people that know whatit's like to be going through
what you're going through.
These are people that have gonethrough what you're going
through and these are peoplethat know how to push you to the
limits, but they are qualified.
They are folks that aren't justyelling at you because it's fun
which I'm sure for them it wasfun but we get to meet all of

(28:03):
them.
Joe DeSena comes and shares afew words and then now we're off
to the races.
One thing about the death raceis that you don't know much of
anything, so you don't knowwhat's coming next.
You don't know when you'regoing to be coming back to home
base.
You have no clue what time itis.

(28:24):
You have no clue how much ofyour food and electrolytes you
should pack, because you don'tknow when you're going to be
going back to your gear bin.
Everything is unknown.
I go back on one thing, in thatthis year they did allow
participants to wear watches,which I found interesting
because there was one phasewhere this would have come into

(28:46):
play.
I chose not to because I reallywanted to embrace the unknown
and see what it was like to nothave that potential mental
barrier present, meaning that Idon't want to be looking down at
my watch and thinking thathours have gone by and maybe

(29:07):
it's only minutes, because therewere times where it felt like
we were doing something forhours and eventually several
hours did go by.
But some of those hours,mentally, were actually only
maybe 20 minutes.
So I did not want to have thatas a potential distraction, so I

(29:29):
put my watch in my car and thatwas that.
So 8 am now we are told go tothe base of the mountain where
all of the rocks and the bagsthat we had put there the night
before are Now.
The people that showed up dayof they had to go that was their
first task was go fill up theirbuckets and rocks.

(29:51):
So there was an advantage tocoming in the day before.
Now they tell us all 39 of usat the start go take all of
these rocks and bags of cementto Miguel's cabin.
There's three cabins to takenote of here.
There's Miguel's cabin, there'sFiona's cabin and then there's

(30:15):
Shrek's cabin.
Shrek's cabin we go to the most, but we're basically at the
home base, which is a nicelittle white barn, and if you
look over to the left, this iswhere you can see the entire
mountainside and you lookstraight up and this is where

(30:37):
most of the cabins were, so lotsof climbing.
So Miguel's cabin was thefurthest one away.
It's about a three-ish miletrek uphill and we're taking 80
buckets of rocks.
Each bucket probably weighs 30to 40 pounds in each hand, and

(31:04):
then we've got our rucksacks on,so another about 30 pounds on
your back, and then we are alsomoving the bags of cement.
So we're taking the buckets andthe bags as far as we can and
then kind of making like anassembly line.
But it took us a few hours toget to Miguel's cabin.

(31:27):
At this point you're startingto get tired just carrying all
of this weight that long of adistance and you don't know what
the heck you're carrying thisstuff for.
We get to Miguel's cabin, whichis actually really pretty All
the cabins were very pretty andagain, this is where we see that

(31:48):
this is the genius businessmodel of Spartan.
So get a bunch of crazy peopleto sign up for this race where
they don't know what the heckthey're going to be doing, and
then occasionally give themthings that they can do for us
free labor.
That's also going to be reallyhard for them because they're

(32:09):
really tired.
So we get there.
We're told to clean out thecabin, which there's a bunch of
junk in there, like all heavystuff, a bunch of bags of cement
in there as well.
So more cement for us.
Clean out the cabin, build thefront patio, so pour a new
concrete patio for the cabin andthen, on the backside, add on

(32:35):
to the existing rock wall withmore of the concrete.
So we are now doingconstruction on this cabin and
then meanwhile we areoccasionally being brought off
of our construction duty to goand do burpees and do PT.

(32:58):
And this is where the firstperson quit.
There were a couple of peoplethere that I don't believe had
too much of an endurancebackground, which I'm not sure
how, because there is anapplication process for this.
The first person quits afterabout two hours and, by the way,
if you quit on the mountain oranywhere, there's no parking lot

(33:22):
where you go.
Jump in a car, you're walkingyour ass back down to the
mountain.
So if you're going to quit, thebest place to quit is at the
base camp, because they tell youat the beginning after you sign
your life away on the waiversif you get lost in the woods or
if you quit here, you arebasically on your own.
We are not responsible for you.

(33:42):
Now, if there's obviously asituation that required medical
attention, there were EMSavailable for the majority of
the race and where we were.
But other than that, if youquit because you're tired, you
don't feel good, your foot hurts, whatever.
You're walking your ass back towherever we came from.

(34:04):
So we build things, for In thefirst seven hours we're lugging
stuff, we're building things.
So this is now seven hours andwe've done burpees and stuff for
a while and the cadre arecalling people out.
You can see who's starting totake things a little too

(34:25):
seriously.
And again, this is so nostalgicfor me, so it's fun.
After that we rucked back tothe base, so we go a few miles
back.
Very nice to be going back withempty buckets, because now we
have a bunch of that weight offof us and we get back to base

(34:50):
and then this is the first timethat we climb to Shrek's Cabin,
which Shrek's Cabin is where wespend a lot of our time.
There are a lot of visits toShrek's cabin.
So go and this is straight upabout 1500 foot of elevation

(35:12):
gain all at once, and we didthat quite a bit First visit to
Shrek's and then from there nowwe get to go into the pond.
So we're back to base and we getto go to the pond and I

(35:32):
remember thinking, okay, I wasmentally prepared for the river.
And I told myself, anytimewe're in the river, this is
recovery, for muscle recovery,because I just looked at it, I
mentally reframed it as a coldplunge.
It's a cold plunge, no big dealMuscles are going to be hurting
.
I forgot about the pond.
How could I forget about thepond when I'm mentally preparing

(35:56):
for everything that we aregoing to be doing?
And this pond is in a secludedarea, it's totally shaded, it
doesn't receive a whole lot ofsunlight.
So we go, we're told to bringour sandbags with us as we go
into the pond.
That first step into the pondit is freezing.

(36:20):
Again, I mentioned that I keepmy cold plunge at 46 degrees.
I'm used to getting cold.
This water is freaking cold,all right.
Well, a whole different type ofrecovery.
I suppose.
They break us out into fiveteams of about eight because

(36:46):
we've got 38 people now and theytell us we're going to have a
swimming competition.
So this swimming competition,we're relay down and back, so
end of the pond and then back,so about, I believe, 50 yards
total, and if you're swimming,obviously you don't have your

(37:07):
sandbag, but the person that isnext is carrying two sandbags.
So the men had 55 to 60 poundsandbags.
Women had 35 to 40 poundsandbags.
So at one point in time youcould be waiting and I've got
120 pounds on my back waitingfor my turn to go and swimming

(37:31):
fast in extremely cold water.
When you are fully clothed andyou're already wet at this point
and you've already been hikingand working on a mountain for a
couple hours, for a few hours,is not ideal.
That first dive into the waterand now you're paddling fast.

(37:52):
It's kind of a shock to yourwhole nervous system.
So my team finishes in second.
The winners actually got to getout of the water and sit on the
dock and then everybody elsethat did not complete did not

(38:16):
win, rather had the pleasure ofdoing another round and another
round and another round, untilthere were, I believe, two teams
left and then they said, okay,stop.
But my team won the secondround, which was nice.
But you can see that people aregetting brain freezes and I

(38:41):
can't express enough how coldthis water is.
I can't express enough how coldthis water is.
Then after that we stay in thewater and they tell us all to
circle up, get one big circle.
So at this point people areliterally shivering and we are
told to submerge and come backup, submerge, come back up.

(39:04):
And then we are told to do 38reps of up-downs in the water.
And it all has to be in unison,so everybody has to go down at
the same time, come up at thesame time and we've got 38 reps

(39:27):
for the amount of people that wehave in our circle.
Now that may seem simple in that, okay, dip your head underwater
and come back up.
One and then two, three, four,five.
How difficult can that be?
When your head submerges inthis water?
And then now you've got allthis cold water that is

(39:47):
constantly moving around you, itwill give you the brain freeze
of your life.
Like this is worse than thebrain freezes that you got as a
kid when the ice cream truckcame around and you were so
excited and you housed an entireice cream in like two seconds.

(40:11):
And then you're sitting thereholding your head and you're
like, oh, mom, dad, I got abrain freeze.
It was that times 10 going inthis water up and down.
So we get through two reps andthen one woman bows out.
She calls out.

(40:31):
She's actually falling andstumbling out of the pond
because it hurts that bad andshe's got signs of hypothermia.
Spartan actually posted thatvideo on their Instagram account
of this woman falling out ofthe formation and literally

(40:54):
falling down on the side of thepond.
And this video goes viral and Iremember after the race hearing
about it and going and lookingat the comments and thinking,
wow, this really did go viral.
Go on Spartan's Instagram pageand you can see this of this
woman struggling in the pond.

