Win Today

#206 | Do Hard Sh*t | Why I'm Competing In The 2025 Spartan Death Race

• Season 5

Share episode

Send us a text

The sweet spot of human potential often lies just beyond where most people are willing to venture. What happens when we deliberately seek out our limits, not just to discover them but to push past them? This profound question sets the stage for my upcoming participation in the 2025 Spartan Death Race—one of the world's most extreme and unpredictable endurance challenges.

My journey toward this event began in 2011 when, as a high school wrestler, I stumbled upon footage of participants diving into freezing Vermont ponds at 2AM to retrieve pennies needed to continue after already enduring 24+ hours of challenges. Where most saw pointless suffering, I recognized something magnetic—a rare opportunity to discover what exists beyond conventional boundaries. That fascination never faded, eventually leading to a conversation with Spartan founder Joe DeSena and ultimately, my acceptance into this legendary event.

Unlike traditional races with clear parameters, the Death Race thrives on uncertainty. The experience begins months before the starting line with monthly challenges designed to eliminate the mentally unprepared—finding logs weighing more than your body weight to drag through snow, solving puzzles while hanging upside down, completing 500 tire flips. Of roughly 100 selected participants each year (chosen from those with impressive endurance résumés including ultramarathon finishes and special forces experience), approximately half abandon their commitment before race day arrives.

What draws someone toward such deliberate difficulty? Two powerful motivations: discovering the better version of myself that exists on the other side of extraordinary challenge, and proving myself right about what I'm truly capable of. These lessons transcend the physical arena, building resilience applicable to every aspect of life. When we embrace discomfort rather than avoid it, we develop tools that serve us professionally, personally, and spiritually.

The greatest potential often lies just beyond what we believe possible. What difficulty are you willing to embrace to discover yours? Join me on this journey by following along, and more importantly, by finding your own version of "doing hard things"—whatever that means for you.

Thank you for tuning in! If you feel led, please subscribe & share the show to others who you believe would benefit from it.
Keep in touch below!

Speaker 1:

I've always been somebody to appreciate pushing the limits and seeing what happens when we get right up to that sweet spot. And where is that sweet spot and how hard can we go? And if there's an inbounds, I want to know what's out of bounds. I want to know what's out of bounds. Welcome to the Wednesday podcast, a weekly resource thoughtfully crafted to help people build and refine discipline, accomplish their goals, fortify their mindsets and be of service to somebody in this world. My name is Ryan Cass and I am your host, and it is my mission and commitment to deliver amazing episodes to you every week where you'll learn from myself or renowned expert in their field. We love helping people win in every aspect of their lives, and you can help us win by sharing the show with somebody that you believe will benefit from it, subscribing and leaving a rating and review. We believe that everybody in this world is meant to do something great with their lives and we're here to help play a role in that. Thank you for tuning in and let's win today.

Speaker 1:

There is immeasurable value to the concept of doing hard things we can't quantify. I don't believe we can quantify the value proposition behind doing something difficult, meaning that doing something hard, then equates to X percent improvement in category Y. Now, training, we can see that in terms of our times going down, the amount of weight that we can push, pull, amount of reps, paces, etc. We can see that, but what is the calculable value for running marathons, ultra endurance events, what is it? It's tough to assign a singular answer towards and it's difficult to assign a quantifiable figure towards. Now one could argue, if you do this for a living, that the amount of races that are won or events, whatever the case may be, that equates to X number in earnings. There's that, but what does it do for you? We're often asked, or you may be asked, because a lot of folks that listen to this are endurance athletes why do you pay to sign up for these events? Why do you pay for pain, for torture? Why do you pay to put yourself through the ringer? What's the return? And I'm using that to lead off and to share why I am taking on the 2025 Spartan Death Race. There's been a lot of questions about it and I'm sharing the why, where this whole thing came from. And then a couple of things to serve as learning points, as always, as every episode is intended to do that have something tangible to take away other than hearing a story, what someone may learn from this or be able to use from this experience. So with that, the Spartan death race, now the what is interesting. There's not a ton of what. We'll get to that in a minute. What I actually mean there, but the why and where this even came about goes back to 2011.

