10lbs of onions. $50.00 in pennies. One fence post hole digger. One book on learning Greek. One knife. This was going to be the strangest gear list for a race yet.

The race organizers issued this list of mandatory gear a couple of months before the race start date of Saturday June 27, 2010 so there was plenty of time for speculation on what they would be needed for.

The Death Race is held in the scenic and hilly area of Pittsfield, VT. I have done Peak’s snowshoe marathon a couple of times so learned about this grueling challenging event through their website.

I have been running trail ultramarathons for five years. I like the challenge of seeing how far I can run while keeping mind and body together. The Death Race appealed to me because of its mix of physical demands – carrying heavy loads, crawling through swamps under barbed wire, and whatever else the organizers had devised – and mental challenges like having to memorize a list of names while exhausted and sleep deprived, or translating a Greek sentence. This was going to involve more than just running a set number of miles and I was excited.  I watched videos of previous years’ races to see what additional training I might need. I already had a good running and endurance base, and decent functional conditioning from Crossfit – I am a member of Crossfit NYC.

My goal was to finish the race but with all the unknown factors – duration, distance, types of tasks, etc. – it was going to be difficult to pace myself.

I showed up at the preface briefing ‘race ready’ as specified by the RD’s. $50.00 in pennies weighs about 28 lbs, plus the onions, book, some water, made for a 45lb pack. It was Friday evening, the race was scheduled to start 04:00 Saturday. I expected a couple of hours for the meeting, then a chance for some sleep before the race.

The RD’s had other ideas though. After a short chat on a dirt road up the side of hill, we were formed into teams of 8, included 2 women on each team. We each had to carry just our pennies and Greek book in a bucket, along with the team carrying a 16-foot long bridge made of wood planks. The advertized ‘tour of the course’ became ‘carrying 28lbs in a bucket plus a heavy unwieldy wooden bridge’ for miles through the darkening woods on narrow muddy trails, up one side of the mountain and down the other. The bridge was tough to carry as it was the width of the trail, so those carrying it on the sides were walking through brush and rocks and avoiding trees.

Time became a blur as we hauled for hours through the woods. This first task introduced the teamwork theme that would dominate the race for many – working together to solve problems, sharing loads, sharing of food and water, and staying in groups when navigating tough trails at night.

We were finally allowed to deposit the bridges on a mountain bike trail sometime around midnight. Arms and shoulders were thoroughly worked. Or so we thought. We were marched back to where we started, still carrying pennies and book, and told to fill our buckets with gravel. Women could carry a half full bucket, men had to carry the full load. There is no easy way to carry a bucket that heavy for long. It swings and bangs into legs, forearms get pumped, grip strength starts to fail. We staggered down the hill, past the barbed wire course (ooh it looked long and nasty), and onto another trail. Some people found thick branches and loaded a bucket on each end like a yoke, and took turns carrying it. I ripped the belt off my pants and used it as a strap to drag the bucket along the ground, which was fine until the handle came off the bucket. I thought back to my stair workouts where I would carry a 5 gallon bottle of water up the 26 floors of my office building. That bottle was a lot more comfortable to carry than the sharp-edged plastic bucket.

We were told to deposit the gravel along various points of the trail where it was muddy and eroding. I began to think this race was organized more for the free heavy labor than anything else!

It was now around 03:30 and we had to hustle to the start area in time for the 04:00 ‘start’, STILL carrying pennies and book in bucket. Despite being led along shortcuts and crossing a river most of the racers did not get to the Amee Farm start area until 04:15.

Worn out from the previous hours’ effort and lack of sleep, some people quit then and there. I got busy rehydrating and having some Ensure for breakfast, before tackling the first task – a Greek translation. I worked together with a guy named Mark from my bridge-carrying team and it was very easy.

After a quick interview in the barn, we were sent on our next task: retrieve our packs from where they had been left earlier. If we did not have an axe we could also purchase one there with some of our pennies, as there would be a wood chopping task coming up. Some people had axes with them just in case but I did not. Still, I had the cash for it and would gladly offload some of that weight. The ‘axe shop’ was 4 miles away up over the mountain and down the other side, STILL carrying the pennies and book in bucket. I managed to find a bucket with handle and got a strap from my drop bag to help carry the load more comfortably.

A slow steady trudge in the beautiful early morning woods got us to the dirt road leading up to the axe shop. We were directed right into the barbed wire course, which involved a lot of scooching along on belly or back, dragging or pushing the bucket, uphill. The video crew followed us closely from the road, interviewing us as we struggled along. The ground was alternately stony or muddy. At one point a field mouse popped down beside me then scuttled away in fright. It got crowded when people who were on their return journey from this task were coming BACK DOWN the same way, so I knew I would be doing the same myself soon enough. The last few feet of crawling was through the sloppiest mud yet and then I was back on two legs, clothes a uniform grey with mud and torn by the barbed wire.

