Death Race
by Mike Sallade
acidotic RACING, LLC. Copyright © 2009.
Death Race
Pittsfield, VERMONT
June 27, 2009
Proudly presented by:
2009 RESULTS
1 Richard Lee 11:31
1 Tom Worthington 11:31
3 DJ Lis 11:56
4 Mike Sallade 12:11
5 Renat Ramelivich 14:00
6 Mike Signori 14:03
7 Thomas Williams 14:11
8 Tom Bevins 14:44
8 Rob Niles 14:44
8 Tom Kontos 14:44
11 Skye Nacel 16:18
12 Chris Olmstead 16:31
13 Dan Valdo 17:18
13 Peter Bue 17:18
15 Steve Mattera 18:20
16 Chris Prybella 20:32
16 Zach Castongua 20:32
18 Robert Montgomery 21:02
It all started with a girl I met. She was cute, fun to be around, and interested in many of the same pursuits as me. One day she was telling me about this Death Race that a friend of hers was going to compete in. It sounded intriguing but I was in no shape to go through this slog-fest. I hadn't run with any regularity in ten years. She was beginning to get into running races, which inspired me to try to get into better shape as well so I started running. I didn’t see it as training at the time.
Over the course of a year we entered several races together with our biggest test to date being a winter adventure race we ran alongside some of our other acidotic RACING teammates. Then I thought about the Death race again. A race designed to make you want to quit. A race intended to be unfinished sounded fun, so a year after first hearing about it, I signed up.
Friday the 26th of June, I hiked up a mountain with 51 other participants at 8:30 PM carrying a mountain bike, a small backpack with some essential tools, and water. It took about 45 minuets. The pre-race meeting started at 9:55, giving us all just enough time to take the chain and wheels off of our bikes making them completely useless. They told us the rules, what we could bring, what we couldn't, and what time we would officially start: 4:00AM. Now it was time for sleep. We headed back down the mountain carrying our useless bike impotently dangling from our bodies.
Mandatory Gear list:
Ax
bike
chain breaking tool for the bike
compass
string
Optional gear:
hydration pack
leatherman
allen wrenches (for bike)
headlamp
ibuprofen
saw
5 gallon bucket (I chose not to take this)
Banned gear:
Lighters
matches
At 3:00 am I awoke to my alarm and started making my breakfast with my race crew, my loving girlfriend, Sarah (the one that started this whole mess). I ate a bagel sandwich, drank some coffee and got dressed. Running shorts, t-shirt, long sleeve, headlamp, backpack of essentials, and the useless bike.
We all lined up at the starting line. Some people had buckets, some backpacks, some had full-length axes, some even had 10 lb splitting mauls. Everyone seem to be in shape, and anxious.
When Andy the race director yelled, "go!" we headed to our first task sans bikes. Crawling up a drainage ditch that ran with ice-cold mucky water beneath barbed wire for 50 yards, we emerged into a clear-cut forest to find our race bibs pinned to stumps. Our task was to find our bib number among the hillside, unearth the stump, and bring it back to the starting line.
I looked all over the hillside for my number. People were calling out names and numbers as they found them to help each other out, but I never heard mine called. I was nearly heartbroken after making two laps around the roughly 3-acre clearing. I thought I would be out of the race before even finding my number. I called out my number one last time. This time someone heard me, and knew where my bib was. I carried a small hatchet, which made chopping roots easier as I had to get in close and could see what I was doing. My stump came out fairly quickly, and I headed back to the barbed wire corridor.
I tied my stump Lefty, as he would come to be known, to some parachute cord like a leash to make it easy to drag behind me as I crawled. This was his main mode of transportation throughout the race. We were allowed to trim a little off the stumps before grabbing our useless bikes, and shuffling under more barbed wire strung over rocks and sand, pass through a briar patch, under more wire through another ditch, and down to the river. All of this while carrying or pushing the useless bike in front, dragging lefty behind, and wallowing through water so saturated with soil that my skin even below my beltline was browned and gritty.
The river walk was about a mile in length. Being a fly fisherman helped immensely as I knew well how to navigate a stream and walk on uneven ground without being able to see my feet. I was able to move up a few places in the trip down and back. The reason for the walk was to acquire our only piece of fire making equipment allowed: a single match. If it got wet or lost, we would have to make the grueling 2 mile round trip a second time. Lefty was great on this leg of the trip. He really liked the water and was especially fond of heading downstream where he would frequently run ahead.