(41:17):
She eventually got pulled out ofthe race there.
Ems took care of her, but theywere very clear to us again when
we were signing up.
You know what you're gettingyourself into.
This isn't a race where we'regoing to help you do anything.
There are no aid stations,there are no water stations,
there's nothing.
It's you versus you.

(41:39):
Obviously, if there's someserious medical attention issues
, we will be there.
Every time we were in the pond,ems was always available and
responsive, but they're notgoing to drag your ass out of
the pond unless, obviously, itlooks like you're drowning,
which she was not.
So we lost our first person inthe pond right there and we can

(42:02):
only do about two of these repsat a time and then we needed to
rest because of the brainfreezes.
So we eventually get throughthe 38 reps.
We get to go out of the pond.
We've we've been in there forfor quite some time and then we
get shuttled out to another.

(42:23):
Another person quit outside thepond and he graciously gave me
his sandbag, which had handleson it and which was a really
nice one, because mine wasactually falling apart.
So it is nice to look out forpeople.
Because this man was gettingcalled out when we were doing
burpees up at Miguel's cabin,they were singling him out.

(42:46):
He wasn't doing burpees right,so I pulled him next to me and
showed him how to do properburpees and just made sure that
he wasn't a shit screen anymore,since he was next to me.
So he quit after we got out ofthe water and my sandbag
actually started to break and Ijust had a crappy sandbag that

(43:09):
you would use like if a flood iscoming, and he gave me a very
nice one.
So it helps to be good topeople.
Look out for people.
So there's the first lesson.
So we come out of the bond andnow we are told to form a human
tunnel and we are low crawling.

(43:30):
Every person has to low crawlunder everybody else, so, as the
last, if you're the firstperson, then you crawl, and then
, once the person gets to theend, then the next person goes,
next person goes, next persongoes.
So we do that.
And then we are told to get ouraxes out.
And we're holding our axes,arms locked out in front of us,

(43:53):
and we're doing that for alittle while, and then we
apparently upset the cadre orweren't doing things fast enough
.
So we got yelled at and we'retold to go back into the pond to
get cold some more and do somemore submersions, some more dips

(44:14):
, and then we got to go back towhat we were doing.
One of the items on our packinglist was a hundred feet of
paracord or paracord rope, andagain, you have no idea why, but
you've got a hundred feet ofparacord rope.
We were told to cut a jump ropefor ourselves.

(44:35):
So cut a jump rope out ofparacord.
For those of you that are avidjump ropers, you know that
paracord is not sufficientmaterial to serve as a jump rope
, but we cut a jump rope out.
We were told to go jump ropearound this quarter mile field

(45:03):
and it pays to be a winner.
So we're jump roping and aredoing what we believe is jump
roping, and it was more likeskipping and throwing your rope
over you.
We do that.
There's no incentive forwinning, there's nothing.
It was to kill time andprobably to look silly.

(45:26):
And then we go back, we're infront of our bags again with our
jump rope and we're told now torun to the river.
So at this point I believe it'sprobably about 12 hours and now
it's starting to get somewhatdusk.
We're about 12 hours into theday and we then go to the river.

(45:52):
They say bring your jump ropesto the river.
And in the river we're thentold to start doing aqua burpees
.
So that is a burpee, but yourface has to be totally submerged
underwater for it to count as aburpee.
So you're doing a burpee in apond and your face has to go

(46:13):
totally under.
And then this was also apartner exercise.
So one person was on theshallow side, the other person
was on the deep side.
If you're on the deep side, thewater's basically already up to
your hips.
So imagine doing a burpee withthe water already up to your
hips.
It's quite a comical sight tosee.

(46:36):
We do those for a while andthen from there, we are then
told to jump rope down the riverto this pine tree that's
probably a little over a 10th ofa mile away.
We're jump roping quote unquote.
Jump roping.
We're jump roping quote unquotejump roping really looking like
fools, skipping with thisparacord down a river.

(47:02):
You're attempting to move fast,jump over a rope and then
determine which rocks areslippery and which ones are safe
to step on, and at some pointsthis is deep water.
So these are times where youhave to sit and laugh.

(47:26):
And then also, that's where Iwas asking myself so what did I
think I was doing, getting intothis?
Why am I out here?
A lot of those moments came up,and again, this is go back to
the beginning.
If you're asking yourself, whyare you doing this, that answer
is made clear in the beginning.
And then, a couple of weeks ago, I knew that there was

(47:47):
definitely going to be somemaniacal things.
So if you want to do somethingfun, go and cut yourself a jump
rope out of just normal rope.
Go find a body of water andattempt to jump rope for a while
and tell me how much fun it is,as we're doing, that this

(48:08):
gentleman from Australia, bull,who has done this race several
times, slips, knocks his head ona rock and goes completely
unconscious, freaking nuts, andwell, ems goes and gets him.
We keep moving forward and we'redoing more aqua burpees and now

(48:29):
we're all very cold becausewe're going from the pond to
here to the river and we're allkind of huddling around each
other doing like a penguin hugto attempt to get warm again and
it wasn't working very well.
But I'd say we do this forabout 30 minutes to an hour and

(48:56):
now it's roughly 8ish PM,something like that, and we are
then told okay, go get yourpacks, go get your sandbags and
go back to base camp.
So we go back to base and thisis now really the first
opportunity that we have to goto our gear bins.
Now this is where you had to bea little strategic, especially

(49:17):
if you didn't have a crew thatcould go to your bin for you.
But your bin if you brought agear bin with extra food and
shoes and everything that youcould possibly need you weren't
allowed to keep it at the mainbase area.
You had to keep it against atree line, which was about
two-tenths of a mile away.

(49:38):
So think about this You're wet,you're tired, you are hungry,
or you want replenishments, youwant dry socks, you want a dry
shirt.
You may only have five or sixminutes, depending on how much
time they tell you that we have.
You may only have five or sixminutes, depending on how much
time they tell you that we have.

(49:59):
You may only have five or sixminutes and you've got a
four-tenths of a mile round trip.
Now, if you run that, okay,that isn't too bad, but then
again, now we're consumingenergy that we're likely going
to want to have for whatever theheck else might be coming next.

(50:23):
So that always made it somewhatof a game, in that I would
bring more food than I thought Ineeded and really just tell
myself that I'm not going to beable to go back to this bin for
12 hours, and I'd say it workedout decently well when we go

(50:43):
back to our bins.
A lot of people went for thisfirst trip.
Somebody's bin was missingbecause they're along this tree
line that isn't really nearwhere people are moving around
every day or frequentlythroughout the day Now that it's
like a treasure trove for abear.

(51:04):
So somebody's gear bin gottaken by a bear.
They found it in the woods andthey lost their stuff and I'm
thinking, man, that sucks, Iwould hate for that to be my bin
.
You can tell by the way thatI'm saying this.
There might be someforeshadowing here.

(51:24):
So we go refuel and then we gooff to the next task.
The next task is we're nowbroken out into two groups.
One group is going to do a PTtest.
The second group is going up tothe top of Shrek's cabin with

(51:46):
their buckets.
But we don't know what they'regoing up to Shrek's cabin for.
So they go off into the nightit's dark now and they go to
Shrek's cabin with their buckets.
We are doing a PT test.
Which the PT test was?
100 chest to ground pushups,which people are watching you

(52:07):
you have to call out your reps100 sit-ups, a two-mile run to
Shrek's cabin with your gear andback, 50 burpees.
A one mile farmer's carry witha bucket filled up 80% with

(52:27):
water.
So a farmer's carry is you'recarrying a heavy object with one
hand, a one mile farmer's carryand then a five minute wall sit
with your sandbag.
So at this point I go outpretty hot with the pushups, and

(52:47):
because typically pushups, bodyweight exercises, those are my
strong suits, that's what I do alot of Go out pretty hot,
probably a little too hot, don'trealize that I'm a little tired
from the day.
So I had to slow down a goodbit on my pushup reps.
But get through those, getthrough the sit-ups, and now

(53:10):
it's time to run up to Shrek'scabin and put on my gear
everything except for thesandbags.
So I've got the ruck about 30pound ruck and then my buckets,
I've got the ax, everything andit's time to go to Shrek's cabin
.
Now one thing that I told myselfin preparation and my strategy

(53:31):
for this race is you don't wantto stand out, but you don't want
to be a ghost.
So I didn't want to be theperson that was attempting to
come in first in everything,because then now you've got eyes
on you and that could lead toadditional things that will then

(53:55):
additional things that willthen oh then the cadre may
decide well, this person justneeds to do a little bit more PT
or get a bunch of extra tasks.
So I figured I want to be kindof in the front, but not the
person that again is attemptingto be the hero.
So I ran up all of the climbs.