Speaker 1:

I was a senior in high school and on the wrestling team. That's where I was starting to get interested in more endurance events and what the body and mind can really do, just because wrestling is a very, very physically demanding sport and I put my entire heart and soul into that. If there's few wishes I have for life, it's that I wish I knew what wrestling was when I was younger. But we're neither here nor there but went all in on wrestling. And wrestling is arguably an endurance sport because even for those three periods and sometimes overtime, and ultimate ride out those long matches, it is a dog fight and if you're not in shape you will be gassed out so fast it's not even funny. You think. How can you get gassed out in a six or seven minute match or 10 to 12 minutes if it goes into overtime. When someone is constantly attacking you and wants to shove your face into the mat, it is very much a physically demanding battle. So we ran countless miles. A lot of our workouts were cardio based and that's what led to this interest in running and starting to get good at running. Through that and looking beyond college because I wasn't going to wrestle in college but I loved competing, so I started looking at what's out there for the future.

Speaker 1:

I stumbled upon this video of the Spartan Death and I remember that there was a man that had already been going for about 24 hours in the Vermont woods with a rucksack and they were approaching this pond. And in order to pass this pond, you could pay up with the pennies that participants were required to bring. I believe they were required to bring 500 or 5,000 pennies. Whatever the case may be, and you don't know why We'll go through the 2025 packing list here. You don't know why you're bringing these things, but you could pass through and not have to go in the pond to the next challenge if you had enough pennies. Well, none of the participants had enough pennies because they had already spent them to buy themselves out of other challenges or to be able to buy equipment to use in other challenges throughout the day. So it's about two o'clock in the morning and anybody that didn't have the pennies to pass go. They threw pennies into this pond and told the participants well, this is what you need. If you don't have it, go find them. And in the Vermont mountains the ponds are not very warm and I'm thinking who the heck would even go look for that? How many people probably quit just saying screw this. That's the most mindless challenge in the world. That's stupid. And the one gentleman went into the pond, found his pennies, kept going and I thought man, I don't know what that is, but I would love to do that. That just seems like my kind of crazy, my kind of challenge, because I was also looking at a bunch of Navy SEAL videos at the time, thinking that I wanted to go in the military. Hence I ended up in a military college. But going the special forces route in the military was certainly on the table in my book. So this aligned to that.

Speaker 1:

Later in the video there's another gentleman that is passing through another pond and God knows how long they had already been out there at this point in time and instead of taking off his gear pack, because everybody has a gear pack and it's weighed down pretty heavily with sandbags and everything they ask you to bring. Instead of taking it off to reduce the amount of time he was spending to get across, he kept it on. So he's going across this pond and you see a moment where he dips underwater and he starts freaking out because he realizes holy smokes, he's not strong enough anymore to make it across and he starts drowning and you can see him start frantically getting his pack off and then his head reemerges from under the water and you can see where it looks like holy smokes. I thought I was just about to die and, of course, to some people, many people probably like what the heck? I would never do that. And then there's me that this is awesome man.

Speaker 1:

I've always been somebody to appreciate pushing the limits and seeing what happens when we get right up to that sweet spot. And where is that sweet spot and how hard can we go? And if there's an inbounds, I want to know what's out of bounds. And a lot of that was definitely inspired by my dad who used to say you know, some rules only apply to certain people, and some of that definitely, you know, passed over to me. Whether it's good or bad. I see it as a good thing in that let's go where the signs say we can't go. Let's do what people say the human body can't do or isn't supposed to do. That's one thing that really attracted me back in 14 years ago now, and I kept it in the back of my mind, thinking that at some point I'll get into these endurance events, but I hadn't become a quote runner yet or done anything with 5Ks, 10ks, half marathons, marathons none of that. It was all just a bunch of thoughts and exploration going on. But I never forgot about that 2011 video. Fast forward a few years to post-college. Now I'm competing in running events and running is my thing, and I launched this podcast in 2021.

Speaker 1:

In 2023, I reached out to Joe DeSena, the founder and CEO of Spartan, thinking that there's no way that he's going to get back to me. He's been on Joe Rogan's podcast. He's been on Rich Roll's podcast a few times. I'm still a small fish in the pond. I'll be lucky if he sees this message. I sent him on LinkedIn and, sure enough, weeks later, because I didn't hear from him, I figured I give everybody at least a week or two. Now I know, depending on how big they are and how much reach they have, it's not uncommon that it may go three weeks, four weeks, five weeks, but most people in this world are actually more accessible than you could ever imagine. So about three weeks go by and I get a message from Joe DeSena on LinkedIn and he said hello, ryan, I'm happy to come on your podcast Email, travis, get everything lined up.

