The name alone should invoke a feeling of honor or dread (depending on who you are). I think for me, I fell in love with the idea before I even started running them. I was never a “real” runner in high school or college. I played tennis, I was quite good: PAC champion for a few years, undefeated two of my four years, MVP two years of college, and captain of my team. I know that sounds like a humble brag, but it is simply my baseline athletics for running. Any younger brother will say the same thing, I wanted to my older brother. I watched him run in high school, dusting kids to the finish. I watched him run 10 miles a day in college and sprinting to the finish even after such a feat. It seemed like such a struggle and, at that time, I thought that was awesome.
Flash forward to a few years. Tennis was over, my son was coming, and I was a mess: physically and mentally. OCR was my first love, the challenge, the shorter distances, and of course you always got a beer. I wasn’t in perfect shape when I first started, but I enjoyed running and it was something different than sitting on my ass, watching TV.
My first long distance race was a virtual race ½ marathon. Clearly, not an ultra-marathon, but I was finally tacking on some mileage like I had wanted to. It went exceptionally well, I had more energy at the end of the race, I loved it. I caught a bug for the ½ and completed 10 more before I thought I should try something longer. Spartan race was getting big in my book, I could now run the distance, now the obstacles posed a new challenge and I wanted to beat that too. (Let me stress something, I never won a Spartan race or even tried for age, I did it all for fun and the love of running.) I decided to push it and do the Spartan Ultra in Killington, the most epic of all Spartan Races.
Spartan racing was like a gate way drug. It started out pretty cheap with the stadium races and sprints. When they started to become easy and I wanted more I jumped into the Super at Palmerton. For those that know, know Palmerton is almost as hard as any beast out there. It was 8 miles, up both ways, double sandbag carries, and always sweltering. I look back on Palmerton every year and can just feel my skin burning and loving every second of it. Within the first two years of racing Spartan I moved into their beasts and stayed running the beast races for the next two years. The beast is a ½ marathon of running. It’s grueling, its muddy, it really grabs your soul and pulls hard. After the two years of running beasts, my friend Brian and I decided to run a beast in Vermont.
2014 Killington beast was unlike anything I have ever been through. It was the championship race and it was pure hell. Brian and I were determined to finish it and stick together. Everything was doubled that year: two ropes, double/double sandbags, two log carries, the death march was still there, and it was cold. I have never taken so long to run a ½ marathon. Briand and I toughed it out and made it through the beast in 12 hours. I reflect on that now as one of my fondest race memories. From everyone saying “hey man your bags open,” to waving at our wives because we knew we were in trouble for how long this was taking, to finishing the journey with a twisted knew and a huge jump over the pit. It was the point of no return for me. I was hooked on running for that long, feeling that rush of pure energy throughout the day. I said at the end of the race to Brian…let’s never do that again, but the very next day I sent him a message that read, “are you thinking what I’m thinking? When do we go back?”
I ran many more races with Brian, road races, some trails, we still run a lot today. I decided that day after Killington, I still wanted something more. I noticed Spartan had another race, longer than the beast…at the time it was called an Ultra Beast. Undetermined amount of miles, supposedly double the beast, obstacles were tougher, the climbs were longer, everything about it screamed at me to take the challenge. I did a lot of research. Talked to a coach and decided yes, yes this is something new I wanted. I could run a beast in 6 hours at this point, 4 hours when I didn’t have anyone else to run with. I would give it a shot, I wanted the glow in the dark medal and I wanted to say “yeah I ran an ultra-beast.” Training was every day without fail. Off days were bike riding days with my son, cheat days weren’t a thing, I had to train and eat whatever I wanted to keep putting in calories. Killington was the only Ultra on the east coast at the time and I knew the challenges of that race. I practiced everything I knew would be there; swimming, monkey bars, logs, rope climbing, long distance hikes. I was exhilarated again. At the end of 5 or 6 months of pure grueling and suffering, I signed up for Killington as my first ultra-beast. I was shook. What had I done?
I wrote an AAR on the Killington race, so I direct you to go there. Here’s what I will say about it. It was everything I hoped for and more. I ran well, 5th in my age group. I cried after the race because of how elated I was with finishing. I have two pictures from the race, one is of me hugging my daughter halfway through (it was so needed) and then I have one holding her at the end. If I could have anything, I’d want that feeling of those hugs after the race. It was pure happiest. After this race I ran a three more ultra-Spartans. Not the same feeling as Killington, but still pretty great. (Maybe I’ll go back to Killington this year?)
After the ultra-race I talked to my coach (on the phone! I was so excited), he talked to me about ultra-marathons. We talked about how I felt, the training I had done, and we talked about pushing it farther. We talked about how many 1/2s I had run and marathons. At the time I had run many half marathons, but not a single marathon, but here I was wanting to try a 50k, 31.2 miles. Ridiculous.
With the help of my coach, I started running…a lot. I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew I wanted to do it. It wouldn’t be the belt buckle race, but it would be a race that I can say, yeah I did that. I signed up for the Dirty German…25k, 50k, or 50m: 1 loop, 2 loops, or 3 loops of running 15 miles. I was nervous but yet excited, I wanted to push myself so I signed up for a small 50k in Delaware just to give it a shot. It hurt! I hated it so much. I wanted to quit at mile 26…who does this, why do this to myself. My legs were on such fire I thought I would die at the end of the race. I was looking forward to the Dirty German. What a new challenge. I didn’t forget my Spartan roots, I ran a few this year as well just to keep with that part of me.
Dirty German went without a hitch. Is what I would have said if it wasn’t torrential down pouring and I had remembered to eat throughout the race. It went as well as I can expect from the conditions. It is still talked about in the Dirty German community as one of the toughest races. It made me feel hard as nails to be able to do that.
I guess my goal for writhing this today is to just explain to you, hey its not going to always be flowers and lollipops. Sometimes the struggle is real and sometimes it’ll just flow through you. I’m not some big running star, I’m just a father of three kids that enjoys the challenges of a good long run, pushing myself to see what could be next. I want you to push yourself to try new things, take life by the horns and shake the shit out of it. Find someone that shares the same interests as you and start running or working out, or getting involved in OCR. That feeling you will get when you finally accomplishing something that is ridiculous to you…you’ll understand. From 5k to 100m’s. I can be done, you can accomplish anything you put your mind to.
Here I sit, training for a 100 miler. This will sound cliché, but if I can really set my mind to it and do it, then I believe anyone can. Yeah, training can be hard, but work in means easier race in the end.