Joe Desena wants to break you

A recent email reminded me of this fun piece on Vermont's "Death Race," held every June. Yes, the "race" itself is a bit contrived, but the pain and suffering (and mental anguish) is the real deal. I originally wrote the piece for The Boston Globe. The published version can be found here.

Running them into the ground
Vermont’s ‘Death Race’ is a brutal test of the body and the mind

PITTSFIELD, Vt. – A distressed Joe Desena stands under a bright June sun soaking wet, a combination of sweat and a big dose of slimy Vermont mud. He has already crawled through a half-dozen sections of barbed-wire-laden trenches, hacked a thick tree stump out of the ground, run a mile in a slick river bed, split 20 logs into quarters, and hiked up one of the steep hillsides lining Route 100.

And it’s only 10 a.m.

On Desena’s aching back is a tool pack, with the aforementioned stump strapped to it. Slung over his shoulder is a bike frame. In his trembling hands, he’s holding a gnarled piece of paper with 10 names scribbled on it. Desena stares at the names - ostensibly the first 10 presidents of the United States - but he can’t decipher his handwriting.

“Martin?” he says to a Death Race official. “There’s no president named Martin, is there?”

Martin van Buren shouldn’t feel slighted. Clearly, the Death Race, Desena’s creation, is taking a toll on its maker. He’s not the only one. There were 49 lunatic souls who started the race at 4 a.m. Twenty-one hours later, the last of 18 finishers straggled across the finish line. Thirty-one quit. By Death Race standards, that simply means the event was too easy.

“Our goal is to have at least one person finish,” says Dave Darby of Bedford, Mass., a veteran adventure racer and mastermind behind many of the “special tasks” that make up the Death Race. “Then everyone knows they could have finished, that it was possible. If no one finishes, then we screwed up.”

Desena’s Death Race is a brutal combination of the IronMan triathlon, ESPN’s Outdoor Games, and network reality shows like “Survivor” and “The Amazing Race.” Last year’s co-winner, Chris Mitchell, a 41-year-old software engineer from Boston, is on hand to help out, but had no interest in defending his title.

“I looked at a few pictures of myself after last year’s race, and all these memories came rushing back,” says Mitchell. “I looked like hell, covered with chigger bites, one eye swollen shut.”

Mitchell’s co-winner, Stever Bartlett, a Middlebury College ski coach, is nowhere nearby. “He won’t come back to this town,” says Desena, grinning. “He’s got bad memories of Pittsfield.”

Desena hadn’t originally planned on competing in his own event. But last summer, during the second running of the Death Race, he was confronted by several irate competitors who accused him of “putting them through 24 hours of hell.”

“So I had to see for myself if I could do it.”

Looking for adventure
The Death Race is one of many edgy competitions offered by Desena’s Peak Adventures. Upcoming events include the 666 Mountain Bike Race Saturday (with a “King of the Hill” competition the next day), the Funeral Run (featuring 50-mile, 100-mile, and 200-mile ultra-endurance options) in late October, and a Snowshoe Marathon in March. None fit the description of “normal” competition.

Peak Adventures grew out of Desena’s belief that society has become soft. A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., who was bitten by the adventure racing bug a decade ago, Desena jumped into his new hobby with the same zeal that made him a successful Wall Street broker.

“For thousands of years, we’ve been creatures that have dealt with this kind of adversity,” says Desena. “It’s only in the past hundred years that we’ve become couch potatoes.”

Desena, 41, has competed in more than 40 adventure races around the globe. He also has the financial wherewithal, thanks to the success and sale of his Burlington Capital Markets firm, to create an adventure racing and training destination in Pittsfield. Situated on Route 100, Vermont’s “ski highway,” the town has gone through several alterations in the past half-century. Established in 1781, Pittsfield was primarily a farming community 50 years ago before Killington changed the landscape. Many farm owners, looking to cash in on the ski craze, opened inns. But when Killington and Pico built on-site lodging, Pittsfield fell on hard times.

In 2002, Courtney and Joe Desena were sharing a loft in New York City when they discovered Pittsfield’s Riverside Farm. The couple bought the dilapidated horse farm, renovated it, and held their wedding there in 2003. Today, the Riverside Farm, in addition to being a home to the Desenas and their three children, hosts a number of exclusive weddings each year. The property, with three rebuilt barns, can also accommodate a variety of special events, from corporate retreats to weekend getaways. Over the past few years, the Desenas have expanded their presence in Pittsfield. They now own roughly 400 acres in the 20-square-mile hamlet, including the Original General Store and a Bikram yoga studio. They also helped salvage the nearby Amee Farm. The Amee property, owned primarily by Michael Halovatch, an adventure racing/Wall Street colleague of Desena, is home to an eco-friendly inn, a working farm, and a huge, rough-hewn roadside barn. The barn headquarters Peak Adventures, which hosts races and training camps.