Speaker 1:

And Joe DeSena and I are having a discussion a few weeks after that and he was the first episode in 2023 where we talked all about becoming unbreakable. And towards the end of the podcast, I talked to him about wanting to go into the death race, and that's something that has been on my radar, and we exchanged phone numbers afterwards and a little bit of back and forth. And here we are time to put my money where my mouth is. One thing I can't stand is people that say they're going to do something or talk about doing something and don't do it, and that's one of my values that I'm not going to put it out there in the world or tell someone hey, I want to go do this death race and then chicken out or never execute. So now, two years later we are going to the Spartan death race.

Speaker 1:

So there's a lot of uncertainty and what makes it so special every year is that you don't know how long it's going to last. You know it can last up to 72 hours. You don't know exactly what you're going to do. You don't know exactly what you're going to do. You don't know what challenges are going to be presented to you, but what you can be certain of is that it's going to be the challenge of a lifetime. There's going to be endless burpees. There's going to be plenty of rucking, probably some running. There's going to be challenges that the odds are stacked against you. There's going to be people calling you out just to see if they can get you mentally flustered to get you to quit. So people are definitely going to be getting called out and picked on.

Speaker 1:

Brings me back to freshman year experiences at the Citadel. A lot of the design in that system is to weed out the people that are mentally and emotionally weak. So every year there'll always be some big dudes coming in, super fit, super strong, and you think, okay, this is going to be, this might be the guy, this might be one that's going to be the leader, top of the class and year after year, and it'll always happen. There's always some of those folks that externally appear to be the strongest and internally are, in fact, the weakest and crumble when something doesn't go their way. So I'm expecting that there's going to be misdirection. I'm expecting that they might say you need to go left, and the reality is everything that you actually need is right and that right now may be eight plus miles further than you needed to go. And there's that. So expecting a little bit of everything, and I'm excited for it. I'm excited to enter the unknown and see what all is going to be put in front of us.

Speaker 1:

Less than 100 people get accepted into this race every year. Of that, the application process looks at your endurance resume, so they prefer to take people that have finishes at some of the marquee endurance events, whether it be the Leadville 100, the Moab 240 series, people that have significant accomplishments in the military world. A lot of special forces folks end up coming to these events, and so, while I don't have the marquee event finishes yet, I put on my application that I have ran a few organized ultras but then also have ran a few unorganized ultras and back and forth on a bridge for 100 miles and 150 miles. So apparently that was good to go for my endurance resume. And then obviously having Boston on there a few years in a row certainly helped. But that is the clientele that is attracted and accepted into this event. So I also understand that I will be standing to my left and right around battle-hardened, battle-tested men and women from all over the world.

Speaker 1:

We were on a call with participants a few weeks ago and there's four people coming from Australia, a few from France, and I sat back and it's like one of those pinch me moments like wow, this is bringing in some of the toughest people in the world and I get the opportunity to stand alongside them. And what we bring to the table, meaning what we come in with, whether it's the Boston finishes, the Moabs, special forces, none of that matters. Forces, none of that matters. All that we are once we arrive in Vermont is a number and it's game on from there. So, following the acceptance, so roughly 100 people, or a little less than 100 people, are accepted every year. Of that, about 50% show up and the next stage where people already start falling out is during the monthly challenges. So the death race, they say it starts the minute you get accepted. So as soon as you get that acceptance email, the race you can consider it started, because then you get a monthly email with a challenge that must be completed before you show up to Joe's farm in Vermont. So for the last six months we've been doing a monthly challenge that you get emailed and then for accountability you must complete it and post it on social media.

Speaker 1:

January's challenge was to find a log that weighs as much as you or more than you and build a chain harness and pull that log one mile. I remember doing that and taking about two and a half hours in the parking lot right next to my house, but there's a church and had a big ass log probably 250, 260 pounds. I obviously don't weigh that much, but that's what I was able to find. It had just snowed in Charleston, south Carolina, which is extremely rare Happens about once per decade and I'm lugging this big ass log up and down the church parking lot. My chain harness snapped a few times and people were looking at me like I'm an absolute lunatic, which I can see why. I don't know who else would be doing that in the snow, but when I first saw that I said holy smokes, this is the type of stuff we're getting into.

