Tag: Joe De Sena

CNBC’s one-hour documentary “The New High: Extreme Sports,” reported by CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla and premiers on Thursday, June 18th at 10PM ET/PT.

From corporate leaders to race directors to muddy social media darlings, these 50 figures spent 2014 influencing thousands of participants' experience.

Spartan Race comes to Google's rescue with the burpee felt around the world.

For the first time the story of Spartan Race's path to it's current success within the obstacle race industry isn't told as a straight line up . We followed up with Joe with some questions of our own (after the article) to help set the record straight what that path really looked like.

Like a Rocky of Brazilian Jujitsu, Ricardo Migliarse harnessed the brutality of the mean streets of South Philly to his advantage.

I must admit that when I started my Spartan Race adventure two years ago, I wasn’t that impressed. I believed that Joe De Sena was just your average “run of the mill” athlete who had stumbled upon an idea, and decided to turn a quick buck. I did a little research on him, and found that he had done some extreme stuff, but I still had a preconceived notion that he was probably just a schmuck. I mean, seriously, you had to sign a “death waiver” to run the event…. Oooh scary! I am an Army Ranger with 19 years of active duty, a graduate of Ranger School (among others), and have served over 40 months in combat.

If Internet chatter is any indication of reality, Spartan Race's "identity crisis" has finally trickled down to the participants themselves. The race's popular acronym, STFU (Spartan The F*%# Up), has become the verbal equivalent of a sword, splitting Spartan racers into two distinct camps and revealing differing philosophies of what obstacle racing is and should be.

Last year going into only my second Spartan Race /OCR race ever, I approached the starting line with confidence and perhaps even a little disrespect for the sport and it's athletes. I don't totally blame myself for my mislead arrogance as just three weeks prior I had beat the unbeatable Hobie Call by 6 minutes on what was being touted as perhaps the toughest Spartan race ever in Wintergreen, VA. There I stood on the starting line with voices of confidence ringing through my head, filling my body and mind with every bit of physiological strength I needed to scoop up $15,000, call myself world champion and sit back and wait for the other athletes to make their way to the finish line.

"After the Beast the top 20 men and women from the elite category will run multiple laps on a short course that will be very obstacle heavy. The person who finished in 20th place will have the shortest rest time before being forced out into the next course" -Joe Desena (page 36 of the August edition of Spartans digital magazine) In the interest of preserving the health of the elite athletes I would like to petition Reebok Spartan Race to reconsider this "Sprint" race for the elites.

PITTSFIELD, VT – JULY 1, 2014 – There are millions of running races, thousands of marathons, hundreds of triathlons and even dozens of ultra-marathons … but there is only one Death Race. Held annually since 2005 in Pittsfield, VT, this year’s race began on Friday June 27th and finally ended 66 hours later in the early morning hours on Monday June 30. The annual ultra- endurance test began with over 300 registered entrants from all across the world and in the end, a record 64 racers finished including 9 women.