SPARTAN VERMONT ULTRA BEAST

Thursday the 18th September. My room looked more like a war zone than that of an OCR racer that had everything ready to go. Being my firstMountain Race and Spartan Race, also having learned the hard way that the weather predictions can’t always be trusted, I had a tough time deciding what to take and what to leave. Not too long after finally making a decision, and getting just 4 hours sleep, my alarm was screaming at me to get going for the airport.

After a whole day of traveling, I finally arrived in Killington at around 6pm on Friday evening and the accommodation I had been lucky enough to find was awesome. The Hideaway Chalet was very cool with 23 other Spartan racers, volunteers and spectators sharing everything from food to stories about previous races.

After a pretty solid night’s sleep, and a sleep in, I got my Dropbox sorted out and with some new information from my new Spartan friends, this process was made easier. Off to the race venue, which was about 4 miles from the Hideaway Chalet, to get registered and drop off my drop bin. The rest of the afternoon was spent exploring the route in as much detail as possible, chatting with other Spartans to find out about other parts of the course that I couldn’t get to and taking the gondola up the mountain to get a glimpse of the ‘beast’ I was going to dominate!

With a decent plate of tuna pasta in me and some more tales of the day it was off to bed early for me.

Now Spartan Race, as I soon discovered, is about surprises. There was a basic map of the course but the accuracy was very debatable, loads of mystery obstacles with nobody really knowing the distance for sure. The 2015 edition of the Spartan Ultra Beast was dubbed ‘The Founders Race‘ which meant the organisers had taken a step back on building too many obstacles, choosing to rather allow the mountain to hurt us.

06:00am Sunday 20th September and there I was lined up with the Elite batch, ready to go with headlamps and glows sticks lighting up the start coral. All I really remember was a brief word from Norm the course designer saying that there was a high probability the people we saw around us probably wouldn’t finish the race! With some nervous chuckles, and a weird calm, the MC gave the pump up speech and we were off.

Straight out the start and we were already climbing. There were 2 over the log barriers, an incline wall and the memory test where we had to remember a word and numbers associated with the last 2 numbers of our bib number. Mine was Sierra3227038 and this would only come into play roughly 12 miles later on. Up to this point it was a steady jog and a gradual uphill then BOOM, it was up the mountain turning into a walk that seemed endless alongside the gondola I had ridden up the day before. A flat section appeared around a corner offering short lived relief on the legs… the climb wasn’t over! We continued straight up the mountain until finally being presented with a rope cliff climb up to the top.

The pace picked up again and just around the bend we were into our first sandbag carry, I’d say about 50 pounds for a short loop down and up.

It was off into the woods and a pretty fast straight down decent on what wasn’t really a trail, but more a muddy, rocky mess, only to be greeted at the bottom by yet another sandbag carry. This time the bag felt way heavier and the loop was a little tougher up and down the side of a ski slope followed by a wall… then it was back off into the woods, this time climbing the muddy slope.

Now from here on out my placing of the obstacles may not be in the right order and there may even be one or two that I have forgotten. I can’t really remember the course too well. I guess it’s sure to happen when you get in the groove of things, meeting each obstacle, conquering it and moving onto the next one… but I’m pretty sure it’s mostly right.

Out of the wooded trail there was a wall, a log balance and a beast 10 gallon bucket that we had to fill with gravel and walk it up the side of the slope and back down again with our second lap seeing us do an even longer loop. Once the bucket was back with all the gravel and we had emptied it back into the gravel pit, it was off to a barbed wire crawl, then up and off another huge vertical uphill climb which really ‘warmed’ the calves. Finally reaching the peak, we were greeted by a wall… and then another wall… and onto hanging obstacles, ropes and then to rings, hitting a bell at the end and then onto a sand bag hoist which weighed in at about 100 pounds. We had to pull it all the way up to the pulley and lower it down slowly.

More muddy, wooded, rocky trails, a cargo net to go over and somewhere thrown in the mix was a farmer’s walk with 2 logs and a chain handle which we had to walk around a flag and back.

I got to the Atlas carry which was a pretty awkward round stone that we had to pick up off the floor and carry to a flag, drop it, do 5 burpees, pick it up and carry it back.

Coming out in a clearing after more trail running, there was a rope climb, little ways on 8 or 9 walls which we either had to go over or through a window on some, over 2 more log barriers, around a loop, a log carry and then hitting another wall which we had to go over and onto a platform, then 6 Tarzan ropes to swing across and over another wall without touching the ground (2nd lap I unfortunately slipped and had to do a 30 burpee penalty).

More trail running, another cargo net and we were then on a pretty awesome hiking trail which was relatively flat and just felt absolutely amazing to run on to get my stride right. A swim through a pond, another log carry and onto an uphill barbed wire crawl. This was the worst thing ever as it was obviously just at an angle my inner thighs did not appreciate… and I cramped up. And not just me, quite a few of the other guys too. A nice uphill climb which seemed to help loosen tension in the thighs, a drop into the woods where there was a rope climb, the Z-wall (2nd lap saw me do 30 burpees penalty here as my leg cramped up and I slid off), a log atlas carry with 5 burpees mandatory, then the longest barbed wire crawl in the world…. no really. Then it was then the memory test, Sierra3227038 and finally the spear throw which I missed both rounds… so another 30 burpees for each.

Now at this point we had to split off back to the start where our bins were dropped in order to refuel, eat, do what ever you needed to do and then it was back up the mountain all over again!

I got my first lap done ‘taking it easy’ in 4H39 and some change. The second lap took slightly longer but after doing the lap again and getting past the spear throw, we had to jump over the wall of fire and then it was through the finish line for a finish time of 10h20min.

Nobody was really sure of the final distance. I heard some saying that it was 13 miles, others said 15 miles with all the carries per lap… so I did somewhere between 26 and 30 miles finishing 35th overall.

I asked the question in my last blog (read it here) if I was prepared enough to take on the Spartan Ultra Beast. All in all I would say yes, however the one thing I wasn’t fully prepared for was mountain running, all the steep uphills and downhills. I learned quite a bit about how to prepare better for the Spartan Race in the future to ensure that my calves, quads and inner thighs don’t take such a pounding.

My Herbalife Nutrition, trail mix nuts along with steak… yes you heard me, steak… really worked well to fuel me and keep me properly hydrated throughout the race. At least I had this aspect pretty much sorted out, then not to mention the recovery after my race thanks to my Herbalife24 Rebuild Strength and Endurance Protein Shakes along with Herbalife24 Restore, Herbalife Joint Support, Herbalife Relax Now and Herbalife Niteworks. It’s incredible, I was able to get back into training just 3 days after my race in preparation for my next event.

Since the 2015 edition was ‘The Founders Race‘, I was a little disappointed with the obstacles, especially after hearing all the stories of previous year’s. The mountain was the biggest challenge though and I overcame it to be #strongerthanthemountain!

“Thank You” to Amy for hooking me up with the awesome accommodation, to Spartan Race for testing and challenging me and taking me way out of my comfort zone. A big thank you to everybody that followed, supported and cheered me along… it really does help. And to all the people I have met and new friends made, see you all soon at the next event… and definitely at Spartan Vermont Ultra Beast next year!

Photography courtesy of Reebok Spartan Race

www.spartan.com