Speaker 1:

Let's see what February and March and April are going to bring. In March we had to solve a 15-slide puzzle while hanging upside down which a 15-slide puzzle is on the packing list this year. In June, which I just completed 500 tire flips and step-throughs. I figured maybe June they were going to let us off the hook that this is race month, and sure enough, because it's a death race, it only makes sense that you still get to do the June challenge. So those were a few there that every month people were seeing these and some people weren't doing them, and that's what was making some people quit after they've already paid the entry fee. Crazy to me, this isn't a cheap thing to do. So we're expecting roughly 50 people to show up in Vermont on June 26th that's going to be this Thursday, depending on when you listen to this June 26th and I'm there because I want to see what, rather my why, besides the interest and the initial interest I mentioned and having the conversation with Joe, is I want to discover a new level within myself.

Speaker 1:

I want to find that newer rather not newer, but better version of me On the other side of the things we don't want to do or the most challenging things that we'll experience in life whether they're intentionally or unintentionally or unintentionally always resides a better version of you, and by discovering that we can then help others discover that better version of themselves as well. I never intend to be the person that talks about doing hard things and pushing people's bodies, minds and souls to levels they never imagined possible if I'm not doing that myself. So this is also me setting an example for the people that I get to serve, the people that I may serve in the future and the people that may see this, hear this message and decide to go take action themselves. That when you're listening to my stuff, when you're tuned into my stuff or choosing me, you're always going to be learning from the person that is putting themselves into the arena. I believe it's important that we listen to the people that have actually been into the arenas that we are seeking to enter ourselves. So here we are I'm entering the arena to find a better version of me and ultimately help others find a better version of themselves. There's so much more that we could ever imagine we're capable of and doing things like this, doing things that are hard and hard being defined by you, not by me hard relative to you. It's such a great opportunity to learn what we really have and surprise ourselves.

Speaker 1:

Another thing is I love this concept of proving yourself right. When you go and do things like this, you get to prove to yourself that you do belong in the arena, that you can go hard, that you can go further, that you have what it takes. You get more comfortable with that little voice that's always going to visit you, on that shoulder that tells you you can't or you're not enough or you won't be enough. I can't wait for that little devil to be on my shoulder. I know it's going to be visiting Thursday, friday, saturday, who knows, don't know when it's going to visit, but it's going to visit and I've simply refrained that to. This is one of my friends. When you become friends with pain, you will never be alone. Become friends with pain, you'll never be alone in life. I'm so excited to enter the pain cave. Don't know when it's coming. It's coming. Don't know how long I'll be in there. Be in there for a while, most likely. And those are really the two things that I come back to Better version and an opportunity to prove myself right, and those are the two things that I want everyone to extract from here and this is my continued sales pitch for putting yourself in the arena, doing tough things and showing yourself what you're capable of.

Speaker 1:

So, with that, here's some of the stuff that we're going to be bringing in 2025 for the death race. I'm going to read this off for you for this packing list, and we have no idea. We have no idea what exactly this is going to be used for. Well, some of it is obvious, but clothing. So this year, in the past, they have allowed people to wear whatever you want. This year it's black pants, plain white cotton crew t-shirt, so I'm not too excited about the cotton part, but we'll see how the nipples feel there Probably going to be duct taping those things just to not have to worry about it.

Speaker 1:

Army green or black rain jacket, windbreaker, plain black hat for your head. Personal equipment, sturdy backpack. So that's again going to be doing a lot of rucking. Hydration, nutrition. Two waterproof headlamps with red lights and extra batteries, four chem lights, one whistle, one thick black Sharpie marker That'll be interesting, curious, very curious about that one.

Speaker 1:

One compass, one stopwatch, one pocket knife or multi-tool. One pair of scissors, one handsaw, one ax with protective sheath, one flint and magnesium, 100 feet of paracord or rope, two emergency blankets, one emergency sleeping bag, one personal first aid kit, one pair of safety glasses, one sheet of sandpaper, 15-piece slide puzzle, bamboo straws minimum of 12 inches long very interesting one. One roll of duct tape. One five-gallon plastic bucket, one four to five-gallon metal ash bucket Another interesting one 55-pound sandbag for the men, 35-pound for the women. One fully charged phone they said at some point we will use our phone.

