Hardest Race of My Life-Spartan Killington Beast

“The sandbag carry obstacle is punishing; a 60lb sack schlepped a 1/4 mile up and down a ski mountain. It’s even harder positioned at mile 14 of a race that is supposed to be 13 miles long.”

Recently, I decided I needed to add a goal to my workout training. The idea of running a Spartan race sounded appealing. As I began searching for a race I began to lose interest. I have done Spartan’s in the past and they are a challenge, but I knew I could complete it. My body and my mind were searching for something more so, I elected to do the Vermont Killington Beast-the hardest Spartan in America.

I prepared for months, training in endurance, weights, cardio, and aerobics.?I felt ready and confident until the drive up the night before. Reality hit me hard as I saw the mammoth mountains that speckle the Vermont countryside. The next day my family and I drove to the staging grounds. My kids had been training too and they were thrilled to be competing in their first 1 mile race. I was fully focused on the task at hand. In college I had worked for my father as a painting contractor spending summer days on hot roofs and going up and down ladders. My thought process was simple, this was going to be another honest hard day’s work like those I had shared with my dad.?

Even starting this race was a challenge. To get to the starting line you had to hurdle a 4 foot wall reminding you that nothing will be easy. The race then begins with barbed wire crawls that are uphill and long.

They removed the water hazard from years past, and replaced it with more elevation. Six large climbs, lots of smaller ones and before long my body was feeling the task. The first climb was early in the first mile rising 1,500 feet up before traversing down a small downhill and quickly back up! The punishment of the climb had my heart pounding out of my chest as my heart rate climbed to 170 beats per minute. I paused, figuring it would be better to take a 2-3 minute break to get my heart rate down to 150-160 before continuing on. Downward I ran, avoiding rocks and pitfalls so as not to land on my face. The terrain changed rapidly as the clearings gave rise to woods full of deciduous trees necessitating my decrease in pace as I had to walk those. Unfortunately, as soon as I stopped jogging, my legs would start cramping. As the cramps contracted my muscles and the pain escalated I feared I would not be able to finish. I was resolved not to quit, but there were many points I thought my body would just stop working and I might collapse from muscle spasms.??Prior to the race I studied by watching countless YouTube videos from experts offering advice on what to wear and what to bring.??Thanks to the OCR Kings recommendations, I used a hydration pack filled with electrolytes/water, gu and mustard to avoid terrible cramping which worked far better than I had imagined.

During the first 8 miles the obstacles felt manageable as they were mostly small obstacles 4’ and 8’ foot walls. At around mile 8 harder obstacles emerged calling my commitment into question. For example, one obstacle, “the twister” was modifiedmonkey bars that have bars that rotate at elevation. My grip strength was solid but I failed it because I was unable to swing far enough to reach a elevate bar. The punishment for my failure was my first 30 penalty burpee’s. Shortly after, I struggled on the rope climb because I wore gloves which had gotten wet in the mud pit so I had no grip. I should have tried it without my gloves but didn’t think of it at the time and did my 30 penalty burpees. There were several other obstacles that I was able to complete including the monkey bars which had been modified to include bars that were very far apart. I felt pretty good at mile 10 and was getting a second wind. Then mile 12 required me to do a steep climb up the mountain! I called my wife Jen and told her I would be another couple hours. I finished the uphill, taking breaks until I arrived at the bucket carry.??This bucket carry is 70lbs and was a quarter mile up a mountain then back down. It took a ton of energy but I was able to complete it. Finally, on mile 14 I am just about to finish. I see Jen and my kids with the medals they earned and immediately felt relief that it was almost over.

The only thing standing between me and completion was a strenuous 60lb sandbag carry straight up the mountain and down again. I was tired and even if I wasn’t tired, this is a hard obstacle. I practiced quarter mile 65lb sandbag carries but never up a mountain!??I decided to tackle the challenge by picking a person that was resting on the mountain and walk to them and take a break. When I say break I mean nearly falling down and laying on the ground for a couple minutes. I would then get up and find another person to go to and do it again. The pace was slow, but the progress constant. I started a conversation with a ultra-runner that kept my mind occupied as I walked down the mountain.

Upon dismounting the mountain, I had the Olympus obstacle which comprised of rings and a bar that you complete like the monkey bars. Unfortunately, I didn’t get enough momentum on the rings to reach the bar so I had to do 30 penalty burpee’s.

Luckily Ashton my 8 year old son was there and he did them with me. I then went up and down the cargo net and jumped over the fire finishing the race -14 miles, 30 obstacles, 90 burpees, and 7100 feet of elevation in 8hrs 15 minutes. Not nearly as fast as I wanted, but I left absolutely everything I had on the course. I enjoyed it because one of the great keys to success is consistency of purpose, and for one day nothing else mattered but the training, preparation, and demands that went into the Vermont Killington Beast.

Written By Chris Regnier & Edited By Kevin Nissen