Contempt for Pleasures*: Montana’s Alternative Race Scene (MARS)

              I have seen GoPros filming GoPros filming GoPros*.  I have danced, adorned in a Hawaiian shirt, to The Doors “Light My Fire,” while surrounded by dozens of stern-faced, bare chested men.  I have seen an ATM in the middle of the woods, hooked to a generator.  I have seen two purple, one red, and three green mohawks from one vantage point, none of them together.  I have smelled bacon wrapped jalapenos, beer, and Thai food with the same nostril at the same instant.  I have seen children trampled by one another; all wearing the same pumpkin colored shirt, forming a crying pile of orange. 

                I have seen groups of adults jump up and fall down again, repeatedly, 30 times, with horrible form, in attempts to perform a “burpee”.  I have been told “Nice, bro,” “Push it,” “You got this,” “Spartan up,” “Get ready to swim,” “Prepare for glory,” and “Crawl” all in the same one hour period.  I have seen full belly tattoos of Spartan helmets.  I have seen arbitrary numbers written on cheeks, calves, foreheads and biceps.  I have been a hero to myself, passing dozens and dozens of heavyset men and women while swinging on monkey bars, or crawling under camouflage netting.

                I have now been to a Spartan race, which, supposedly, is fun.  My race began with The Doors’ “Light My Fire”, and ended with Linkin Park at the finish line.  I felt betrayed. 

The race is meant to introduce participants to the “Spartan lifestyle,” and I’m grappling with their interpretation.  I consider Spartans to have “contempt for pleasures,” and live on a plain and meager diet.  But, of course, these are not true Spartans.  They are Reebok Spartans, consumers of a product that makes them look a little more like Gerard Butler from the movie 300, if they get dirty enough.  The Cold Stone Creamery at the race seemed to be getting business, and most of the Spartan warriors weighed much more than me, a sign that I hadn’t left America for the glory of Sparta.  Upon learning of a Spartan Cruise travelling to the Caribbean next year, I abandoned any hope of finding redemption for the business.  It is, unashamedly, a cash grab.

Here’s a look at what being a Reebok Spartan costs:

$60 entry fee, if you sign up over half a year early.  With 7 price jumps, this can become $100 on race day for the Spartan Sprint.  Spartan Supers and Spartan Beasts cost more.

$30 above the entry fee, if you want to be competitive and enter an Elite Wave (money is the only requirement)

$10 parking fee

$5 for a bag check

$20 for each spectator you bring along (but at least they can save you $5 on the bag check)

$$$ for food.  No food or drink is allowed from the outside, and the post-race meal consists of a banana, a Clif Builder Bar, a Core Power protein shake, one beer, and water.  If you brought cash, and are still hungry, overpriced vendors will gladly take it.

At the starting line, a few thoughts went through my head.  I didn’t see any of the regular faces from Montana races.  I didn’t see anyone that looked like a runner.  I had trouble imagining seeing myself there, and I felt very small compared to the beefy guys with dirt striped cheeks around me.  My Hawaiian shirt should have at least been a manly color, like red, or black, but it was daisy yellow.  I’ve been told that wearing yellow means you’re not taking yourself seriously. 

                A large, knee deep puddle started the race, two feet in.  It was a kind of instant gratification, which made racers dirty before they had done more work than it takes to walk to the restroom, and served as the baptismal “I’m a Spartan now” water.  The race went to some lengths to insure that racers appeared and felt “extreme”.  Each racers packet prominently displayed the words, all caps, all bold, size 20 font, “THERE IS A REAL POSSIBILITY THAT YOU MAY DIE OR BE CATASTROPHICALLY INJURED”.  The Spartan race may be “extreme,” which is very loosely defined in the world of sporting (check out extreme ironing), but it is much more of a business than a sport. 

In no particular order, waves were sent off at 15 minute intervals, from morning into the dark, insuring a rule of entropy.  Just prior to the start of each wave, a man who I like to call Hype Man pumped the runners up, and told them things like, “PREPARE FOR GLORY!” (all caps is appropriate here, he was very loud).  In the midst of all this, he slipped in a bit of Spartan Race’s trademark aggressive marketing, encouraging warriors to enter all the other beastly races that Reebok Spartan Race has to offer.  And then the race starts with a smoke bomb, and the puddle, and 200 lb. shirtless men sucking air on the uphill, fueled by the Hype Man’s words. 

