Posts Tagged ‘Death Race’

Sunday, December 11th, 2011

I’ve been dreaming about doing adventure race training since I trained Ricky and Megan for last year’s Death Race.

This past month it finally came into fruition.

Although planning the training comes easily to me, I was just lacking some of the obstacles needed to train people for the climbing that most of the races rely heavily upon.

Enter 2 wonderful guys from Tallahassee Police Dept’s SWAT team. They constructed a monster of a 12 ft wall designed for different types of climbing including various attachments for my 24 ft. cargo net.

This along with the many other pieces of equipment that we already have, I was able to officially start Adventure Race Training. Yes, the name isn’t fancy but it is direct and to the point. I don’t think anyone would mistake what we do.

My first group of trainees for November were people signed up for The Tough Mudder.

I explained that although I couldn’t replicate an actual race, I would give them the skills, strength and challenge that these type of races require.

We hold the workouts most weekends for 2 hours. I combine conditioning, upper body and core strength along with race simulations of climbing, crawling, getting wet and cold and lots of short distance running. The workouts change each week but keep the same elements.

The workouts can be designed for any type of group and for as long as someone wants to pay me. Our Death Race workouts lasted up to 12 hours and went through the night.

Here is a video of our ART (simple name but at least the initials spell something) and our clients at the Tough Mudder in Tampa and the Urban Disturbance here in Tallahassee.

http://youtu.be/bh0qDGMPMkc

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Our Dig Deep Workout

Monday, August 22nd, 2011

We are mixing things up in boot camp this month. Once a week we will be adding a “dig deep” workout. Not only will these workouts focus on strength, they will focus on tenacity.

Friday’s workout was inspired by The Death Race in which I was on a support team for two of our boot campers. We had 3 circles with logs, aquabags, sandbags, ammo cans filled with weights, Kettlebells and fire hoses. Each team had to do one squat thrust, pick up their item to chest level, put it down and then rotate to the next item and repeat. After 3 rotations, they had to pick up an item and take it for a little walk. Then they switched circles. We repeated this for 40 minutes.

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Death Race Prep

Sunday, February 27th, 2011

Once a month I am going to surprise Megan and Ricky with a workout combining grueling physical tasks as well as mental challenges. These workouts will build in time and intensity until June when they will travel to VT for The Death Race.

Today was the first workout that I prepared for them. They met at my house at 8:30 am. Their only instructions were to take 2 wheelbarrows to the gym. The distance is just over 3 miles.

One the whiteboard was part 2 of the workout.
100 sledgehammer strikes on the tire
200 Kettlebell Swings
Memorize the muscles of the posterior leg
Fill the wheelbarrows with your weight in KBs and get them back to my house.

One catch; I hid the 4 sledgehammers in the holding pond down the street. They had to run down there, find them and run them back to the gym.

After they completed their workout at the gym, they headed back to my house with wheelbarrows full of Kettlebells for part 3 of the workout.

Once they arrived they were told that I dropped a bunch of rocks in my pool and would they please help me to get them out. I also told them that it was a good thing they did not share any common letters in their name.

I numbered the rocks corresponding to the letters in their name and they had to find them, one by one. It only took them a minute to figure out the challenge but quite a few to dive down and retrieve the correct rocks for their names. This is when I found out that Megan has a fear of jumping into deep water. We are going to have to fix that.

When they finished collecting rocks, they were told the Kettlebells must get back to the gym.

After they arrived at the gym they unloaded the bells and ran the 3 miles back to my house.

Total time was right at 5 hours.

It was a great first workout and I am already planning the next one. Oh, I never tested them on the muscles

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The Death Race

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011

Our very own trainer Ricky Weiss and long time boot camper and personal training client of Ricky, Megan Mays have signed up for the ultimate race, simply and to the point named, The Death Race.

The Tallahassee Democrat recently caught up with Ricky and Megan during one of their brutal and intense training sessions to find out more about the June race.

Mays and Weiss, both 27, will be challenging themselves to the limit during the June 25 race. Mays, manager of MoJo’s Backyard, and Weiss, a personal trainer at Boot Camp Fitness and Training, are spending much of their free time physically preparing for the event.

The two have started “death race training” on their Sundays, doing exercises moving heavy objects such as kettle bells to train their bodies to endure unusually strenuous activities. They are jogging up to 30 miles a week, hiking at fast paces with 30-pound packs, swimming and more.

The Death Race website, www.youmaydie.com, includes the following instructions for participants: “You will not like this race. There is a strong possibility that you won’t finish. Expect to cry, scream.”

Mays said, “It’s their goal to make you quit.”

The race entry fee is $400, a costly investment to tamper with “death.”

Andy Weinberg, one of the event operators, said the entry fee goes to multiple costs such as gravel, axes and land permits. Leftover profits are donated to charity.

Mays said competitors are required to sign a “you may die” waiver initialing consent. “No one’s ever died and hopefully I won’t be the first one,” she said.

Mays started doing triathlons a few years ago and began to place. Her competitive urge frothed, she’s now training for the Death Race as well as a half-Iron Man this spring.

“I’m really excited to see if I can do it. There aren’t many chances for people to test themselves mentally and physically. I’m more interested in the mental aspect, if I can push my body through this,” she said.

Weiss said he’s expecting a lot of walking, to move 20 percent of his body weight in water or gravel, and to be crawling under barbed wire. “I’m bringing Super Glue for that,” he said, as an on-the-go Band-Aid.

“I wasn’t finding anything that was in between. I needed something like an Everest, something to motivate me and scare me to the next level,” Weiss said.

Neither Mays nor Weiss know anyone who has done the race.

The Death Race operatives recently sent a hint suggesting competitors spend more time in church than training.

Five spots are still open for 2011, for those who might be interested.

Follow along their training sessions on Megan’s blog, http://tallydogs.wordpress.com/2011/02/.

I will be providing Ricky and Megan with workouts so brutal physically and mentally that I feel guilty. Sunday is their first workout with me. I can’t post it here yet because it’s going to be a surprise. Part of the challenge for the Death Race is not knowing what to expect or how long to expect it. I do plan for their first workout to be at least 3 hours. I hope they survive!


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