Sonny Spina recounts the punishing race that organizers urged him to quit

The 2024 Spartan Summer Death Race is an experience the Sault’s Sonny Spina won’t soon forget.

No stranger to long-distance running and biathlons, Spina told SooToday the race - from June 28 to 30 - was the most gruelling he has participated in “by leaps and bounds, by far.” 

The Spartan Summer Death Race took place in the Green Mountains in and around Pittsfield, Vermont and pushed its participants to physical and mental extremes.

Spartan is a world-recognized leader in the sport of obstacle racing and the Death Race is its ultimate challenge, created by Spartan Race founder Joe Desena.

Just qualifying for the race was more than a matter of simple online registration.

Participants must complete a series of physical and mental challenges months before the event. They must be videotaped and sent to Spartan for review, the company also requires those videos to be posted online on social media.

Spina began his series of qualifying challenges in December 2023.

“The last one I had to do was solve a Rubik's Cube puzzle underwater,” Spina said.

“Before that, I had to carry a person in a fireman’s carry for a kilometre. I had to do a blindfolded workout with a 55-pound sandbag, a one-kilometre crawl with my weighted backpack on and I had to carry two 50-pound objects for a mile. I also had to do a number of hours doing physical labour that would benefit an individual or the community in some way as a way of giving back. For that one, I split four cords of wood for an individual who needed it.”

He also had to do burpees — which can be described as push-ups followed by a leap in the air — while carrying a large rock.

“It took my wife Lindsay and I two days to drive to Vermont. I had so much stuff with me we couldn’t fly with it. I had my pack with an axe and knives in it, a sandbag, a two-by-four, an ash bucket for when I had to light a campfire, extra clothes and shoes and tools.”

“You can’t fly with all those things,” Spina chuckled, stating that race participants from overseas had such items shipped to Vermont beforehand or purchased them upon arrival in the States.

All those items are necessary for athletes to use in surviving the race.

“Those mountains in Vermont absolutely dwarf anything we have in our area near the Sault. They’re way bigger and the forest is very dense. There are bears everywhere but they didn’t really bother me. I know if they’re there, just leave them alone,” Spina said. 

“The inside of that area is covered in thick, sloppy mud and I was carrying all that gear. Then you come to an open field and I had a bunch of challenges to do, like racing on foot with a tire on my back, chopping trees that had fallen into moveable pieces and moving them out of my way.” 

Then — and only then — was Spina given his race jersey.

Many would-be participants — not surprisingly — quit before the race, Spina said.

He was one of approximately 60 people participating in the event.

“It was really hot the first day. The sun was beating on us. Then as night fell it started to rain and it wasn’t a light drizzle. We had to keep going through the night. You don't sleep in this entire race, you keep going. I was walking on my hands, carrying people in a fireman’s carry, doing blindfolded jumping jacks, push-ups, sit-ups, squats, burpees, all those things blindfolded. I had to crawl through thick and watery mud with a 40-pound backpack on, dragging a two-by-four and a sandbag. I had to get into a cold beaver pond and solve a Rubik's Cube.”

There wasn’t time to sleep or eat a regular meal, Spina said.

“I had water and I had straws so if I had to drink out of a pond I could. I didn’t eat. I had tablets that were slow-release electrolytes (essential minerals) that sustained me for those 50-plus hours.”

For much of the race, Spina — like all other competitors — was alone.

Completely unlike a big city marathon in which spectators cheer an athlete on, Spartan Summer Death Race officials, Spina said, "do everything they can to make you quit.”

“At one point one of the staff members made me do 300 burpees. I got to 270. He looked at me and said ‘You’re not doing them right. Start again.’ It was all designed to make me quit but I wouldn't quit.”

Spina said that nastiness ends once the race is over.

“When it’s over they completely shut that off and they’re very supportive, great people.” 

Spina said he finished the race at approximately 8 a.m. June 30.

“This was an extremely emotional experience. I smiled when I saw my wife Lindsay at the end.”

Spina said his many experiences as an endurance athlete — such as organizing and competing in the DU283 duathlon and more recently the United Steelworkers Union Local 2724 Community Strong Race Weekend — helped him prepare for the grinding Spartan Summer Death Race. 

Spina — a Ward 1 City Councillor, City Meat Market co-owner and partner in Brampton-based Anderson Blake Security — said he would go through the Spartan Summer Death Race again.

“My goal is to keep finding new challenges for myself and it helped my perspective. It showed me that if things get hard you can still keep going when you think you can’t.”

Spina — with a long involvement with Algoma Family Services — said making it through the physical, mental and emotional tests of the Death Race will help him to be an encouragement to people facing mental health challenges in the community.

“In races, I tell people if you can’t take one more kilometre, take one more step. If you can’t take one more step, take one more breath and keep moving forward with that. That for me translates back into the message for people struggling with mental health issues. If you just don’t feel like you can go anymore, take one breath and ask for help and people will help you. When your body and mind are telling you to quit, you can always do one more step, one more breath and move forward. When you think you’re at the end, you’re not. Take one more breath and you can get there.”