Daniel Bourke and his team run the Spartan Ultra 50K obstacle race, tackling burpees, rope climbs, and water pits over hours of grinding effort. One teammate misses the 5-hour cutoff. They finish exhausted but celebrate the achievement together.
Chapters
43 days out. What do we got tonight, brother? Quick little 8K. The trifecta's not here. Not here, Zeno. What are you doing? 43 days to go. Spartan Ultra. Saturday night workout. I was yawning before this one. It was a tough one. 35 days out from Spartan Race, but we got it done. 3 weeks out. 20 days out. Did not feel like training at all today, but we got it done. 8 days out. Early morning 10K done. I'm gonna do another 10K this afternoon. There's the one. Let's start that again. Were you about to erase that? No, no, I looked here and I was like, that's just an upside down T. No, you missed it. Oh, that'll do, that'll do. We're not doing it again, we're not doing it again. It's 4:35 AM and you know what zero means on that? What does it mean, Zennith? It's race day, baby. It's game day, baby. How are you, Rose? Are you keen, bro? What do you got there, mate? What's this? Just another day, a bit of bean water in a plastic cup. So we're getting our gear ready, uh, we're gonna have a little snack before we go. We got out, we got our driver. Cheers, Josh! So it's gonna take us about an hour or so to get there. 5:45, I think the parking opens, and then 6:30 race starts. Let's do it! Morning, how are you? Good, thank you. How are you? Excellent, thank you. Cheers. Nice morning. Yeah. Little bit late. Race supposed to start in like 10 minutes, as always. Cheers. This place is packed. You never thought we'd go to war after all the things we saw. It's April Fool's Day. Tomorrow never comes until it's too late. We'll all go running underground and we'll be listening for the sound. It'll be Wednesday. Your training does not count. So Sponge, who are you? Who are you? I am SpongeBob! Are you ready to race? Yeah! Ready for the ultra? SpongeBob's Race! Oh my God! Hey, big dog, start it! Short life! 50K! What did we sign up for, boys? What did we sign up for? First obstacle. I don't know, not going to make it, man. This wall's too big. Sorry. We're hitting it, hitting it, boys! Yeah, son. It's always gonna be an uphill battle. Fuck the pathway. Hahaha. Should really practice on this kind of terrain. Oh well. Morning. So young Daniel had a pack malfunction. His strap has been ripped off, so he's currently about 400 behind. Me and Zeno taking the lead, just trucking it. Trucking it. We got some bells coming up. Oh, some rope stuff. Jesus, I'm gonna go. Play Bear on the shoulder. Let's go, bro. Come on, easy. No chance in the world, you reckon? Not a chance. Had to piss before. Did you piss? Did you get it all over you? Yeah. Good on you, mate. How was that ball, mate? Fuckin' solid. 50 kgs. Solid concrete ball, and it's polished. Feels like a giant bowling ball. I'm about 7.5 km deep, so What's that? We're 8 km deep. 8 km deep. You got the update on the watch? 15% done. Loving it. Yeah, get it, Daniel Bourke. Burpees! Daniel! Daniel! Not allowed to touch the top. First lot of burpees, I touched the bloody roof. 30 burpees is ridiculous. Time to catch up to the rest of the boys. First water pit. Solid mud. Oh, I'm a foreigner. Tried to save the bag, but no chance. Oh, it's nice and cold. Nice and cold. How you doing, brother? At least my shoes don't weigh about a quarter ton each now. Is that mine? Huh? Is that my one? No, it's yours. Oh, you got— someone's got the— oh, you're kidding me! Someone took his camel back. We've all got black bags, and when you're at an obstacle, you sometimes put them down to complete the obstacle if you need to grip onto something or something. Poor bloke, someone's taken his and he's picked up an empty one. Put it through. Bit more barbed wire. Get it through. Last one. How you feel? Get out there, mate. Yeah, that's it, two at a time. Big dogs gotta eat. Nice. Yes. Not too much. Nature