(54:17):
The mountain climbs actuallyworked out very well for me
because that's what I've beentraining for and have been
spending time getting additionalelevation, spending time on
trails back home.
And then in the afternoons,majority of my runs have been
with full sweats on and aweighted vest.

(54:37):
So my afternoon runs leading upto this for about a month were
extremely, extremely difficult,in that I've got a weighted vest
on.
It's about 90 degrees and I'mwearing full sweat pants, full
hoodie, everything just to makeit suck, because I knew that
there are going to be parts ofthis experience that absolutely

(54:59):
sucked.
So run up to Shrek's and get upthere pretty quick decent time,
rather but again, it's straightuphill.
On the way down I'm rememberingokay, you don't want to be the
hero.
And so I conserved some energycoming downhill.
And then we had the 50 burpees,the one mile farmer's carry.

(55:26):
That was brutal, that was notfun.
Whoever invented that?
A one mile farmer's carry witha bucket of water, well done.
I tip my cap to you becausethat will smoke your forearms
and your upper body.
So it helps to have forearmstrength because this thing it

(55:51):
just it freaking hurts, it hurts.
And then did my five minutewall sit.
So the first PT test, I believe, took me about an hour and 50
minutes or something like that.
And while we on that first runup to Shrex, I see that there's

(56:12):
people in the second group.
They're all in there in plankposition.
So I'm thinking, okay, well,we're definitely going to be
doing some more PT when we getto Shreks and no idea what it's
going to be, but it looks likewe're going to be doing planks.
So we finished the PT test, thePT test.

(56:33):
The second group comes down fromShrex and now it's our time to
go up to Shrex.
And we go up to Shrex and wemeet the quote king of the

(57:03):
mountain.
So the gentleman Don who youheard in the intro there is the
king of the mountain and we mustfulfill a grass tax.
This is probably like the firstmaniacal thing that we do.
We've got the grass tax whichwe are told.
After we plank for a while,we're told from the king of the
mountain that we must fill ourbuckets with nothing but grass

(57:30):
and we can only use our scissors.
So that was one of the packinglist items.
So we are cutting grass withscissors for two hours in the
middle of the night on the topof a mountain, which I really
treated it as a recovery period.
But we're cutting grass on topof a mountain and I'm thinking

(57:57):
again.
Here comes the why questionagain why or what the heck are
you doing?
And I remember making light ofit.
In that this is fun and thismakes me think back.
And here's another lesson isthat I remember one of my
favorite speeches of all time isAdmiral William McRaven.

(58:21):
He's a retired Navy SEAL and hewas the one responsible for
leading the mission of capturingand killing Osama bin Laden.
He gave a speech, acommencement speech, at the
University of Texas about the 10lessons that he learned as a
Navy SEAL that can be applied inthe real world and many people

(58:42):
know his speech from one of themost famous lines that if you
want to change the world, startoff by making your bed.
Well, later in that speech hetalked about during SEAL
training.
They were often getting coldand wet and sandy and there was
one phase where they wererolling through a obstacle

(59:06):
course in mud.
So they're rolling in mud andthey're all freezing.
One person started singing andthe cadre were threatening them
all these SEAL candidates thatif this person doesn't shut up,
they're all going to pay for it.
And then another person startssinging and next thing you know,

(59:27):
regardless of what the cadre issaying to these candidates,
they're all singing in the mudand the mud starts to become
warmer and they start to feelthat they are you know what.
Maybe this mud doesn't suck somuch or it doesn't feel so cold.
And the lesson that he sharedis if you want to change the

(59:48):
world, make sure you sing whenyou're covered in mud.
Now, there were times in thatnight where I was actually was
covered in mud, didn't sing outloud, but I'm thinking, as I'm
cutting this grass, that onething I can do is I can smile.
Something new, something Inever would have signed up for,

(01:00:16):
because I don't think anybody inthis world would sign up to cut
their grass with a freakingpair of scissors at one o'clock
or two o'clock in the morning,whatever time it was.
But I sat there and smiled tomyself and that was one of the
many moments where my reminderto smile and smile and sing when
you're covered in mud and webring our buckets down, the king

(01:00:38):
of the mountain gracefullydismisses us after some more PT
and we bring our buckets down.
Our buckets get weighed, and Ihad four pounds of grass that I
cut with my scissors, so I'm notsure if I was supposed to be
proud of myself for that, butgot the four pounds of grass and

(01:00:59):
got done with that, so that wasnice.
Next thing is now it's aboutthree o'clock in the morning and
I know this because some peopleare talking about what time it
is and then also one portion ofone of the required items this
year.
We actually had to have ourphone in a waterproof case.
We weren't told when we coulduse our phone, but we had to

(01:01:26):
have it for a certain thing.
And we were told to alsodownload this land navigation
app.
So I figured, okay, at somepoint we're probably going to be
given some random coordinates,and we also had compasses with
us.
I figured that we were going tohave to do some charting on a
map, but we actually didn't usethe compass at all.

(01:01:52):
We download this app, cal Topo,and we've got our base camp
where we're at at Riverside Farm, and then the race director
sends us these coordinates ofanother location that is about
five miles away up a mountain,up a ridgeline, and we are told

(01:02:16):
we signed another waiver thatbasically says, if we get lost
or hurt, that Spartan's notgoing to come find you and make
sure you have enough food tosurvive.
So we download the second setof coordinates and we are told
that we need to bushwhack ourway to this location before nine

(01:02:40):
o'clock in the morning.
We're not allowed to use anytrails or any roads and we are
sent off on our way.
So now we're in the middle ofthe Vermont woods and there's no
staff with us at this point,it's just us.
There's a group of, I believe,probably 20 something of us now,

(01:03:04):
so a few more people had quitbefore before we got to this
point.
Uh, we were told we have acutoff of 9am and we start
bushwhacking our way through themountains in the middle of the
night.
And I actually thought this waspretty cool, challenging for
sure, because we've got all ofour gear with us.
But we are certain points.
We're literally scaling upsides of a mountain and one bad

(01:03:32):
misstep somebody's falling andprobably knocking down five or
six people, and those people aregoing straight down a mountain
and that's not good.
So fortunately none of thathappened, but there were some
people that took some prettygood falls and the sun in

(01:03:53):
Vermont comes up or first lightis about 5 am, so you always
know when it's about 5 am and 9pm, because that's sun up and
sun down.
Sun comes up.
We're still navigating and weactually arrive at the location
at about 7 am and we're told wecannot leave until a cadre

(01:04:17):
member or some Spartan peopleget up there.
So this is actually one of thefirst times where we got to sit
down and someone started a fire.
We had fire starters with us,like Flint and Magnesium, so old
school fires, and we're puttingour feet up by this fire, which
was actually amazing andbecause we have no clue when the

(01:04:40):
staff is going to be there,where they're at, when they're
coming.
But we figured, well, we may aswell take advantage of what we
do have right now.
And so some of us were takingdirt naps.
I think I've shut my eyes forabout 20 minutes.
Another question is dirt naps.
I think I've shut my eyes forabout 20 minutes.
Another question is are theresleep breaks?

(01:05:02):
There are not sleep breaks.
If there is any sleep, then itwas unintentional, as this one
was.
So we've got our first littlenap and then the cadre finally
come up and they ask us who hasa black chip.
So some of us randomly got ablack chip in our envelopes when
we were checking in, no ideawhat it's for, but I pull out my

(01:05:24):
black chip.
I still have my orange chip,which will come in play later,
from the very beginning.
But I pull out my black chipand this cadre member his name
was actually Santa, so he puts aSanta sticker on it and if you
didn't have a black chip thenyou had to go do burpees, but
you could take the trail backdown.

(01:05:45):
If you did have the black chip,you could go on your way, but
you had to bushwhack back down.
So, back down the way we came.
Uh, we had, we had Allieleading our group, which she did
a great job, tough cookie.
We get back to base at about 11am.

(01:06:06):
We're on this eight-hour hikingadventure and bushwhacking
adventure.
We make it, we survive, we makethe time cutoffs and we make it

(01:06:40):
, we survive, we make the timecutoffs.
Now, at this point, we gobriefly back to base and
remember our friend that had thebear visit their bin.
Well, now I'm going to my binand I'm very excited because I'm
going to have a scoop of myBear Performance Nutrition, bpn
Go One More Plus, which is thenew electrolyte supplement with
caffeine and nootropics, and Iabsolutely freaking love this
stuff.
It is awesome fuel before runs.
This is a great endorsement forBPN, by the way.

