Spartans best Beast in Sprint, Beast and Ultra events Sept. 16-17

By Polly Lynn Mikula

This years Spartan Beast at The Beast (a.k.a. Killington Mountain) boasted a 14 mile course with 32 obstacles. The Ultra was two laps of that course, whereas the Sprint was a shortened experience of about 5 miles.

Over 10,000 athletes competed in the weekend’s events.

The placement of the “death march,” the long slog up Flume to the peak, was “a doozy” reported a Spartan official live streaming on Twitter during the race. Taking participants right past the finish area before sending them up a 1,500-foot vertical single track to the top has been a feature of the past few Spartan races at Killington, but this year, the “march” was earlier in the race—before many of the toughest obstacles, including the bucket carries, which caused racers to tire earlier.

“I had to put the bucket down at every post,” said Ross Sealfon, a veteran Spartan Beast competitor from Connecticut who finished with a time of 4:51. “I have never had to do that in the past races.”