“Joe moved up here to retire, to slow down, but he’s not wired that way,” says his wife with a laugh.

The juxtaposition between high-end weddings and weekend retreats and the Peak Adventures events often proves hilarious. Last year, Courtney intercepted several Death Race competitors who came stumbling out of the woods, like “Dawn of the Dead” zombies, before they reached a Riverside wedding reception. This year, the early- morning tranquility of a yoga retreat at the Amee Farm Inn was broken by a cacophony of axes splitting wood, as Death Race competitors quartered logs in the inn’s driveway.

Physical, mental challenge
The Death Race festivities actually start the day before, at 10 p.m., when organizers host a race meeting atop “Joe’s Hill” behind Riverside Farm. Racers hike up the hill with their bikes, but return only with their frames, leaving the wheels and chains behind. Nervous chatter fills the cool, bug-infested air.

“I’ve done a lot of races, and you get to the point where you want to keep challenging yourself,” says Greg Hartwell, 24-year-old accountant from Andover, Mass. “This seemed like a great opportunity.”

Hartwell cajoled his 30-year-old brother, Thomas Hartwell of Wakefield, into joining him. “He told me it was an arts and crafts weekend with the boys,” says Thomas.

The race starts at 4 in the morning, well before the first rays of sunlight squeeze into this narrow valley. Race director Andy Weinberg, hoisting a sawed-off stump overhead, informs racers they must find their own in a field across the street (identified by their race bib), hack it out of the ground, and carry it with them the entire day. “You guys are a bunch of nut jobs who want to torture yourselves in Pittsfield,” he says, half-taunting, half-encouraging. “The next 24 hours will be the toughest you’ve ever experienced.”

Competitors crawl through a muddy trench, under barbed wire, to and from the stump field. Then they pick up their bike frames and, after snaking through two more barbed-wire sections, jog a mile upstream in the Tweed River. Everyone falls. Repeatedly.

“Running in the river is like a woman going into labor,” says Desena. “You know it’s going to hurt.”

After the river run, racers lug their bikes, stumps, and tools to the wood-chopping station, split 20 logs, then hike a mile uphill to the list of presidents’ names, before returning to the Amee Farm. The next test is a Lego challenge. Racers have to assemble a collection of Legos, using only their memory or notes, to replicate a model provided to them earlier. After six hours, cracks begin to show.

“There are physical challenges in this race, but we’re trying to break them mentally,” says Darby.

Part of the anguish is that racers never know when the race ends. Competitors aren’t given a race itinerary; they’re simply told to go from one task to the next. From the Lego station, racers head back to the Tweed River, and slog a mile south. At the next station, they hustle to the Riverside Farm, find a raw egg, return to the river, create a fire from scratch, boil water, and eat the egg. Only then can they retrieve their bike wheels.

After rolling their bikes to a small pond at Riverside Farm, racers watch as a volunteer tosses their bike chain into the frigid waters. The racers must dive in, find the chain, and reassemble their bikes. After a brief 300-yard pedal, they exchange the bike for a 40-pound bucket of rocks, which they must drag 1,000 feet straight up Joe’s Hill through “the ravine.” Hiking the ravine, says Desena, is “like trying to ski uphill with banana peels on both feet.” At the top of the hill, racers get instructions to hike back down the hill, fill the bucket with water, and bring it back to the summit. Only then are they given the OK to head to the Amee Farm, and the finish line.

Striking a deal
Similar to 2008, the 2009 Death Race had co-winners. Richard Lee, a 27-year-old former British Royal Marine Commander who is hiking the Appalachian Trail to rehab a broken leg and shattered patella, builds a dominating lead early. But Tom Worthington, a 22-year-old freshly minted graduate of Norwich University and a native of West Falmouth, Mass., closes the gap during the last few events.

On a treacherous hillside, heading toward the finish line, Worthington catches Lee, who got lost and is clearly tiring. The two discuss options.

“I told him, ‘We can do this with dignity, and finish together, or we can race, if you want to race,’ “ says Lee. “I know how competitive I am, and I knew how competitive he was.”

Both decide discretion is the better part of valor, in part because the slippery slope is a serious accident waiting to happen, and in part because they’re both running on fumes. So the two, like Mitchell and Bartlett the year before, make a pact to cross the line together, a Marine from the United States and one from the United Kingdom. Their winning time is 11 hours 31 minutes.