(01:07:02):
Well, my bin is now missing andI'm frantically going up and
down.
I'm wanting to change my socksand get a new shirt on and I
can't find my bin and get a newshirt on and I can't find my bin
.
So I go back into the woods and, sure enough, what's back there

(01:07:23):
?
A nice blue bin that now hasthe corner completely broken and
it's open.
And it's open and I see that mybeloved Bear Performance

(01:07:44):
Nutrition G1M Plus and my BearPerformance Nutrition Go Bars,
which are 200 calorie oat barsthat lots of carbs and they
amazing my box of those are gone.
A bear took my bear performancenutrition gear, which I still

(01:08:05):
don't understand why.
This bear decided to take afreaking tub of electrolytes
when there was a whole box ofChomp's beef jerky.
Sticks right next to it, didn'ttouch my beef jerky, takes my
electrolytes, takes my carb bars, claws through my sour skittle

(01:08:25):
gummies, but doesn't like those,and claws through one of my two
water jugs gallon water jugsand I'm thinking great, this is
just awesome, start singing inthe mud and I just start
laughing.

(01:08:46):
You can't make this up.
I'm in the middle of Vermontdoing these maniacal tasks that
I signed up for, that I paid for, and a freaking bear takes my
bin.
A bear takes my bearperformance nutrition gear that
I was so greatly looking forwardto having.

(01:09:08):
Well, I pull my bin back out.
I change.
I restock on my beef jerkysticks, which I'm still grateful
to have those.
I have a handful of my sourSkittle gummies just to get some
blood sugar up, and I've got my.
I take my first of three ramennoodle dry ramen noodle packs

(01:09:32):
that I just smashed up and haddry ramen noodles, which is
something we used to do at theCitadel.
Quite a bit, it's like a prisonthere, I'm telling you.
So I take what I can get and wego back to base.
Now we are met with the peopleparticipating in the hurricane

(01:09:52):
heat.
So Spartan had a few eventsgoing on that weekend.
Thursday to Friday.
They had a kid's camp, whichwas actually really cool.
They had a kid's camp going allweek.
So they get kids, they start toexpose them to a life of
discipline and accountabilityand the kids they put them in
the river.

(01:10:13):
They don't put them in the pond, but they put them in the river
.
It's really cool.
And then on Friday they havethe Hurricane Heat, which is a
24-hour event and it's basicallylike a Spartan death race
appetizer.
So a lot of people thatparticipate in the death race
they're often encouraged tofirst participate in a hurricane
heat so you can really get ataste of what you might be

(01:10:35):
getting exposed to in the deathrace.
So that was starting.
And then on Saturday they hadthe Mount Sparta event, which is
a 24-hour run up and down fromthe base of the mountain to
Shrek's cabin, so basically anultra marathon.
For some people that were ableto get those many laps in and

(01:10:56):
that was really cool.
So they link us up withHurricane Heat.
They're fresh, they've onlybeen there for three hours and
they put us in a last manstanding competition.
So we're holding up oursandbags and we're going against
the Hurricane Heat people whoare holding up their 25 pound
weight.
So they've got twice, ratherhalf, the amount of weight that

(01:11:22):
we're putting up.
And of course the cadre areyelling at us like why are you
guys so freaking weak?
Why are so many of you guysdropping your sandbags.
What's wrong?
Hurricane heat's kicking inyour ass.
No one's saying that.
Hurricane heat just got thereand they're fresh.
That doesn't matter.
They say you're the deathracers, you should be the best.
So we get to do some PT for notwinning that challenge.

(01:11:47):
And then they make us go marcharound and go to another
location on the barn.
And now we're doing anotherlast man standing competition.
This time we are the DeathRacers, are holding out our axes
, we're locking out our axes andthe hurricane heat is locking
out their buckets.

(01:12:07):
So again, the bucket weighsnothing, the axe weighs
something, axe weighs something.
And we actually won that one.
So your boy was one of the lastman standing for the death race
.
So that was cool that we got tobeat them there.

(01:12:28):
And then we're going back to thebeloved pond and the death
racers are told to show thehurricane heat what it is like
to get cold and to set theexample.
So we get in the pond, we aredoing some submersions and some

(01:12:53):
dips, and no swimmingcompetition this time, but we're
going up and down and basicallynow the new pair of socks that
I just put on now that's toast.
So basically I had wet feet for72 hours straight.
Beautiful, amazing.
And we, we do that.

(01:13:16):
And then we're bringing a bunchof two by eight pieces of wood
and lumber over to the pond andsomebody from North Shore Saunas
shows up.
So in the middle of this cold,cold exposure, we are then told

(01:13:38):
to build a sauna, which anothermaniacal task.
But we are building this saunain groups of five and you can
only wonder.
There's a sauna right next tothe pond.
So what are we going to do?
We're likely going to get ourbutts inside of this sauna,
which I was actually kind ofexcited about, because now we

(01:14:01):
can do some contrast therapy andwho knows how long we're going
to be in this sauna for.
So we go and do that.
We've built the sauna, and thennow, here is where the hardest
part of the race is, in myopinion.
We go back to base and it'sjust the death race, folks now,

(01:14:25):
and it's about Saturday at no,it is Friday, uh, friday,
probably around 6 pm orsomething along those lines and

(01:14:45):
we're told to go back to strexcabin, this time with the
sandbag.
But full gear, full ruck andsandbag go to strex cabin and
the last four people to getthere are getting cut.
So now we're in the stage wherepeople are starting to get cut.
The first 12 to 20 hours therewere people that quit, but there

(01:15:06):
were no introduced cuts yet.
So this is where now we'restarting to think okay, this is
where time limits are going toget introduced, this is where
time limits are going to getintroduced.
This is where there may be cutsthat we don't even know about,
meaning that we may need to geta required amount of reps of
something, but they're not goingto tell us that until
afterwards.

(01:15:26):
So this is where you've got tobe smart and, again, not exert
all of your energy, but makesure you're exerting a strong
effort so that you're not lastor even close to last in
anything.
We go to Shrex and I'm one ofthe first few people there If

(01:15:49):
not may have been the thirdperson there, but one through
three.
We all arrived together in apack and again felt very strong
climbing, even with the sandbag.
We get there and I'm thinking,okay, I know I'm not going to be
last four, no way, so maybethey'll just send us back down
to the bottom.
And after we get there they say, well, now go to Fiona's cabin.

(01:16:14):
So we're thinking, well, whatthe heck, what is Fiona's cabin?
We haven't been there yet.
We've been to Miguel's, we'vebeen to Shrek's a bunch.
They say follow the orangemarkers and you'll get there.
So we follow the orange markers.
Now we're rucking again and nowthere's a fork in the trail and

(01:16:34):
both left and right are orangemarkers.
So they, of course, do this bydesign and they do this by
design.
We get to Fiona's cabin and weare told to roll a dice.

(01:16:56):
We get to Fiona's cabin and weare told to roll a dice, and we
roll the dice.
You get a number.
Let's say number five.
Okay, so, number five, numberfive.
You need to go and memorizestanza number five of a poem

(01:17:17):
that is hanging upside down on atree.
Now this tree is located at thebottom of a stream that is
running down a mountainside andto get to the stream you need to

(01:17:40):
get into a black drainage pipe,slide down it.
So there's water going downthis thing.
So, basically, get into a waterslide, put your sandbag, your
ruck, your buckets into a waterslide, go down the water slide.
Now you're at the mouth of thisstream.
Now you need to go to thebottom of the stream with all of

(01:18:03):
your gear and you have to lowcrawl down the stream under
barbed wire to get down to thebottom of the tree.
So you're going at this point.
All of your stuff is wet now.
So this 60 pound sandbag is nowlike a 70 pound sandbag.
Your 30 pound ruck is now likea 40 pound ruck.

(01:18:25):
You've got these buckets.
It's tough to move because youare going under barbed wire.
You can't put any of your stuffover the barbed wire.
Everything has to go under andthey're watching you do this.
So getting to this tree, Iwould estimate, takes at least

(01:18:48):
half an hour and you're tired,you're wet, you're muddy, it's
gross, muddy, it's gross.
And now you get to the tree.
Now you've got your lookingstraight up, attempting to read
the stanza which I had toremember what a stanza was and

(01:19:08):
was it.
Is it two lines or three orfour?
So a stanza is two lines.
You do your best to memorizethe stanza which at this point I
believe we're about 40 hours in.
Your cognitive abilities startto rapidly diminish and

(01:19:39):
memorizing anything is adaunting task at this point.
And after you memorize the line, now you've got a low crawl all
the way back up.
So as you're remembering a lineof this poem which the poem is
if by rupert kipling great poem,actually recommend checking it
out.
You have to remember thatstanza.
The second you get clipped bybarbed wire.
You forget the freaking linethat you had to remember and

(01:20:03):
your brain is so mushed that theline could have literally been
the red dog ran up the red tree.
You go low, crawl all the wayback up to the top and you
recite the line which they havethe poem there with in front of
them to check you and you couldbe like the red dog ran up the
blue tree.
It's like what the hell theblue?