Speaker 1:

Not sure what that's going to be for either and a gear bag bin. A gear bin for everything else that we may need. We don't know when we're going to be back at our bins. We have no clue when for the people that have crew. The crew has no idea where you're going to be. Your crew may even be tasked with jumping into the race with you, so I'm going uncrewed. I had first joked with my mom that she can come with me and it'd be fun for her to hang out in the mountains and she can just hand me some gels and refill my water when I need it. And she is certainly not coming after the last call that mentioned that we will, or your crew could potentially be in the race, so we're not going to do that. Be in the race, so we're not going to do that. But those items, my guess is again, will certainly be chopping wood for several hours at a time.

Speaker 1:

The scissors what I've heard in the past is that they have made participants cut fields with scissors. So imagine mowing your lawn with a pair of scissors and how much fun that would be. But that's where it also goes into some of the maniacal things that even those little simple things like that let's say that that's one of the things we end up doing that doesn't require a lot of physical effort, meaning it's not going to be as taxing as burpees or pushing a tire up a mountain or whatever. But that is stuff that gets people to think man, the hell with this, I'm not doing that. Why the hell am I cutting grass with scissors? That's the dumbest thing in the world with scissors. That's the dumbest thing in the world.

Speaker 1:

That's the stuff that again it goes to the design, where it's not about who's the fastest or strongest person, it's about who can withstand the most for the longest period of time. And what we don't know is that some of the challenges are time-based, but they're not going to tell you that. Know is that some of the challenges are time-based but they're not going to tell you that. So I also understand that there could be. For instance, go run five laps up and down to Shrek's cabin. So Shrek's cabin, I know, is about a mile up through the mountains from the main area that we're starting at. What they might not tell you is that that is a timed event and part of that is so that you're not sandbagging it, meaning you have all the time in the world. They want you to exert energy, high energy, frequently so you can be exhausted, so that they can put you through the next thing. But you have no idea what that is. So who knows? Who knows what to expect? But what I know to be certain is that at the end of this, regardless of how long I make it, I will find a better version of me, so that we can help you and others find better versions of themselves and prove myself right that we can go harder and further.

Speaker 1:

Every time I've put myself through something like this, whether it's a marathon, ultra marathon, going for faster and faster times, pushing the body and mind further and harder than I believe possible. I've always, always, always, learned so many things and lessons to impart on others and also have come out better and stronger and wiser, to not only serve myself but to serve the world. So I'll encourage you again that if you're not already doing hard things relative to you, go and sign up for something, go and find something difficult. And the thing is it doesn't even have to be physical. I always put that caveat in there. I believe the physical way is the easiest way to learn the most. But doing hard things and pushing your body and mind and spirit and soul hard means so much more than just physical tests. So take that inventory, think through that.

Speaker 1:

My plan going into this is to stick with the pack as much as possible. If it's a running event where I feel that maybe I am the stronger guy, maybe that I will do my best to, especially if it's early. You also don't want to stand out my time at the Citadel. That if you're the person that is always standing out thinking that okay, yeah, I'm going to be faster than everybody else and just blow everybody else out of the water, that also can lead to unwanted attention. So I'm going back to my Citadel training for this one, and that you don't want to be the person that stands out. You also don't want to be the person that sandbags. You want to be the person that occasionally will demonstrate strength and capability for sure.

Speaker 1:

So I intend right now, without knowing what we're doing, to stand out when I believe it may be appropriate, if that opportunity warrantsrants itself, to be with the pack as much as possible, help the pack as much as possible and receive help as much as possible from the pack too, especially with a lot of the heavier carry events. I'd say I'm a pretty strong guy, but I'm not a strong man. That's not my skill set. I can run and go for days, but put a 500-pound object in front of me, it's going to take me a little longer to move it around than maybe some of these guys coming in here that that is their specialty. So leverage specialties of the group, offer my specialties to the group and go from there. I'm actually enjoying and feeling less pressure going into this that because there is so much unknown versus a marathon where you know the distance, you know the course, you know where the hills are, you know when to go hard, when to draft off somebody.

Speaker 1:

This you really know nothing about nothing other than it's going to be hard. It's going to be long. We're going to do burpees. We're going to get wet. It's going to be wet, looking like right now. Forecast is showing thunderstorms and rain, which is freaking awesome. Like what better way, what better challenge, what better opportunity than that right there? So we will. We shall see, we shall see. That's where I'm leaving it. We shall see, and I'm certainly going to share a recap. I'm certainly going to share a recap, but now you've got the what, the why and really a couple things that you can take from this in your own pursuits and endeavors, do hard things and win today.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Ryan Cass

Host