A half-hour later, Desena is the fourth racer to finish. Though he has disqualified himself for getting assistance from his support crew with the presidential names and the bike chain, Desena is determined to complete the course.

“Another 12 hours and this would have been a great race,” he says.

Two of Worthington’s Norwich classmates, Chris Prybella of Pennsylvania and Zach Castonguay of Maine, cross the line nine hours after the winners, well after midnight. The two spent more than two hours at the pond looking for Prybella’s bike chain. But neither would quit.

“One volunteer told me to throw in the towel,” says Prybella. “I told him I’d throw him in before I threw in the towel.”

Finished by the end
Stretching out on his barn floor, trying to work out the knots in his back and legs an hour after finishing, Desena mulls a question: Is this his first and last Death Race?

“I think so,” he says. “This is a race very few people want to do multiple times.”

The Hartwell brothers are among those who fail to finish. Greg never found his bike chain at the Riverside pond (“Plus, my toes had turned green, and I draw the line at green toes.”) while Tom failed to make the time cut-off at the same station.

“I’m pretty disappointed I didn’t finish,” says Tom. “I had a lot more will than I gave myself credit for. On top of that, I had more than my brother. Which was nice.”

However, 18 racers proved equal to the 14 tasks.

“No one gets to the finish without earning it,” says Chris Mitchell, watching racers pick their way through the last, gnarly section of razor wire. “There’s no shortcut.”

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Getting down and dirty!

Adventure racing maven Joe Desena's latest offbeat competition is the Spartan Race series. My advance of the Boston race, done for the Boston Globe, can be found here. Below is the unabridged version. The reward for winning? Entry into Desena's annual Death Race in Vermont. Which gives a whole new meaning to the old adage, "To the victors go the spoils" ...

Spartan effort
New series amps up the typical 5K race format

The earthen bump that houses the Amesbury Sports Park alongside I-495 has been many things over the years: forest, farmland, ski hill (Lone Tree Hill, circa 1949), snow and water tubing park, soccer and lacrosse fields. On Saturday, Aug. 28, it will be transformed again, this time into a battleground, as the Spartan Race series and 2,000 competitors come to Boston.

The Spartan Race is the latest creation of adventure race aficionado Joseph Desena, a successful Wall Street trader who has taken his love of the deal and applied it with equal fervor to his serious adrenalin habit. These off-road races are designed to shake TV zombies and desk jockeys out of their doldrums and their comfy chairs by boiling the adventure-race concept down to a short, 5K format that typically lasts between 35 minutes and an hour. However, this is not your average 5K jaunt. Instead, the hilly course will be littered with at least a dozen spirit-breaking obstacles, including a mud crawl, wall climb, balance-beam course, fire jump, spear toss, jousting, and barbed-wire crawl, all designed to test not only the participants' strength and stamina, but their creativity and cunning.

"These races are for someone who is looking to break out of a routine, whether it's running 5Ks on the road, or sitting behind a desk and not having any excitement in their life," said Michael Morris , a personal trainer from Marlborough and the manager of the Boston Spartan Race. "Or someone who's dreamt of doing something really exciting, but hasn't had the access to do it."

Someone like Justin Mattarocchia, a 30-year-old from Newburyport who said he was intrigued by the race, in part, because he traces his Greek heritage to Sparta.

"I agree that people generally place personal comfort above all other concerns," said Mattarocchia. "Even I'm guilty of this, but I find that forcing myself into an uncomfortable place, overcoming adversity, even if manufactured, can serve to strengthen my character and resolve. Pushing myself to do this will benefit me in other parts of my life where I might have to choose between comfort and adventure."

Desena often draws parallels between business and racing, focusing on the common qualities that breed success in each. He has traveled the world to feed his adventure-racing appetite, but understands that not everyone has the same drive, or financial wherewithal, to pursue racing in such exotic locales. That spurred the city-based Spartan Race concept. Boston is the fourth stop on the 2010 calendar, with previous races held in Burlington, VT, Montreal, and New York City. Future races include two in Great Britain (Cambridge and Manchester), Houston, TX, and Los Angeles, CA. All aim to get competitors grimy and sweaty, while serving as a stepping-stone to bigger events.

"That's one of the things that prevents people from getting more involved in the more arduous races. One of the challenges is that you have to schlep yourself to more remote areas," said Morris. "One of our goals is to be near more metropolitan areas so accessibility is easier. It's one less barrier, one less excuse that people can come up with. Like any business, it's about 'location, location, location.' And we've got a great location at the Amesbury Sports Park."