(01:20:25):
There was nothing blue about it.
You just start making stuff upbecause you're literally that
cognitively impaired.
Imagine what I just told you.
Imagine what I just told you.
We did that for nine hours,nine hours Down the drainage
pipe, down the stream.

(01:20:47):
Memorize the line of the poem.
Back up through the drainagepipe with all of your gear.
Go recite the line of the poemnow, roll the dice and get a new
line.
This is where a lot of peoplestarted dropping like flies and
this is interesting.
This was something that reallystood out to me because when I

(01:21:07):
think about key lessons learnedand some things that really,
from a human performanceperspective, that stood out.
Quitting at that point, in myview, was nothing to do with the
physical element, because atthat point, everybody's tired,

(01:21:31):
everybody's been going for awhile, there's nobody that's
fresh.
Everybody has the voices thatare yelling at them in their
minds Stop, this is stupid, thisis hard.
You don't need to crawl all theway down under that barbed wire
again.
You don't need to crawl upunder the barbed wire again.
You can be done.

(01:21:52):
Those voices at that time werescreaming and I know they were
screaming in my voice and in myhead, and I'm sure that they
were screaming in the voices ofothers.
And this is where it's soimportant to.
When you learn how to masteryour mind, and one of the best
ways to do that is by puttingyourself in these tough

(01:22:14):
situations and just simplychallenging yourself to not buy
into that voice, your body willfollow.
I can think about countlesstimes in ultra marathons and
even marathons but ultras wheremy mind is telling me to stop

(01:22:36):
this show right now.
This is enough is enough.
I can think of countless timeswhere that happened and by
pushing past that then followedsome of my best miles, some of
the next string of hours where Ifelt amazing On the other side

(01:23:00):
of these voices in life that aretelling you to stop or that
you're not enough, or that youcan't do something, whether it's
personal, professionalendurance on the other side of
that is a better version of youand the next best version of
yourself, because I don'tbelieve there's a best version

(01:23:22):
of yourself.
There's always a next bestversion.
When we're on this journey ofcontinuous improvement, there's
always a next best version.
There's always something thatwe can improve upon.
There's always a next bestversion.
There's always something thatwe can improve upon.
There's always something thatwe can optimize, sharpen up,

(01:23:43):
sharpen your sword, sharpen yourmental sword, sharpen your
physical sword.
So at that point I'm hearingpeople that are quitting because
they don't want to go back inthe water or it's too cold, and
I'm thinking you've already beenin the water.
What's another couple trips inthe water?
It's just water.

(01:24:05):
But again, I could understandhow that voice is also saying
this water hurts, this water isbad, this water is dangerous.
What if we break it down andreframe it to what it is?
It's just water.
Or, like Truett Haynes likes tosay, it's just pain.

(01:24:25):
But that was a very challenging, very, very challenging nine
hours Got dehydrated at thispoint because now we're out of
water and even with our waterfiltration systems that we were
told to bring, our only optionwas to drink out of the water

(01:24:46):
that now our dirt covered shoesare in, and that wasn't
happening.
So this is now the first timewhere I'm behind on water supply
and I believe many of us gotdehydrated.
I know that at pretty muchafter this point.
I don't think I peed foranother maybe eight to 12 hours,

(01:25:07):
and that was even after housinga bunch of water once we got
back.
So we rucked back in the middleof the night to the base camp.
So we did that till about threeo'clock in the morning,
something like that.
We rucked back to up throughShreks and then down Shreks

(01:25:27):
again and we're at base.
And now Joe DeSena, the CEO ofSpartan, comes and now it's his
turn to have some fun with us.
And where are we going?
Just take a random guess whereare we going?
We're going to the pond.
But before we get in the pondwe are going to in the pond, we

(01:25:49):
are going to well, enjoy ourfruits of our labor and we're
going into the sauna.
So he packs all of us into thesauna and tells us start doing
burpees.
And so we're in this oven andwe're doing burpees, we're doing

(01:26:10):
pushups.
All this PT which I will say itdid, help kind of wake us back
up again, because at this pointwe're now at the 48 hour mark
and it's, you know, we're tired,you're starting to become a
little delirious, and he's andJoe's joking like we need to get

(01:26:31):
this on up to 700 degrees, youknow, and I'm gonna cook, all
I'm gonna smoke, you guys, andand I'm loving it.
But I'm also thinking, man,like, please, you know, I really
just want to get in that pondto wake up.
Then the race director, andy,says or rather, we had to bring
our phones in there with us too.

(01:26:51):
So again, like you better havehad a waterproof case or
something.
And we were told that we needto write a 1000 word essay about
.
I can't even remember the topic.
It was something about you must.
That was the topic.
You must dot, dot, dot.
So you must have discipline tolive a rewarding life.

(01:27:17):
And then you go from there.
And it had to be.
She said needs to be perfect,punctuation, spelling,
everything.
And it needs to be.
And no one's coming out untilthey finish their 1000 words.
So I'm sitting there attemptingto write an essay on my phone
while getting cooked in a saunaand at this point my head is

(01:27:38):
bobbing.
I'm doing the head bobbing Likeoh my God, like in school,
where you are attempting yourbest to listen to the teacher
and you're freaking, sleeping ormaybe I was one of the few
people that did that, but Icertainly did that a lot where I
was a head bobber and, headsbobbing, can barely write this

(01:28:01):
essay and then she's coming backin the sauna saying you guys,
better, it better be a thousandwords, and I don't know how many
freaking words.
On the notes app I'm looking tosee how many words I've got and
I'm attempting to smack myselfto keep my eyes open.
And I attempted to open chatGPT just to see.

(01:28:22):
I copied and pasted my essay tosee like, is this 1000 words?
Well, there's no freakingreception in the mountains, so I
got nothing.
I got nothing.
We're told all right, now joegets us out of the pond or out
of the sauna, and now we're inthe pond, which, thank god, at

(01:28:44):
this point, is actually thehappiest I've been to be in the
pond.
It was a reward because now atleast you are nice and alert and
awake and it's almost like afresh start after 48 hours.
So we do sauna and pond andessay for about two-ish two

(01:29:07):
hours or so is my best estimate.
And then from there we actuallydid some more PT surprise, more
burpees, more moving thingsaround and we go and attempt to

(01:29:27):
get Wi-Fi signal by the barn.
So we're all running off like apack of probably look like a
pack of idiots at this pointrunning with our cell phones
attempting to get reception sowe can email our essays to Andy
the race director.
Turns out that that wasn'tsomething that ended up
mattering actually, so it wasjust a maniacal task, I believe,

(01:29:48):
to help keep us awake or atleast make sure we didn't go to
sleep.
So I still have that essay.
I should go and refine it andmaybe read it on here.
It actually I did my best tomake it sound philosophical and
inspiring.
So after we disassembled thesauna and we are before that

(01:30:13):
actually we went back to baseand they told us to they
actually gave us coffee, whichwas surprising.
So I guess I somewhat lied inthat they give us nothing.
They actually gave us espressos.
So Spartan Up Coffee was there.
It's an actual thing.
They have their own coffeebrand and we got some espressos,
which was quite nice and Joewas being friendly.

(01:30:36):
Actually, that's where I had aconversation with Joe about
getting involved with theCitadel and he remembered me
from the podcast a couple yearsago, so that part was really
cool.
And then we go back, wedisassemble this sauna, we take
all of the lumber to one of thebarns and then we're told to go

(01:31:01):
and bring these two massive treestumps to the pond.
And I'm thinking, man, likewhat are we going to do now?
Are we going to have to throwthem in the pond and then show
that we can retrieve them, orwhat's going on?
So these tree stumps areseveral hundred pounds and
they're going from the brownbarn, which is right next to our

(01:31:21):
base camp, all the way across afield to past another barn to
then go uphill to the pond.
So about a little over aquarter of a mile these massive
stumps needs to go.
So we roll them and carry themover, we bring them there and

(01:31:43):
we're in front of the pond.
And now this was where it got alittle cryptic.
Andy, the race director, shecame, and the crew members came,
and the cadre and they broughtpopsicles.
So I guess, second thing theygave us, she brought popsicles
and she's asking us how ourexperience is so far.