After sauntering back up stream, back up through the gully and barbed wire, across the street at Amy Farm, to find out next task. I was now in the top ten and as such was able to choose my stack of wood to chop. My small hatchet was great for chopping small roots, but when I got to the large, wet hickory log buried in my pile, splitting came to a halt.
The best part about the Death Race was the camaraderie. The man next to me, Tom, was there with a group of friends from his military academy and had his mom on his support crew. We chatted a bit as we split wood, and I’m sure he saw my obvious frustration with my little ax and the big wet hickory log.
“Hey man! My mom just brought me a sandwich. I’ll let you borrow my ax if like while I eat.”
His ax was a 10 lb. splitting maul. I didn’t envy his having to carry it, but I am eternally grateful for the time I was allowed to use it. Five of my best swings bounced off this log like I was using a rubber mallet even with this new and vastly superior weapon. I felt as though I might throw up. If I couldn’t finish my pile, would I be allowed to continue? Would I struggle until time ran out for this station and be disqualified, or simply give up now? My sixth effort finally cracked the log just as Tom finished his sandwich.
I lost some of the ground that I gained in the river walk, but was still in good shape. The rest of my woodpile was still to go, but nothing was as impossible as that hickory log. With the pile split and stacked we simply had to carry some wood from our pile up the mountain, complete a mental challenge and come back down. Bike, Lefty, pack, and six pieces of quartered log went with me up the hill. The final destination for the firewood was a beautiful cabin, set halfway up the mountain. Lefty was tired by now so I ended up having to carrying him. They tested our memory atop the mountain before letting us head back down by having us read a list of the first ten presidents of the United States and recite them later back at the cabin where we dropped off our wood.
After a snack and cup of coffee to keep my mind sharp, I headed to the pond for the next challenge. Up a stream army crawling under barbed wire to a small bridge that had a Lego structure on it, memorize the size, color, shape, and orientation of each of the twenty plus odd pieces that mad up the structure, and head back down the stream to the pond. Now we had to swim out to the middle of the pond, collect a small baggy of Lego's, and get to shore to recreate what it was we saw on the bridge. This was on of the most difficult mental challenges of the entire race. And if we didn’t get it right, it was back up the stream crawling on our bellies to get a second look.
Off again. Under wire, over rocks, through the muck and down to the stream to head up river this time. The distance was under a mile, but the walking was significantly harder than the first two miles of river walking. Lefty was more of a burden than a companion at this point. The water was over his head and he wasn’t much help getting up stream. Poor stump.
At the next challenge I made a critical error that hurt my time and most importantly, my emotional state. I ran the wrong way… for a mile, I ran the wrong way. I corrected my error, but not before adding at least two miles of fruitless travel to my race. I was supposed to get an egg at a nearby farm, which finally I did. I just took the scenic route. Once the egg was taken care of, I received the wheels to my bike and rolled it down hill back to the nearby farm to the final task requiring a bike.
“What is you’re name and race number?” said the man at the next station in a calm voice that made me feel like I had nothing to worry about. I gave him my information.
“This is your bike chain, and here is goes!”
Sploosh! After a fair throw, though completely without pity, the chain I thought I was going to be handed went splashing into the pond. Bear in mind that I have been in soggy wet clothes, crawling and hiking through cool, mountain streams all day and know that when I say that this pond was ice cold that I am not exaggerating. It was difficult in the dark and murky water to find the chain in the plastic bag seven feet below the surface. I was not the first person to disturb the placid water, nor the fine silty mud on the bottom.
In minutes the bike was back together and all I had to do was ride it in a small loop, and place it in the barn. I began to pedal up a small incline when the chain broke once again and fell to the ground. I had tried the night before to take the chain apart at two different times and must have weakened a second link just enough to break when force was applied, but to look passable at a quick glance. Time ticked away as I fixed the chain again, and saddled up to ride the loop.
Now that the bike was gone, we were given a nice heavy bucket of rocks so we wouldn’t get lonely on our trip up the mountain. The elevation gain for these trips up the mountains was between 800 and 1,000 feet each time. The bucket weighed in at about 40 lbs with the rocks in it, and the so-called trail they sent us up was gorgeous but steep. They call it the gully, and it is about 400 vertical feet of shale watercourse coated with beautiful green moss, heavenly waterfalls, and a thick green blanket of stinging nettle on either side. Lefty and me choose to walk in the water as opposed to in the nettles.