The steep pitch that serves as a backdrop to the playing fields is only the first of several natural obstacles that the park offered organizers. Toss in man-made barriers, and the race becomes as much a mental test as a physical one.

"What differentiates this from your traditional 5K or even a road race or trail race is that the obstacles create a nice change of pace, a really different way to challenge people," said Morris. "It's going to get people out of their running rhythm. It will bring an added element of challenge for people who are used to plowing straight ahead. They'll have to jump over stuff, and crawl under stuff. There's a bushwacking component that will force people to keep their heads up and look where they're going."

But there's no question that the event has hit home with fitness buffs looking for something out of the ordinary. As of mid-August, the race had more than 2,000 participants pre-registered, and the contestants ran the gamut, from rough-and-tumble veterans to absolute neophytes. A training session held in Salem in July attracted 80 contestants.

"I have no interest in running and have never entered a race before this one," said Kellyn Nahas, a 40-year-old business owner and mother of two from Amesbury. "I'm the adult who likes to play on all the equipment at the playground, and the thought of doing the obstacles really excited me. I'll have to suffer through the running to get to the fun stuff."

"We wanted something more challenging and more fun," said Dale Bob Eckert, a 54-year-old cancer survivor from Newburyport. "This looks like it will break up some of the monotony of just running."

Eckert and his wife - Dale Ann Granger-Eckert – compete in "about 35 races a year," on and off-road, including several marathons. However, as fans of the show "Wipe Out," he said they couldn't resist the lure of an obstacle-filled event like the Spartan Race, especially since it was being held in their own backyard. "I like surprises," said Eckert. "I don't even like see the racecourses in advanced. We take as it comes and make the best of it."

The top three finishes from each Spartan Race automatically qualify for the Death Race (youmaydie.com), a 24-hour painfest held every June in Pittsfield, VT, home of Desena's Peak Adventures. Next year, Desena plans to expand the format, creating a Super Spartan Race series. All reflect his bedrock belief in the benefits of hard work.

"I'm fighting the whole world on my ideas, things that I think are pretty basic, normal ideas," said Desena recently. "We're animals. Nobody can dispute that, although some people may not realize it, living in the world we're in. Well, what would you do if you came home, and you saw your dog, sitting on the couch, smoking a cigarette, drinking a coffee, hair in a bun, toenails painted, watching Oprah, taking an insulin shot because she's overweight, sleeping pills in her pocket because she can't sleep at night?"

Desena's tone has a distinct rhetorical quality, but there's no mistaking the point he wants to make: We've got it far too easy. "Now think of coming home to see your dog after it ran 22 miles in backyard, completely exhausted, happy to see you, wagging its tail, and falling asleep," he said. "That's normal for an animal. I would argue that everything that I'm promoting, or involved in, is normal. The rest of the world is abnormal."

While Desena admits his views might seem "hard core" or even over the top to some, he says that impression is simply further evidence that people, and society, have gone soft. "Think about years ago. It was really simple. You either succeeded in hunting for your food, or you didn't and you were dead," he said. "We had natural selection, positive selection, of tougher and tougher people. In today's environment, the lesser person, the softer person, the lazier person, can actually survive."

"The Death Race and the Spartan Race are more akin starting and running your own business, which I've done since I was 15 years old," said Desena. "I've also had the benefit and luxury of working for a large corporation. The rule about starting your own business is, 'Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong.' Customers leave you at the wrong time. Buildings catch on fire. It rains when it's not supposed to. You can either deal with it, 24 hours a day, every single day, or you can't.

"Working for a large corporation, you're coddled. Everything you need is at your fingertips, just like a marathon or an Ironman. You've got water and food and people cheering for you. It's really just a catered training day."

Both Desena and Morris acknowledge that Spartan Races sacrifice some authenticity by employing man-made obstacles, but that was the trade-off required to bring the series to the big city, and to the masses.

"If we have to dumb down the Spartan Race, if we have to shorten the race to entice people to get off their couch, we're going to do that, because we know it's the right thing to do," said Desena. "If I have to contrive some things, but it changes some people's lives, then it's worth it."

Of course, no "Spartan" event would be complete without a bacchanal, and the organizers plan to host a barbecue bash at the park, complete with live entertainment, for spectators and competitors alike. Dale Bob Eckert, for one, can't wait. The party, he said, "makes all of the difference."

"Some people just do a race and go home," he said. "It's all about the party and the social interactions. Running is a social activity. In the long-ago past, if you didn't run fast enough, you were called 'dinner' or you starved to death."

Desena, who expects to be at the finish line, will no doubt consider Eckert a kindred spirit.

For event details, visit spartanrace.com.

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