(01:32:04):
And we're down to 13 people now.
And these are the 13 peoplethat are, for sure, looking
around me.
These are battle hardenedpeople.
These are tough, tough,freaking cookies.
These are the folks I'mthinking, all right, these
aren't the people that are goingto quit at this point.
These are the people that aregoing to have to get cut doing

(01:32:26):
something, because that just iswhat it is.
You know, that's what we'redoing, so we have popsicle.
She's sitting there talking tous about, about our experiences
and then, uh, I'm thinking likethis is a trick, or.
And then I'm also thinking like, is this potentially going to
be the end of the race?
It's like 57 hours at thispoint that we've been out there,

(01:32:48):
or 50, 52, 53, something likethat, because in the past, like
this race is, it's lasted 72hours, it's lasted 60.
It's lasted 66.
It's lasted 58.
You just, you just don't know.
And I'm thinking they've gotcrew like, they've got family,
like are we here to celebrate?
They have us take pictures withour skulls, which, if you

(01:33:12):
finish everything, that's whatyou get your prize, you get a
skull.
And I'm thinking, man, this isstrange.
And then they tell us stay put,don't go anywhere, don't talk
to anyone, don't say anything,don't communicate with your eyes
, nothing.
And so we're sitting there,kind of like crisscross
applesauce, just thinking likeall right, this is weird, what's

(01:33:36):
going on?
And five minutes go by, 10minutes go by, 15 minutes go by,
nothing is happening.
So of course now we're alltired, there's no activity, so
some people start falling asleep.
We're all tired, there's noactivity, so some people start
falling asleep.
I closed my eyes and knockedout for about 20 minutes.

(01:33:57):
Our buddy, gio, completelypassed out, like literally just
snoring out in the dirt.
And the race director, andy, shecomes by again, this time with
a cadre member, doesn't say aword, walks away, and we're all
looking at each other as if like, are we supposed to be

(01:34:17):
following?
Are we going to get in trouble?
What are we doing?
But we stay put.
And then, sure enough, all ofthe cadre come out shortly after
that and they're basically likeget your fucking asses in the
pond right now.
Well, that celebration wasshort-lived and we're back in
the pond doing more submersionsthis time.

(01:34:39):
They're telling us you guys,whoever can't hold their breath
underwater for a minute isgetting cut.
And so now we're doing longholds underwater.
We're holding our skulls aboveour heads above the water.
We can't make it for a minute.

(01:34:59):
We're just getting yelled atand they're telling us to keep
bobbing or dipping our heads.
We do that for a while, andthen this is where the orange
chip comes into play now.
So now Andy, the director tellsus to go get our bamboo straws.
So this is why we had bamboostraws on the packing list, one
of the reasons why Go get yourbamboo straws and come back into

(01:35:22):
the pond.
Go get our bamboo straws.
And the next challenge is weneed to breathe underwater with
our head submerged for fourminutes through your bamboo
straw.
And if you don't do that, thenyou're cut or you can use one of

(01:35:43):
your orange chips and buy outof the challenge.
So that's part of me.
I was thinking, okay, I can dothis.
I can muscle my way throughthis four minutes.
I'm sure I can learn how tobreathe underwater with a straw.
Well, this is freezing coldwater, and she gave us a few

(01:36:04):
opportunities to practice.
So at first I'm thinking, okay,I'm going to take my bet,
because really I want to savethis orange chip to see if I can
buy my way out of these tireflips, because I already know
that this is going to be thehardest thing for me and there's
people that had already beendoing tire flips when we did
have some breaks.
I chose not to because I didnot have a crew.

(01:36:27):
So I had to go and get all ofmy things and fuel.
But had I had a crew then Icould have knocked out some of
the reps.
But it's always at risk becauseyou never know what's going to
be next and if those tire flipsare going to burn you out for
the next thing.
So I used my orange chip to buymy way out of this challenge

(01:36:47):
because in the practice period Iwas only able to breathe
through the straw for about 10seconds and then couldn't figure
it out to where water keepsgetting in my nose.
It looks like I'm about todrown.
There were two women.
One of the women and one of theguys actually were able to do
it, which was very impressive,but it was scary because you're

(01:37:08):
looking at them, it looks likethey're having like an exorcism.
They're like impressive, but itwas scary because you're
looking at them.
It looks like they're havinglike an exorcism, they're like
and they're literally looks likethey're drowning in front of
you, but they did it.
There were two other peoplethat, and one of them a previous
finisher that was not able tocomplete, and two more people
got cut during that.
So I believe we're down to thefinal 11 at this point, and now

(01:37:35):
it's about midday on Saturdayand we are then told that we are
now in the around midday, Iwould estimate, around probably
4 or 5 pm, I'm not exactly sure,but somewhere in the afternoon

(01:37:58):
period of Saturday, and I couldbe missing some more PT sessions
in the middle.
But now the 11 of us we go backto base, we refuel, we are now
in what Andy says is the deathphase.
So we are down to our finalfour tasks, or five tasks to

(01:38:19):
complete the death race, and wecan only get the next task after
you complete the previous task.
So now this is where some ofthese other items on the packing
list come into play, and thefirst task is we need to take
our ash buckets and go and burn,create a natural fire with

(01:38:45):
whatever we can find around thefarm around the farm and tape
our bamboo straws to the top ofthe bucket and build a fire, and
so that's why we had the flintand magnesium starters.

(01:39:07):
So you had to spark a fire.
Now this is where I'm a littlenervous, because this is not
something that I have much ofmeaning the outdoor wilderness
skills other than being able tomuscle through some things,
macgyver, some things but I havenot started my own fire before
with a flint and magnesium stick.
So I'm a little nervous.

(01:39:28):
I'm getting a bunch ofChristmas tree fur because I
know with a lighter that stuffworks very well, but with a
spark it does not, and we haveto put out our fire with water
from the river.
So you go, run to the river,fill up your other bucket with
river water.

(01:39:49):
My fire is taking forever tostart.
I've probably hit this flintand magnesium thing 500 times.
And there's other people thatthey've already built their fire
, they have already burned theirbamboo straws and they are
advancing to the next challengelike it was nothing.

(01:40:12):
And I'm thinking all right,ryan, well, this might be one of
those time cutoff things, andif you get cut, at least you
didn't quit, you know, and youmade it to the death phase,
which is the last bit.
One of the cadre graciously gaveme a tiny tip because we had

(01:40:35):
now again like this is where,again, it just pays to do your
part, don't stand out a bunch,but also make your presence
known.
And he said, hey, that greenstuff in there isn't going to
burn for you that well.
You might want to consider thebrown stuff, the leaves, and so

(01:40:58):
like, oh my God, what an amazingtip.
And then there was someone thathad cotton balls which I didn't
know you could bring because itwasn't on the list.
But I may have acquired some ofthose as well, because those
take on sparks really well.
So my fire gets going.
Burn the bamboo straws, I'm inlast place and go, and now it's

(01:41:19):
time for task number two.
So task number two.
Sure enough, the thought that Ihad two days before about the PT
test coming back.
What did we have to do next?
The PT test.
So the PT test.
We were told to do the same PTtest 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups,

(01:41:40):
two-mile run to Shrek's cabin,one-mile farmer's carry, 50
burpees, five-minute wall sit.
We had to do that again and wehad to beat our previous time.
So instantly I'm thinking okay,I know where I can make up time
.
Running is my strong suit, so Ican certainly run faster, and

(01:42:01):
on the downhill I can run fastertoo.
And knowing that, okay, we'renearing the end, at this point I
don't need to worry aboutenergy conservation.
This is just.
This is time to go all out.
You know, balls to the wall,make things happen.
So as I'm getting ready to, I domy push-ups and sit-ups.

(01:42:25):
I'm getting ready to get mygear to run up to Shrex, because
we had to run up with gear.
And I'm hearing on the radiobecause every time we went to
Shrek's, they would radio yournumber back to base to make sure
people weren't cheating, and sothere was a check-in system.
They were saying who had theirflint and magnesium and who

(01:42:46):
didn't, so they would do randomgear checks from time to time.
So a lot of people that hadjust started the fire thought,
okay, I did my fire, I don'tneed that flint and magnesium
stick anymore.
Well, if you didn't have thatwhen you made it to the top of
the mountain, then you had torestart your PT test again.
So had I not heard that on theradio, I probably would have

(01:43:08):
left mine at the base too,because I'm thinking, okay,
we're not going to make anotherfire At least I don't think we
are.
So I put mine in my bag.
So certainly an advantage.
I run to the top of Shrek's andthey ask where's your flint and
magnesium?
So I showed it to them, gotsent back down.

(01:43:30):
No issues there.
I start running fast on the waydown and, mind you, this whole
time, especially now, my feethave been hurting so bad because
even with the change of shoesand socks a few times, we're
going back into the pond.
So they're wet, my pants arewet, I'm starting to chafe wet.