Up, up, up we went following this beautiful scenic slog until the trail came to a T. The sign at the intersection said “drop you rocks and head to the top”. They weren’t even checking to see that we had carried those stupid rocks the entire way!! What the hell!? I was only irritated for a second. This was truly amusing. I dropped my bucket twice. I spilled my rocks out in this god-forsaken watercourse twice! And I pick up more rocks than I dropped each time so that they would be less likely send me back to the bottom to carry the proper amount. And now, it didn’t matter. Self-torture has got to be far more satisfying for the race directors than anything they could put us through. Sick Bastards.
The man running the station at the top told me that this was the final task. Simply fetch a pale of water, return it to him, and make for the barbed wire at the farm one more time. The 5-gallon bucket had to be filled to within and inch of the top to qualify, or you would have to acquire more water. The trail was about a mile in length as I estimate. It could have been far less, but it hurt enough for three miles coming back up. Carrying a bucket weighing about 43 pounds uphill for a mile is less than easy, especially at the end of this day. At the top, they simply looked at the water and then poured it out. All tasks were now finished.
I cannot tell you how I felt, knowing that all I had to do was find my way down this mountain and up through a few bits of barbed wire to finally be finished. That I did not know the way was only a slight concern.
At this point though, you mind has been racing all day, you body is in ruins, the bucket is awkward, and Lefty is still heavy. I began to run at my fullest extent possible. This was the final kick; that last push to sprint past anyone that might be catchable. One quarter of the way down I noticed a trail of pink flagging. It was the gully. The gully would lead back to Riverside Farm eventually, not to Aimee Farm, which was the finish line. Shit. Back up to the top I went, looking for a trail maybe that I had missed on the left. My legs began to cramp. Double shit. Back down, still looking for that trail, the one I thought I missed. It wasn’t there. Maybe I didn’t go back up high enough. Back up I went. Now my legs cramped with every step, locking themselves in place like rotting stumps that were neither solid enough to hold me up nor flexible enough to work properly.
My gut was about to burst. I wanted to throw up with every uphill stride. I wanted to cry, but had no tears. Anxiety grips you like a burning hand making you sweat. The acrid taste welling in your mouth combine with your bodies desire to collapse and you convulse: Dry heaves. There was nothing in me now to puke up. I couldn’t allow myself to collapse because that would be the end. I would not have been able to get back up. All I could do was go down hill. I didn’t care now if I had to walk a mile or more back down the road to the other farm, I couldn’t care. I had no choice. My body wouldn’t let me go back up anymore.
I took any trail that went down hill. I know now that my first instinct would have led me in the right direction all along. I came out perfectly at the bridge behind Aimee Farm. Up the trail towards the barbed wire I went, with a new sense of optimism. I was three 3 minuets from finishing the Death Race. As I followed the trail I looked up and saw a girl coming towards me with a smile that told me I was home. Tears welled up in my eyes and I started to laugh and cry at the same time. Sarah was at every task today to bring me water and food, support and encouragement, and here she was to watch me crawl my busted ass through the last few hundred feet of the race. She also came to tell me that I was not in 8th place as I had thought. I was in 4th place, just ten minuets behind the 3rd place finisher and would place high enough to be in the money. I didn’t care about the money. It helped pay for the gas to get there, and a bit on the entry fee, but to know that out of nearly 50 people who started this race, I was the fourth person to complete every challenge and cross the finish line was beyond me to comprehend.
There it was like a slap in the face though. I was going to finish above and beyond all my wildest hopes. I know now that if you had told me that there was one more mile to go, I could have found it in me to do it. The human body can be pushed to do incredible things with the proper mindset.
Crawling under that barbed wire, up the stream, through the rocks and sand for the last time felt good. Seeing Tom and the other guys who finished before me there cheering me on with Sarah and the race director, Andy, I felt elation.
Sometimes when you have pushed yourself on a long hike, climb, or trek you cannot immediately feel what it is you want beyond your most basic of needs. I didn’t feel hungry, thirsty, or even sleepy. The endorphins built up in your body mask a lot of things that should be hurting. In that moment, for me, there was nothing beyond the feeling of my own body humming from pure unadulterated joy, the realization that this is going to hurt tomorrow, and relief.
Michael T. Sallade
July, 2009
