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Pre-race, smiling because I don't know yet what's to come.
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The bike, minus wheels and chain, that I would have to carry with me until the pieces were returned.
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Gathering before the race, keeping warm.
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Double checking my gear. Too late to turn back now so gotta make sure I'm all set for this thing.
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Last minute instructions. Better listen closely.
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The skinny guy, left of center with the black shirt and red pack was the eventual winner. He doesn't look like much but he's a British Royal Marine. Does that give him a competitive advantage? Uh, don't know. Hard to tell.
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First task, crawl through stream, under barbwire
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Out of the barbwire, we next had to search the field for a tree stump with our race number stapled to it. Over 50 race numbers, countless extra stumps spread out over about an acre. At 4 in the morning.
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Once you attach your race number, you had to dig up the stump. And then carry it with you for the rest of the race.
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Mud? Where? What mud?
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Me and my stump. Never thought to name it because I hated the damn thing.
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Trimming up the stump. Carry as little weight as possible.
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Small aid station at Amee Farm, the central station for the race. All the tasks branched out from this spot.
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The beginning of the barbwire section at Amee farm, next to the aid station.
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Task two, take ALL your gear and crawl under more barbwire, walk to a ravine, crawl under more barbwire, walk to a river, hike about 1.5 or 2 miles down stream to checkpoint where they give you a match and tell you to keep it dry. Walk back up river and do it all in reverse.
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Back from the river, we crossed the road from Amee Farm to a house with piles of wood. Our task: quarter 20 logs. Ever tried to split wet wood? Don't.
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Then take 6 pieces and all your gear - including stump and bike- up the mountain
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The trick to carrying everything is to use your arms as little as possible. Get as much on your back and shoulders so your arms are free and won't fatigue as quickly. Of course, that's why they call it a trick; it's never as easy as it seems.
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Carried wood to little hut and added it to woodpile. Then continued up mountain, with all gear, to turnaround. At turnaround, had to memorize the first 10 presidents and repeat them back at the woodpile hut.
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Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Jackson, VanBuren, Hamilton, Tyler. Still got it.
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Washing some of the accumulated dirt and pebbles out of the shoes. Oddly enough, the shoes seemed to gather quite a lot of debris after crawling through muddy streams and hiking up and down a river and over a mountain.
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Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh
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I'm walking on sunshine, oooh oooh, and don't it feel good.
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Back down the mountain, enjoying some spectacular views
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Next task, crawl up stream, under barbwire (notice a pattern?) to get to a Lego structure where you took notes on how it was constructed, crawled back under barbwire to pond from which you retrieved a baggie of Legos and replicated the original structure. if you missed the first time, you had to crawl back up stream with your block and finish structure while looking at original.
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Can you see the joy on my face? It's hard to hide that kind of excitement welling up inside me.
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After Legos, crawled back under barbwire at Amee Farm, through ravine/barbwire and back to river where we walked upstream ~1 or 1.5 miles. Started POURING with rain and rocks were as slippery as ice. Did i fall? Yes. Did it hurt? Yes. Did I question my motivation? Yes. Did I regain my sanity and wisely remove myself from the race? Uh,...no.
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Next task - leave gear (THANK GOD) and hike up and over hill to Riverside Farm where we would retrieve an egg and any supplies we might need to make a fire. That effing match better still be dry. But even if it is, where do i strike it? On my wet gear or maybe the rocks that have been soaking up the rain?
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So the task is to get an egg, make a fire, boil water to cook an egg and then eat the egg. So the egg has to be cooked in the water? Uh, not specified.
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My shitty fire. The marines doing this at the same time didn't seem to struggle. Almost as if they'd had specific training in the outdoors. Did I mention it had been pouring all day, thus soaking all the dead wood in the forest? Good times.
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Fire made, thimble of water brought to a boil, only thing left to do was eat the egg. Yummy. Rocky Balboa eat your heart out.
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With my immune system now fighting off the salmonella I just introduced into my body, I set off on the next task which was to hike back up the egg hill where we'd get the bike tires (only 10hrs after we started) then ride the bike downhill - providing the brakes still work after dragging the bike up, over, under and through every natural obstacle in the area - back to Riverside Farm where we'd get our chain. Sounds simple.
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We checked in with Race Director Andy who found the ziplock baggie containing our chain and gave it to one of the station workers, who then chucked the bag and chain into the pond. The water is 40deg and you can't see past your nose underwater. Good luck. Hope you watched carefully where your bag landed.
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After retrieving the baggie and fighting off hypothermia, the chain was re-attached.
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Bike 200 yards into the field and leave your bike in the barn. That's it. That's all you had to do with the bike. After carrying it for over 10 hours across two mountains, up and down several miles of river, and through all manner of streams, barbwire and rocks we ride the bikes for less than 3 minutes? Welcome to the Death Race.
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After leaving the bike, you are weighed on a scientifically standardized scale. apparently I gained 10lbs overnight; I begin to suspect the results of the bathroom scale sitting in the mud were not completely accurate.
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Now gather 20% of your body weight (40lbs in my case) in rocks and carry that up the mountain.
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At least the weather was nice and sunny. Perfect for a hike.
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Ugh. Sun? What sun. All I see are giant raindrops and miles of muddy trails. No, it's really easy to carry 40lbs in rocks, a tree stump and all your gear up a mountain stream and muddy trails. Really. You won't slip, stumble or fall at all.
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Dumped the rocks. Wait, I gotta do what now?
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Take all your gear down the other side of the mountain to a culvert where you fill up your bucket with water and bring it back up. Too easy? OK, do it by bushwacking half the way down. Oh, and don't spill too much. If you don't have enough in your bucket, you'll have to go back down for what your missing.
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Cover the bucket with a shirt to minimize water loss and tie the stump to the pack so the arms are free to carry bucket. A gallon of water weighs roughly 8lbs, thus my 5 gallon bucket weighed 40lbs. Fun stuff.
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Back up. This is the last task before heading back to the finish so the adrenaline is picking up a bit. Got to the top where the bucket was unceremoniously dumped out and you were told to just get back to Amee Farm. Except the mountain is criss-crossed with some 200 miles of trails. And they aren't marked. Just pray your sense of direction is true.
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After only a few wrong turns (and walking in just one circle) finally made it back to Amee farm. Last time i'll have to crawl under this stupid wire.
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Finish line. 14hrs 11min. 7th place
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Nice handshake from the race director Andy
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"No, it was fun. Honestly, I enjoyed the race and in no way do I have the desire to run you over with my bike or beat you with my tree stump"
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Second year in a row. I officially have finished the most Death Races AND I have the longest streak of consecutive Death Races finishes. EVER. Ok, so they've only actually had three, but feel free to brag to your friends that you know/are related to/briefly met at some point in time a World Record Holder.
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Burning that goddamn stump
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I think this is what's commonly referred to as "shell shock"
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Sweet, delicious brew. The ideal post race refreshment.
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Burn, you piece of crap.
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Trying to explain to some locals what we did and why we are not, in fact, clinically insane.
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I dragged Jay's bike all over these mountains, rivers, streams, and rocks. I'm not grimacing because I'm in pain, I'm picturing Jay burying me up to my neck at the head of his Cockaponsett trail as a warning to all who may think of crossing him.
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Can't get enough of the scenery up there. Just beautiful.
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River section we were forced to hike
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Nice to look at, shitty to hike in
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Wow. Vermont.
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Amee farm, the central hub for the race.
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My race number and finishers medal, along with a sweet hat we got. Totally worth it.