My journey through hell

by Tyler Movsessian

Wow. The 2014 Killington, Vermont Spartan Beast World Championships sucks more than I expected. I knew it would be a half marathon and I knew the course would be grueling and take me all afternoon to finish, but the difficulty of the terrain and the physical, mental, and emotional brutality of the course is indescribable.

            It all starts at the line with the usual Spartan Race pep talk of how we trained all year for this moment but when that is over, the smoke bomb goes off and off we go, running through the grassy terrain of the base of the mountain. Then we take a sharp left turn and the steepness of this face of the mountain makes it seem like Sturgis St at Horn Pond here in Woburn is going downhill. Spirits are high because adrenaline is through the roof and jokes are being thrown around up and down the mountain. But this is mile 1; there are still about 30 more obstacles ahead.

            The next 8 miles is about a four hour journey straight up to the top of the 4500 foot summit of Killington peak. It is a quad burner but there are some breaks in the obstacles and I get through them pretty easily, until we have a balance beam over water. My balance leaves a lot to be desired so I get about half way across before ending up in the drink and having to do 30 wet burpees.

            We get to top of Killington Mountain where the legendary spear throw is. It is so windy and so cloudy that I really can’t see, and I think I had master a technique as I am  able to nail the spear throw in my last race but nope, it is 30 more burpees as the spectators are all nice and warm after their relaxing gondola ride to the top. All I can do is shake my head and think about how many burpees I do to ride a gondola to the top (probably about 300).

            Then comes the irony. When I get to the downhill it is so steep that I once again have to use my questionable quad strength to keep myself balanced, especially with muddy and slippery shoes. This moment is ironic because it is full of uphills and downhills; when I am on an uphill I am wishing for a downhill, and vice versa. The downhills are just as tough as the uphills because of the terrain. We always have to watch our footing because there is always a stump to stub a toe on or a mossy rock that will cause my feet to slide right from underneath me. I slip so many times that I make Mark Sanchez’s butt fumble slip up look good.

            However, I trek along, into the darkness. Now as I face my ultimate test, at mile 13, we climb the side of Killington again. Almost to the peak, but for about a quarter mile of it we have to carry an 80 pound sand bag; to say I am struggling would be an understatement. I crawl up about 20 feet and stop for a long pause and eventually I ask what the penalty is for leaving my sandbag behind: 30 burpees. So I do them, anything that will get me off of this steep uphill. The burpees are very hard to do especially seven hours into the race but I know I have come this far—I can’t give up.

            Now that it is dark, the mountains are more treacherous. The downhills still have the same terrain except now my visibility is limited to about five feet in front of me. It is the hardest hike I have ever been on; it seems like it will never end. Sure enough I come out of it briefly, for an upper body obstacle I get through easily due to my experience rock climbing, until I get to a section where I have to hold onto ropes as I use arm rings for footholds. I miss the second to last foothold, kick it and am unable to recover after about a minute of dangling with just my arms. I then have to do 30 more painful burpees, knowing that this final set could have been easily avoided.

            I get stuck doing these extra three miles because a group caused a false alarm in the water obstacle. They thought they lost a group member when really he ended up just going ahead of them. So instead of a 50 yard swim and a 20 foot rope climb, I get an extra three miles of hills. I would have much preferred to have given the swimming a try.

            I make it through the dark woods and complete a few more obstacles without any problems including monkey bars and a memory challenge where I am given a code around mile eight and have to memorize it until I am about a half of a mile away from the end. (I still remember my code a week and a half later: Sierra 121-3096). This last mile is cold and scary especially after the dunk wall (I had to go underwater) and the Tyrolean Traverse (traverse across 50 feet of horizontal poles using only my hands, but my past Spartan Race experience helped me get through that.) Then, I take a sharp right and jump over the fire and through the finish; I complete my trifecta, the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.

            I certainly got a lot of takeaways from the race: number one being start much earlier, that way it won’t be dark next time, and bring more supplements, because I had to go the last three and a half miles with an empty tank. However, with this experience under my belt, I am ready to really improve my time next year and I can’t wait to get back out there. A year ago from that day I first set foot into the Spartan community and it has been a fun journey, I didn’t think I would make it this far, and it has certainly taught me a lot about my hidden strengths that most people back at home probably didn’t know I had.