calls, bro. Nature calls. Solo at the moment, walking up this hill. You can hear the music in the background, but it's kind of peaceful up here. This is a massive hill. I've been walking up it for a solid 10 to 15 minutes. I don't know where the other two boys are at the moment, but that's all right. Then the competition's against yourself. I don't know how far we're in, probably close to halfway. Loving it. The water is a good breakup, cools down the body. Had two gels, half a bar, probably half of, half of my water tank. And I don't know what the game plan is, just keep going. To me it's just binary. Just start and finish. That's it. Just keep running, keep moving. That's what we're going to do. Just not going to stop. Simple as that. How long? 3 hours and 30. Oh sweet. That was easily the hardest one so far. Yeah, it does. Fuck. Jesus. Just did a sandbag carry. 60, 60-pound sandbag, whatever that is, like 30 or so kilos up a hill like this. There's no good way to carry a sandbag. I just did it across my shoulders. About 20k deep. Gonna have to do that again in about 3 hours or so. 4 hours. Yay. This one's just made to break you. You gotta fill up your own bucket. It's like filling your own grave. Oh my God. Grab your bucket, fill it to the top hole, take it for a walk around in front of you. I'm gonna fill this thing with that. Go, Berkey! Get it back! You got it, mate. Yes, nice, mate. You got this, brother. Feel it. Nice, Danny. Killing it, bro. It's killing me. I hope you got a bet riding on that. Thanks, mate. Enjoy. Cheers. Officially the hardest, the hardest one yet. Burpees from all the way down here with a sandbag to here. Halfway. Yeah! Halfway, brother! Second lap, cuz, easy money. Got the head torch this time, stocked up. Probably had a bit too much fluid, but we'll get there. Not as many people here on the second lap, bro. This is exactly at the start of the race where we had that massive traffic jam. Sorry. Oh, that is sweet. Yeah, come on, speed up now, speed up! Oh my God, it's off! Crazy! So nah, I don't know where you boys are right now, but just want to let you know your boy's thinking of you. Fuck brothers, Spartans! We also want to let you know your boy's about to finish the fucking Spartan Ultra. You hear this jingle? That's what you're going to hear soon. Get up, second last one. Pull in, easy, easy, easy, bro. One more, one more, one more, and you're done. Hit the bell, bro. Hit the bell! Hit the bell! Hit the bell! Yeah, that's it, brother! Jump off! We finished, right? 50K. We did it! Good job! No, that is, is, is ultra! Good job! Come get your shirt, bro. Well done, boys! Well done! Good job! Well done! Well done! Well done! Well done! Well done, buddy! I'm done, I'm done. Thank you, thank you. I got Medium. Made it home. Just arrived. Can barely walk. 50 km done. My boy Zeno was a guardian angel. See you, Coach. He got— how long? How much did you get cut off by, bro? 56 seconds. 56 seconds. So the first lap, some 25-kilometer or something course, my boy has a 5-hour cutoff, came in at 5, 5 hours 56 seconds, and then couldn't finish the rest of the race. What'd the guy say? He just said it was too late, I missed the cutoff. Yeah, we're way too buckled to tell you about obstacles and whatnot now, but we'll do that I think throughout this video or something. I'm not sure exactly how it's going to play out, but how'd you find it, brother? Mate, it was really well organized. I'm buckled. Like, that's why I'm sitting down in this interview. Just like to give a traditional shout out to— I actually can't stand up right now. I'm gonna go get a feet transplant and some food. Yeah, you keen? Good job, boys. We did it. Spartan Ultra, you were there, mate. You were there. You were there. Guardian angel. One last aru. Let it rip! Aru! Whatever the race is run, I want us to stand our ground. There ain't nothing, ain't nothing gonna, ain't nothing gonna bring us down. I need a feet transplant, a lot of food, and the longest shower I've ever had.