(01:43:59):
I'm starting to chafe down low.
It is brutal and it literallyfeels like my right big toe and
my left big toe are so blisteredthat it literally feels like
they're sliced in half.
I was literally expecting totake off my shoe and socks at
some point and just see a wholestream of blood gushing out,
because that's how brutal theyfelt.
And at this point, as I'm comingdown the mountain, I'm also

(01:44:21):
seeing things.
I'm hallucinating for the firsttime.
So I'm seeing houses.
I'm seeing like, what is thiswhite picket fence house doing
in front of me?
And I'm passing people that aredoing the Mount Sparta
challenge, the 24-hour challenge, and I'm saying hi to them and
good job.
And literally forgetting twominutes later that I even had a

(01:44:41):
conversation with them and mywhole concept of time and
everything is out the window atthis point and I'm seeing
dancing bears in front of meprobably the freaking bear that
took my bin, seeing all sorts ofthings and I make it back down

(01:45:05):
and I do my farmer's carry.
This time I had a nice littlerhythm in my head, so I was
counting to 20, like 1, 2, and 3, and 4, and 5, and 6, and 7.
And every 20 seconds I wouldalternate arms for this farmer's
carry.
I ended up beating my PT testscore by 17 minutes from the

(01:45:28):
first one to the second one.
17 minutes from the first oneto the second one, which just
goes to show that we're often somuch more capable of what we
believe we are in a certainmoment and we have so much more
in the tank.
I believe the first PT test Itook within what I might've been
on hour number 17.

(01:45:49):
And then the second one at hour62 or something like that, and
to beat it that substantiallyand I didn't sandbag the first
one just conserved my energy alittle bit more than I would
have when I'm on the run butstill went at it with the other
things and struggled with thefarmer's carry.

(01:46:11):
The first time we have so muchmore than we can believe.
It's just so important to stayin the fight.
And one thing that really keptme, one of the many things that
kept me going and another lessonto extract is I heard Cameron
Haynes say this a long time agothat if you become friends with

(01:46:34):
pain, you'll never be alone inlife.
So there was a lot of momentswhere, when my feet were
absolutely killing me especiallyas I'm going up and down
Shrek's cabin multiple timesthat I'm literally saying like
hey, pain, it's good to see you,man.
Like missed you, you can't beatme, you can't break me.

(01:46:56):
And I believe, mentally atleast, what I tell myself, what
that does to the demons.
The demons can't handle thatman.
The demons cannot handle anabundantly positive mind and
somebody that literally justcan't be stopped.
It doesn't matter what you putin front of me, I can't be
stopped.
It doesn't matter what you putin front of me, I can't be
stopped.
I might struggle.
There might be things thatyou'll find out here in a minute

(01:47:20):
that I can't do that great, butI'm going to do them to the
best of my ability, but I'm notgoing to not do them or quit or
falter or say, oh, that's toohard, yeah, I'm not going to do
it at all, no way.
But pain is my friend and paincomes to visit and that's fine,
let's go.
It's good to see you again.

(01:47:40):
So finish the PT test.
Task number three this one isbrutal.
So we now need to run toShrek's cabin, to go inside the
cabin and look at a Lego puzzlefor 30 seconds and attempt to

(01:48:01):
memorize the puzzle.
Not attempt.
You have to memorize the puzzleand then reconstruct it at the
bottom at base camp.
It at the bottom of the basecamp.
So there's probably like 20something pieces and they're all
.
Some of them are the minipieces, some of them are the big
pieces, like this wasn't justsome five-year-old Lego set,

(01:48:23):
this was, I would imagine we'llcall it like a teenage Lego set,
so something that required alittle bit of cognitive ability
to put together.
And my first one there's awhole box of Legos at the bottom
and then you grab the piecesthat you think you need, put
them in your bucket and then puttogether the puzzle.

(01:48:45):
So the first one I'm way theheck off, not even freaking
close.
Looking at this puzzle for 30seconds after you've run up a
mountain and you're tired andyou're hallucinating isn't the
best combination.
So I think, even if this puzzleis down the street and I just

(01:49:05):
had to run down the street realquick and look at it and then
run back, I don't even know ifI'd be able to do it then on the
first attempt.
So, first attempt, not evenclose.
Second attempt, feel a littlebetter about it.
And at this point again, as I'mrunning up, I'm really battling

(01:49:27):
these demons now.
So I think these types ofadventures it's like a roller
coaster.
You keep riding the rollercoaster, you're eventually going
to go back up.
You might be down, but it hasto come back up and it has to
get back to center.
A roller coaster doesn't starton an incline or a decline.

(01:49:52):
It starts at center, it goes up, it goes down, it comes back up
but it comes back to center.
So you keep riding that rollercoaster.
You are going to eventually getthose highs, highs.

(01:50:16):
And remember that it's very rarethat a situation is unique to
you, especially in somethinglike this or in a marathon, and
you think like, oh man, you lookat the person to your right and
you make up this story, thatman.
They're just stronger andthey're not in pain.
But I'm in pain, like no, youdon't know that and you know
damn well.
They are in pain.
Being in pain, having messed upfeet, that wasn't unique to me.

(01:50:39):
Everybody was feeling that andthat was something that helped.
Just hey, we're all riding thesame roller coaster, man, it
says who's going to stay on,who's going to stay on it?
And I'm also finding things tohave fun with and just kind of
questioning my life decisionsLike why have I spent over half

(01:51:01):
of my life now between wrestlingand then to the Citadel and now
to marathons and ultramarathons, to now this?
Why have I spent over half ofmy life literally paying to get
tortured?
Is something wrong with me?
Maybe I am crazy, and I amcrazy, crazy motivated, crazy
inspired, crazy dedicated.

(01:51:23):
You might be thinking, no, ryan, you're actually freaking crazy
and that's fine, that's fine,you can have that story.
So task number three is to solvethe puzzle and I run up the
third time and I'm confident ascan be.
I'm like, oh, my God, I'm goingto solve this on the third
attempt.
I'm going to be back in firstplace and we're good.

(01:51:45):
And I give them my puzzle andthey say are you sure that
you've got this right?
And there's actually a video ofthis on Instagram on the race
director's page.
And I said, ah, and you canhear me kind of deliriously like
yeah, yeah, I think it's right.
And they say congrats.

(01:52:05):
And I'm thinking, oh my God,like really.
And then they look at it againlike nope, you want to talk
about demoralizing.
So I slammed down the freakingbucket.
I'm like what the heck?
And I just started laughingwith them too.
I just start making jokes and Iwas like, all right, well, here
we go, I start doing my Grinchimpersonations.

(01:52:26):
I don't even know why I startedthinking about the Grinch.
I told them I was hallucinating, I said maybe I'll see the
Grinch on the course, and thenwe start doing that and I kind
of thought that would be fun.
But anyway, I run back up toShrex.
Now this is my fourth time, sowe're at about nine-ish miles to

(01:52:49):
solve a puzzle plus the trip,so about 11 miles now with the
PT test.
And there's some people I'mreally feeling for them because
of those that had to redo theirPT tests and then some people it
took them like six times up toShrex to get this puzzle right.

(01:53:09):
So some people ran upwards ofhalf marathon even more just to
solve this Lego puzzle.
So now we're on to task numberfour, which is to build a yoke
with a piece of lumber.
So we went and ran to the barn,grab a piece of lumber that we
use for the sauna, and now youuse your paracord rope and you

(01:53:34):
fill up both buckets with waterand you build this yoke, which
is basically just think about itlike a barbell and you've got
two buckets of water hanging byrope on both ends.
So it's not stable, it hurts,and you need to do this.
You need to walk around thebarn six loops so six tenths of

(01:53:54):
a mile and not spill any water.
And this was actually ourFebruary entry challenge.
So I felt good knowing that.
Okay, hey, I've done thisbefore, I know what to do.
Thank God I didn't skip thatmonthly challenge, or else I
wouldn't know what the heck ayoke is or how to build a yoke.
That would not be good.
So it pays to do your monthlychallenges.
I get that done.

(01:54:15):
I've actually finished the fourtasks and I'm in first place.
So I have one task to completeto finish the Spartan Death Race
, and that is the 550 tire flips.
They're 400 pounds or roughly400.
I don't know what the heck itwas.
It was huge.
And I haven't done any tireflips at this point.