The Spartan site is a very tightly controlled environment, with “warriors” being shuttled to and from the course by bus, and police stationed at all entrances and exits.  At the site, the first tent racers see (besides registration) is what’s known as the “marking station”*.  While runners need only a bib and chip timer to run the course, a headband displaying the runner’s bib number is provided and runners are encouraged to mark their body wherever visible with their number, so photographers can better identify them for all the photos (and make future Facebook posts possible).  Beyond this, GoPros seem to be a sanctioned thing that warriors do, just as popular as hydration packs are at ultras.  At the prerace packet pickup, the big raffle entry was for a GoPro Hero 3.  The race spends a lot of money on marketing, but it also makes sure it gets free marketing from people like me, who use social media to brag about it.

There seems to be a kind of mass identity that’s created at an event like this, which I did not feel part of (no headband, no markings, Hawaiian shirt), and which seems to help runners buy in to the idea of Spartan racing.  Runners are encouraged to dress somewhat alike, with identical head bands on nearly every racer, numbers written all over bodies, and getting clothes dirty means that a lot of Spartans changed into their new, flashy Spartan t-shirt immediately after the race.  Bodies were either shirtless or advertising the race they’d just completed.  The free advertising was in full effect.

The SGX (Spartan Group X) tent, where racers can learn to do burpees and other workouts, had its own motto, “Building Better Humans.” I’m not sure what the X stands for—Xtreme?  And the race’s motto, “You’ll Know at the Finish Line,” appeared under almost every blood red Spartan helmet I saw.  The race seemed intent on letting the Reebok Spartans know they had achieved something significant.  I felt more in a state of confusion than a state of knowing at the finish line, and felt, somehow, not better but guilty.  I had been a jerk on the race course, so intent on running it fast that I nearly knocked a couple walkers off the trail when they didn’t jump out of the way.  I had become greedy, fueled by Hype Man and a desire to show the Elites that I could beat them without paying an additional $30.  Had I become Reebok Spartan?    

At the start, we all chanted AROO! AROO! AROO!, which must mean something.  At the end, the same word matched my feeling, except this time it was an expression of bewilderment or confusion—aroo?  Now that I had stopped, I realized that this wasn’t me, and this wasn’t Montana.  The Spartan Race is an invasive species, growing their empire each year.  I was in a corporate landscape called Reebok Sparta, where legends are built not in acts but in advertisement, and image-crafting is a greater virtue than any “contempt of pleasure”. 

Over 4,000 people crossed the finish line, each one of them knowing something different at the end.  For a lot of them, they might have realized that they can do more than they thought they once could.  Or they realized that being active is its own reward.  Reebok Sparta is a great place to go if the simple challenge of a short trail or road race isn’t appealing, and affirmation of badassery is sought; because every finisher there is a badass, and they know it.  The difference between a Spartan Race and a local 5k, however, is that not every 5k finisher knows they’re a badass.  Reebok Spartans are encouraged to brag, because bragging is advertising.

This is a fun course, and there were some sections I really loved (steep single track), but it feels very odd to have done it.  I felt like the guy in the gym who makes loud breathing out sounds, drawing attention to how much weight he’s lifting.  If the Spartan Race is an extreme sporting event, as advertised, I much prefer the mundane.  The mundane, the sport of just running to see how fast you can go, redlining it to the end, where obstacles are more internal than external--oddly, that seems like a greater path to glory.

*From Plutarch's "Sayings of Spartans"--"At any rate, when someone inquired what advantage the law of Lycurgus had brought to Sparta, [Agesilaus The Great] said, 'Contempt for pleasures.'"

*The beginning is an ode to David Foster Wallace’s “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” (originally titled Shipping Out) which would have been the perfect title for this if it weren’t already taken.

*No pictures have been included in this article, partly because I anticipate not being able to find my unmarked self once they're online, and partly to avoid marketing this race anymore than I already am.