Regiment Elite Carey Degon and Heidi Williams took on the last Spartan Death Race, and came out as changed individuals. Carey posted a short but sweet AAR about her experience, and it is nothing short of trans formative and inspiring!

The Final Death Race was truly about life. I went into this race not really feeling it in my heart or body. That soon changed once the race began as I started hiking through Joe's Mountain with my fellow Death Racers around 0300 Friday morning. The usual tasks began and the sun started rising. I remembered all the reasons about pushing myself and enjoying the beauty of nature around me...one of my favorite reasons for doing these events. Hiked up to the start of Bloodroot where we had to sit in the cold water...something about that makes me smile and invigorates me. A beautiful display of selflessness unfolded on that bridge making me proud of my fellow racers.

Then the games began. Clothes outside of underwear were removed as well as socks and shoes. We were to spend the next 24 hours 'naked' and barefoot, tied together in groups of 10 hiking about 32 miles through some nasty trails, elevation, and gravel roads. Team Awesome C (aka team 3) provided entertainment along the way helping the time pass much quicker.

We arrived at Area 51 in the pre dawn morning where we had to enter the leech infested pond to retrieve our water soaked bags and our shoes! Log moving and stacking (i.e. morning chores) began where I had the opportunity to walk with a bunch of other racers and get to learn more about them (definitely some awesome people out there!). And then we got to go to school...

Yes, this was my favorite part of the race. Built in an elaborate triangle we went through grades 1-6, including gym class and summer school. The first length involved an exercise (forward rolls, backward rolls, crawls, bear crawls, and cartwheels!) where we had a quick full submersion in a dirty nasty pond puddle, the number of times based on what grade we were in. After that we crawled to class where we 'studied' for the final exam before we performed the same exercise as the first length back to the teacher to show what we had learned. Hearing the words 'Congratulations you have graduated' was awesome especially coming from a fantastic individual I've had the privilege of racing with.

And then the heavy hell and race began in what would become my unfolding. We got to work for Peak Races upon graduating doing manual labor carrying 30% of our body weight, in the form of a rock, in addition to our gear up and around the trail. This meant that my pack weighed upwards of 110lbs that I had to carry around the mountain through some tortuous mud and crazy inclines. I lost my rock in the mud, broke my trekking pole, found my rock and finally succumbed to hypothermia during this job (clearly I'm meant to be in management!). Only two laps completed as the storms and wind set in. I couldn't get my body temp up enough to be productive and finally found my breaking point.

I pushed myself to my limits, embraced them, shattered them, and then found new ones. Never have so many thoughts of quitting run through my mind during a race. Fantastic job by the RDs and staff for putting on a race that could put me through that hell and still be smiling most of the time.

I'm glad to have shared the course with some great people, glad I got to know some of them more than just a FB face and glad of the new people I got to meet. They truly are some unique and crazy awesome individuals.

Congrats to the finishers, the DNQs, and all the other who attempted this final race. An extra special thanks to the support crews for taking me in and warming me up before I finally went to medical. I'm glad I came and I left happy. Now if someone can teach this Floridian how to endure cold weather it would be appreciated :)