(01:54:38):
I knew this was the gamble thatI was willing to take because I
didn't want to do tire flipsearlier.
In that I'm then wasting a lotof energy, and perhaps maybe
that's what would have stoppedme from being able to beat my PT
test score, and then I'mspending time redoing that.
So you have no clue when this,this may came up, come up and

(01:55:03):
potentially bite you again.
But I figure, okay, I've got,I've got a few hours left before
.
I believe we're getting nearthe cutoff.
So we're at about 60, probably67 hours at this point.
So we've got five hours or soleft to go, at least if we're

(01:55:25):
going for 72.
And so it's probably about threeo'clock in the morning,
something like that, and I startflipping the tire and it's from
rep number one.
I'm thinking, oh, my God, yeah,this is gonna, this is gonna be
tough and to to make it happen,knowing it took four hours in

(01:55:46):
the last one.
But then I'm also.
I believe in myself.
I know that I can push pastanything last one.
But then I'm also.
I believe in myself.
I know that I can push pastanything.
I've already pushed past a lotto get to this point.
There are only nine people leftnow.
So we're down to the final ninebecause we lost a couple people
during this death phase.
Nine people and I'm flippingand then two other guys that had

(01:56:06):
now caught up with their tasks.
Now they're flipping the tireand they had already gotten some
flips in in the previous days.
So I'm in third and I'mstruggling to get my reps in.
But I got through the first setof 25 decent and my hands are
getting cut up because we'redoing this on gravel and every

(01:56:30):
time I'm going to grip the tireI'm cutting my hands on gravel.
My gloves are wet so I can'tuse gloves, so I figure, okay,
well, we can suck it up here, nobig deal.
And I get through about 100reps and at this point I'm
slowing down.
It's tough for me to get it offthe ground and it was a little

(01:56:53):
discouraging because the otherguys that are there they're
definitely much stronger than meand they're lifting this thing
relatively easy every rep.
And I'm thinking, man, I wishlike.
I know I'm tough, I know I cando this, and I keep going back
to that tire and eventually Iget through about 150, 160 reps

(01:57:18):
and then I just start, I startno repping it, no rep, no rep.
I keep coming back, keep comingback and I'm no repping it.
These guys, at this point,we've been out there for hours,
so they're getting near their500 reps or 550, and I'm stuck
at 170.
And they eventually I said,well, what's the next best thing

(01:57:39):
I can do?
I said I can support them.
I'm going to stay in the area,I'm going to keep flipping this
as many times as I can, even ifit means that I get one flip to
their 10 flips, even if it meansthat I get one flip to their 10
flips.
I'll be here but I'm not givingup, I'm not quitting.
And sure enough, those were twoof the finishers.

(01:58:01):
There were six finishers.
I did not finish the 550 tireflips.
Therefore I did not finish theSpartan death race.
Technically I did not quit butdid not finish.
So I had to turn in my bib atthe end and that was that.

(01:58:22):
That hurt a little bit, knowingthat I had gone so far and done
a lot to get to that point.
And if it was, I'd gone so farand done a lot to get to that
point.
And if it was, I even askedAndy.
I said is there any other likesadistic task you can give me as
a replacement?
Like I'll go and I'll go sit inthat pond for an hour if I have

(01:58:44):
to, or I'll run backwards toShrex or go back to the barbed
wire, like I'll do anything.
I want to finish and get thisskull.
And she said no, whichrightfully so, and that was that
.
That was the end of my deathrace, so unofficially finished

(01:59:06):
all the way at the very end.
But it was an incredibleexperience.
There were many times where,again, I've experienced pain and
discomfort like I've never hadbefore, and I embrace that
because I know what's on theother side of that.

(01:59:28):
Now I have my, I've raised thebar even higher.
So what I thought previouslywas the toughest thing that I've
been through or the toughestset of circumstances, now that
bar is even higher so I can takeon even more challenges, or I
have an elevated level ofconfidence and awareness in

(01:59:53):
myself and what I am trulycapable of and what my body and
mind possess, and that isinvaluable.
You cannot put a measure as tohow much that is worth knowing.

(02:00:13):
Every time you prove yourselfright in what you can do and how
far you can go, and it's like anew baseline for me where you
know I can.
I'm certainly going to look atother challenges that I face or
now, when I'm in a tough moment,in a marathon or wherever, I'm
going to go back and say, hey,you've done this before.

(02:00:35):
You've done more than this.
Remember the death race at hour64, when you were hallucinating
and every step felt like yourfoot was getting cut open.
So it did so much for me and itwas really amazing to be around

(02:00:58):
so many battle-hardened men andwomen, those folks At the end,
especially.
You could have told us to gocrawl or pencil roll through a
freaking ball of fire if that'swhat it meant to finish, and we
would have done it.
There was nothing that couldhave been put in front of us

(02:01:22):
that we weren't going to put ourbest effort to go and do, and
these are the type of peoplethat I really love being around.
What I'm saying is I love beingaround people.
It reinforced the type ofcommunity that I desire to have,

(02:01:45):
and that's to be around peoplethat are constantly pushing
their limits and elevating theirstandards.
And that's really been cominginto play a lot more in my life
with the people that I'msurrounding myself with, and I
think about my Tuesday speedgroup and my washed up coffee

(02:02:06):
club Saturday run folks.
These are people that arepushing themselves constantly
and they want to win.
They don't just want toparticipate in something, they
want to win, they want to PR,they want to beat their best,
and that's what the people thatwere out there, those final

(02:02:29):
that's what the people, even thepeople that weren't in that
final group I believe the peoplethat really signed up for this
challenge are those people thatwere out there, those final
that's what the people even thepeople that weren't in that
final group I believe the peoplethat really signed up for this
challenge are those people thatthey want more out of life than
just doing something, to saythey did it and to participate,
and I believe that's somethingthat, when you go out on a quest

(02:02:52):
like this, where it's aboutmore than just doing and it's
about giving your best andseeing what you're really made
of man, I believe that's one ofthe most beautiful quests you
can go on, because you willlearn an infinite amount about
yourself, will learn an infiniteamount about yourself.

(02:03:18):
I also just thought about howimportant it is to separate
yourself from the moments,meaning that in certain moments,
or to zoom out, rather to zoomout and appreciate the moment.
So, separate yourself, meaningzoom out and appreciate what are
you really going through.
So there are times where, again,especially when I'm low,
crawling under this barbed wire,I'm thinking this is the worst

(02:03:39):
thing in the world because itcertainly it's probably the
hardest thing I've ever donethere.
But when I zoom out, like man,I am here by choice, doing this
thing by choice, to find a newlevel in myself that, in turn, I
can then help others find a newlevel in themselves too, and

(02:04:01):
inspire them to go and do thisthing.
How freaking cool is that?
And I wouldn't have seen thatif I didn't zoom out from that
moment, because, zoomed intothat moment, I'm thinking this
freaking sandbag is heavy, thissucks.
Whoever came up with this taskcan go to hell.
I don't actually mean that, butI might have in the moment and

(02:04:28):
you can see so much when youjust take a few seconds and zoom
out and appreciate what's goingon.
The last thing that I'll leavewith is a reminder that moments
can feel like years and yearscan feel like moments, or
moments can feel like years anddays can go by like moments.

(02:04:51):
I can't believe that this isbeing recorded.
A week after and it literallyfeels like an entire blur went
by.
It almost felt as if thisdidn't happen, meaning it was
just like a flash, and I oftenwould remind myself as well.

(02:05:12):
This is another thing when wethink about return on
inconvenience ROI, three days ofmy life or 72 hours of my life
zoomed out, represents 1% of2025.
1% of 2025 is now going tocreate has now created a memory

(02:05:33):
dividend, meaning I can tellthis story for as long as I live
and use this experience toinspire others to push
themselves for as long as I livefor another several decades,
god willing.
I can now use this story toinspire and captivate people for
a long time because I dedicated1% of my year, which is a

(02:05:55):
microcosm of my life, of yourlife.
You can dedicate a microcosm ofyour life to then share the
learnings and help others andinspire change for decades to
come.
You can't get that type ofreturn in the stock market,
where you take less than apercent of your money and then

(02:06:17):
you get to experience 10,000plus percent returns, unless you
were the founder of Bitcoin andbought it when it was a
10,000th of a a cent.
But you get what I'm saying theconcept of memory dividends.
Very little of your time can setthe foundation for the rest of

(02:06:43):
your time here on earth, andthat is powerful.
There is beauty in taking onchallenges.
There is beauty in taking onchallenges.
There is beauty in pushingyourself to limits that you
didn't believe you had, and it'smy wish that this is an
invitation to you to seek thatbeauty in whatever occurs to you

(02:07:05):
as the most appropriate way todo it, appropriate way to do it
Challenge yourself.
Remember that it's just pain,and pain is your friend, and you
can go so much further than youcould ever possibly imagine.

(02:07:26):
Thank you so much.

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#208 | Bears, Barbed Wire, & Cold: The 2025 Spartan Summer Death Race Recap

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