My Vermont Ultra Beast Race Recap It is 4:30am the morning after the Ultra Beast. I am sitting in front of the fire place in the hall of my hotel unable to sleep because I have a terrible cough, feel nauseous and can’t get comfortable in a position in bed that doesn’t hurt so I figure it’s the perfect time to write a race recap. I am not great with words but here goes and sorry its long, just like the UB was: We started in the 6:30 open wave. It started with a surprising but brief downhill that very quickly turned into what would be one of many steep and relentless uphills. I didn’t think I would be walking so soon. But this is where I met a local named Taylor and after the first couple of miles on some beautiful single track running trails we realised our similar pace was going to keep us together for the rest of the race. Soon enough came the obstacles. Throughout the 51km course there were (and I am sure I will forget some) 2 handleless bucket carries where you had to fill a bucket up with rocks and carry it about 400m, 2 sandbag carries, traverse rope, inverted walls, a log carry- I really struggled with the weight of this one, 2 spear throws (I got 2/4 which I was happy with) rope climb- their rope was a lot thinner than ours and I only made it half way up, Hercules hoist, memory obstacle (I had to remember Charlie 179-5535 and recite it a good 8miles later) This code was my mantra from here on out. Log hop/balance beam, traverse wall, monkey bars and a new obstacle shipped over from Canada called The Rig- it was an all in one obstacle of a set of rings to bars to ropes and then on to low rings for your feet, was a lot of fun but of course meant burpees for me. Their last barbed wire crawl was very long and had mini trenches in the crawl, there were a few more as well that Jim can tell you about and I did them all twice as UB was two laps of the beast course. The volunteers were great and enforced the rules and burpees. If your bucket or sandbag was half empty on the way back: burpees or did the obstacle again. Now, on to the hardest obstacle of them all…. The mountain! As well as the sandbag, log and bucket carries all being up hill, we had to walk up and down the mountains a number of times. To get from the bottom to the top could’ve easily taken an hour per mountain. It was so steep in parts that it was a four limb crawl. The only way to know the top was approaching was seeing the end of the lift/cable cars in sight and even then that could have been a false peak. It was slow and mentally painful and while I knew Mt Killington would live up to its name, until you actually do it for yourself, nothing can prepare you for that. My nutrition was perfect. I had Tailwind Nutrition in my hydration pack, 2 LoCarb protein bars & 3 packets of Sports Beans (electrolyte/caffeine infused Jelly Beans) for each lap (7hrs per lap). I never got a cramp, I wasn’t hungry, I felt really good. Leading up to the race I had been taking double doses of my magnesium, the week of UB I stayed well hydrated with Nuun every day and had Magnesium at the half-way point. I believe this has played a huge factor in tackling those mountains and how I feel post-race. Throughout the course the only injuries I felt were minor, sore toes towards the last quarter and some mild shin pain in the last hour otherwise I felt really good. I was slow and pushed as hard as I could but I guess there is still a limit to how fast you can push despite feeling so good. We finished the first lap in just under 7hours and we were running the flats and downhill. I started to feel confident that we could make the course closure time of 9pm. But soon into the second lap we started to tire and by 6pm were told we had an hour to get about 4miles before cut off…. Taylor and I had come to terms with our soon to be DNF but we decided to push ourselves as far into the course as we could. Neither of us wanted to do the final big trek up the mountain and once night fell and I had to run with the headlamp on and manoeuvre through jungle-like terrain with tree roots and slippery rocks, I no longer wanted to be there. My mood became very sombre and at one point was holding back tears. I wanted to quit. I have four things I believe honestly helped me to keep pushing through the whole course; Taylor (with him there, not even talking the whole time, I never felt the need to zone out with my headphones- I guess its better to endure the suck in the company of others), my mantra of Charlie 179-5535, and the words of two special ladies…. “you better hustle’ - a quote not intended for my UB but stuck regardless- Rin, ‘just one step in front of the other’- Janice. These simple words played in my head the whole way. I never sat down, I never stood and rested for more than one deep breath in and out, and when I had to walk, I walked fast, I hustled, the whole way. We started the sandbag carry despite being close to course cut off times. I tended to be faster on the uphill while Taylor was faster on the downhill. I got to the bottom of the sandbag carry and stood there looking for Taylor. A Spartan Race Official with a clipboard came up to me and said ‘it is 7:30, we extended the next course cut off time to 8pm (there were a number of course cut off times you had to meet before the final course closure time). You are the final person through, you have 30 minutes to run 2 miles, you better hustle’. I was exhausted. I didnt think I would make it but thought screw it I will try. So I hustled, and hustled hard, I really dug deep. Thinking back now how much running I did at the end to make the cut offs is amazing after what would have been about 45km of rough terrain. The obstacle I had to get to (traverse rope) had been shut down. The volunteers told me to keep running to the memory obstacle challenge and bypass all other obstacles along the way as they were closed. So I mustered up all my energy and kept on hustling. It was scary running through the mountains by myself in the dark. At this point I caught up to another guy who was injured but in the same boat as me, we both passed the memory challenge. Another race official comes up to us with a flash light and I thought a DNF was coming, at this point we were about an obstacle laden mile from the finish line. The race official told us we are the last ones out on course still racing and he is taking us to run The Short Course. The short course was used the day before by the elites from the beast as a 4 lap course to determine further prize winnings. The obstacles included a spear throw, Hercules hoist, 8-10ft wall, A-Frame, barbed wire, a tall wall going into water and a wall that is in water that you have duck your whole head under to swim through, small walls, monkey bars. For each failed obstacle we still had to do our burpees. Once he finished running us through that course he told us to go back and finish the rest of the Beast course. At this stage there was only a set of monkey bars, a short trek up into the bush and then back down to the fire jump which is the last obstacle. The other guy was hurting and limping so we finished it together with my arm around him supporting him up. I came very close to a DNF but couldn’t be happier with the way I got to finish. It was the hardest course I have ever done and feel so proud of myself and really do feel like I am stronger than I give myself credit for, just needed a Vermont Ultra Beast medal to realise. I have now learnt that all UB runners were supposed to do the short course as well so I do feel like I cheated the system by missing the obstacles that were closed and out of my control. Now that the excitement of the heavy medal has calmed down I can’t help but feel a bit empty. I know I earnt it from an official point of view but I guess I want to feel like I earnt it from doing all the obstacles and burpees in the allocated time frame, not just the ones open to me. I will just have to come back next year... I have been training specifically for this race for almost a year since finishing the Australian Ultra Beast. I sacrificed a lot to get here hence my absence from the OCR community. I worked so hard for this that I sent myself into over training and I barely made the cut offs. If you are thinking of taking on the Vermont Ultra Beast, start training specifically for this race now. Give it the respect it deserves as it is like no other OCR you have ever done. According to peoples GPS the course totalled 32miles (51km) My time was 14.5hours
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 00:40:24 +0000
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