The axe shop had water, thankfully, as I was completely out. Carrying the mandatory heavy gear meant I carried the minimum amount of fluids with me. This was not so bad as the maximum distance between tasks was 4 miles. However, the axe shop attendant told us that the bank had foreclosed on the store and he was now a bank employee. He could not release our packs or even sell axes without going BACK to the Amee Farm the way we had come to retrieve a document from them. We could not get anything from our packs either. However, we could deposit anything we were carrying there. I gladly dropped off my bucket and headed back down the barbed wire course. It was easier bellycrawling downhill although I could feel knees and thighs being jabbed on rocks.

Now that I was completely unencumbered I could run the trail back to the farm. It felt great to run although quads were feeling the effects of the night’s work.

Back at the farm, after some wrangling, I was able to retrieve the document allowing me to buy an axe and retrieve me pack. I wrapped the precious paper in a plastic bag and after a quick drink I was back on the trail. On the way though I learned from others travelling back and forth that while you could obtain an axe at the axe shop, you had to PAY for it at the farm. So people arriving with their document in hand but no pennies were turned back to the farm AGAIN to pay out the pennies and get proof of purchase. The head games dreamed up by the organizers were very devious. However, I figured I would beg or borrow an axe back at the farm and avoid the extra over and back trip.

Another crawl up the barbed wire and through the mud, and I was at the axe shop. I presented my document and retrieved my pack and posthole digger. I discarded the bucket and stuffed everything in my pack. I found that the previous night’s arduous carry of bridge and bucket put every subsequent load into perspective. It was much easier to shoulder a heavy pack than carry weight in one hand. Mark and another guy, Reid, and I teamed up to go back through the barbed wire course, since now we had packs and post hold diggers to drag along too. We worked together well, tossing packs and tools ahead of us, holding the barbed wire up as one of us scooched through. We held the wire for others coming up the slope too, as the two-way traffic continued.

Mark offered to share his axe with me, which was a relief. We arrived back at the farm, and took care of food and water before asking about the next task. We had to split and quarter 30 logs, or we could buy our way out by paying $12.50 to do farmwork instead. I could see the 1^st and 2^nd place women already doing that, it looked much easier than chopping wood: 15 wheelbarrow loads of sheep poop carried from the barn to the manure pile, maybe 2/3 of a mile at most, on level ground. Easy! I took my time back and forth and the race volunteer in charge counted down the 15 loads. It was just like a burpee WOD, tedious but doable. The two woman ahead of me finished and took off for their next task.

Mark finished his woodchopping in record time and I was soon finished the wheelbarrow loads. We were told to carry all our gear up to the pond across the road for the next task.

We had to layout all our pennies, in rolls or loose (some rolls had burst), set aside half of it, and combine the other half into a giant pile of pennies. No rolls allowed. It was about 14:00 then (maybe, I really had no concept of time elapsed at this point, it was all in the moment) and a light drizzle was falling. I had $37.50 on me after buying my way out of the woodchopping, so I set out $18.75 in pennies. Then I was instructed to distribute them into ziplock bags with exactly $5.00 in each, plus the leftover $3.75. It was comfortable to sit on the cool damp grass and meditatively count pennies. The video crew was ever present of course but their questions did not interrupt the counting.

With my 4 bags of pennies all ready, the race volunteer in charge took one $5 bag, and along with two similar-sized bags of rocks, flung them into the pond and told me to retrieve my pennies. I could chose to abandon the money, but I might be in dire need of it later to buy out of a task or to purchase a valuable tool or clue. I was eager to jump in and wash off some of the mud. The pond was deliciously cool, although so murky that I could not see even with the swim goggles they provided. I was occasionally out of my depth but with the help of some spectactors who had a good idea where my pennies went I was able to feel around with my bare feet. I found the pennies, duckdived a few attempts before triumphantly holding the bag aloft. I really could have done without the weight but I wanted to succeed at this task.

Back on dry land I was told to gather up my stuff and go back to the farm for the next task. I was shivering in my wet clothes so was glad to go back to my drop bag and completely change clothes, shoes, underwear, the works. Most of the mud had been washed off so I felt like a new woman. It was about 17:00 now so I had been going for about 22 hours straight. Time still seemed irrelevant although I wondered about how long into Sunday this would continue. The race directors kept mentioning that it looked like we could still be there doing the race into Tuesday or Wednesday, given the slow pace people were going and how much was still to be done. More head games but at the time I was still under the impression they were serious. And when would we get to the post hole digging task? That thing was still strapped on my pack unused all this time.

Continue to Part 2