The Vermont Reebok Spartan at Killington Ski Resort was a Founders’ Race edition this year, which is a special version of the race more difficult than the regular Beast. “An experience you will NOT forget.” Who better to provide insight about it than Joe De Sena, the original Spartan and man behind the grueling weekend challenge that consisted of 13+ miles and 39+ obstacles.
When De Sena started the Spartan Race in 2010 he never imagined it would evolve into what it has — he did not plan on investing more than 50k that quickly went to all his friends and family as well. When I asked De Sena how he felt about Spartan becoming his legacy he said, “This would be an incredible legacy!”
De Sena grew up in Queens and then years later set down roots in Pittsfield, Vermont, which is where the Death Race began that eventually became known as the Spartan Race. Vermont appealed to De Sena because he hates traffic, he wanted a clean peaceful place to raise a family and the area is beautiful. It’s his favorite location of all the Spartan Races. On the flip side, if De Sena could pick any location in the world that a Spartan Race hasn’t been held yet, he would choose North Korea. De Sena said, “I believe with a Spartan Race in North Korea we can start to calm everyone down in the region.”
When I asked De Sena why this year was a Founders’ Race, without hesitation he said, “I just wanted to see what 50 obstacles looked like on the side of a mountain!” A few of the obstacles included log hurdles, walls of various kinds, tire drag, bucket brigade, atlas carry, barbed wire crawl and spear throw. Over the years, Spartan Race obstacles have been added and refined, but Joe’s favorite remains the spear throw because as he put it, “spear throw = burpee maker.”
His hope for the future of Spartan is that it will be in the Olympics in 2024. De Sena’s greatest reward as CEO and co-founder of the Spartan Race, besides its financial success, is being connected to helping people get healthy.
One great way he does this is by providing Spartan race participants with a daily subscription feed for free called Workout of the Day (WOD), which includes a different inspirational quote every day paired with suggested exercises. The purpose of the WOD is to inspire and motivate racers toward their goal(s). The best fitness advice De Sena ever received was “A workout a day keeps the Grim Reaper away!”
More than 5,500 racers descended upon Vermont to compete in the 2015 Beast, Sprint and Ultra Beast. Here are the some of the results…
Top five BEAST OPEN Racers Saturday, Sept. 19:
NAME BIB AGE GENDER TIME
1. Vincent Larochelle 5241 31 M 3:46:22
2. Dakota Seiple 7421 21 M 4:00:49
3. Nick Fitzsimmons 3888 42 M 4:17:36
4. Jeffrey Hepp 4575 26 M 4:17:53
5. Benjamin Rodkey 7067 26 M 4:19:47
Top five BEAST ELITE Racers Saturday, Sept. 19:
NAME BIB AGE GENDER TIME
1. Jesse Bruce 2691 34 M 3:28:05
2. Matthew Kempson 9310 25 M 3:42:46
3. Junyong Pak 8662 37 M 3:46:12
4. Ethan Nedeau 6233 42 M 3:46:42
5. William Ferullo 3849 30 M 3:47:32
Top five BEAST OPEN Racers Sunday, Sept. 20:
NAME BIB AGE GENDER TIME
1. Phillip Gandhi 9962 24 M 4:00:05
2. Terri Moore 9778 34 F 4:04:49
3. Rachel Beckmann 9534 31 F 4:14:33
4. Jesse Aguilar 12047 36 M 4:14:36
5. Olivier Loudig 9198 43 M 4:19:15
Top five ULTRA BEAST OPEN Racers:
NAME BIB AGE GENDER TIME
1. Nathan Fry 5765 31 M 9:08:49
2. Tom Kwon 7966 46 M 9:10:20
3. Kevin Salley 6516 42 M 9:11:58
4. Jake Silverman 7306 17 M 9:18:30
5. John Flynn 950 34 M 9:24:41
Top five SPRINT OPEN Racers:
NAME BIB AGE GENDER TIME
1. Tom Martin 11981 25 M 1:18:36
2. Spenser Sawyer 11543 16 M 1:18:53
3. Christian Avery 10061 21 M 1:21:17
4. Abigail Serra 11577 26 F 1:21:45
5. Trey Waversak 11831 34 M 1:21:5
