Ben Greenfield describes the specific clothing, footwear, protective gear, and nutrition he plans to use for the 2015 Spartan World Championships in Lake Tahoe, with a snow contingency (wear a snowsuit and bring beef jerky). He names brands and exact items (e.g., Bombas socks, Reebok All Terrain Spartans, Zoot arm coolers) and details his fueling strategy (oral IVs, TNT pre-race, chia/honey/bee-pollen/raw-tea mix ~3 hours of fuel, gels, salt capsules). The tone is informal, practical, and slightly humorous.
Questions this video answers
Bombas socks.
Reebok All Terrain Spartans.
To protect arms, carry nutrition, and store oral IVs (squeezed up the sleeve).
Don Joy tri zones calf sleeves.
Human Factor obstacle racing gloves.
Chapters
Hello, my geeky little masochists who want to race Spartans. In this video, I'm going to show you exactly what I'll be packing for the Spartan World Championships in Lake Tahoe. Now, if it snows, everything I'm going to show you is just going to go to pot. Because if it does snow snow, I'm just gonna wear a snow suit and bring some beef jerky like I do when I'm snowboarding. But if not, here's what we got. So first of all, clothing. Let's start with clothing. I'll be wearing the new highly obstacle short shorts that are just. Yeah, well, duh. They're shorts for my socks. I'm gonna wear these Bombas socks. Cause they have some pretty good blister tabs in them and they're a good, like nice wool material that'll stay dry, that will stay warm. So Bombas is the name of those. I'll be wearing the Reebok All Terrain Spartans. Nice tread, good hard bottom for a lot of the rocks that'll be in this particular race. And then I'll wear some. These are really arm coolers, but I'm not wearing them because they're coolers. They're made by Zoot. I'm wearing them to protect my arms and also to carry nutrition in. Like you squeeze the nutrition up the arm sleeve. Specifically, I'll be carrying my oral IV in these.
Calf sleeves to both protect the legs and also to keep them supported a little bit during the race. These are the Don Joy tri zones. And then I'll wear the Human Factor gloves. These are just the Human Factor obstacle racing gloves. Pretty straightforward. And I usually remove them about an hour or so into the race anyways just because they start to get cold with all the water dowsings and stuff. But starting off the race, just keep the arms warm or the hands warm. They're good. Okay, nutrition, like I mentioned, I'll have a couple of oral IVs. I'll take one towards the beginning, one about halfway through. And those will just go into the arm coolers. I'll take one TNT before the race just to help out a little bit with my, my brain and cognitive performance during. Also this has some cool little vasodilators in it just in case I cramp. I'll have some of these little salt capsules. I'll break them up, put them inside my mouth and these will go into my. They won't go into my water bottle, but I'll put them in this little Ziploc on my Fuel belt. This is just a really, really basic fuel belt. It's called the Crush. It's just their water bottle, sling carries a water bottle and a few other things. So these, these will be during the race. Now.
Shut up, dog. I'm filming.
That was my dog. Wasn't the neighbor's dog.
Oh, and by the way, that's my sister in law's dog in case anybody wants a snack. Okay, so like I was saying before the race, we'll do the T and chi. Also before the race, I'll take some amino acids. These are just like basic whole amino acids. And I'll pop about 10 of these before the race just to amp up my blood levels of amino acids. And then really during the race, I just got this little Ziploc bag. I'll dump this into the water bottle. And this is about three hours worth of fuel. It's basically a mix of the ischiate endurance, which is just chia seeds, a little bit of honey, a little bit of bee pollen, good clean burning fuel. And I put some of their raw tea in it just because the raw tea has caffeine, but it also has beet juice in it, which helps out quite a bit at altitude. So I broke all the rules of nutrition and I blended two things together, which means it's never been tested in laboratory situations. And I may get explosive diarrhea. But regardless, it's convenient. And no, I'm not going to be taking all these gels. I just threw them all out there because they look pretty. But I'll put about four of these gels into my fuel belt as well for those reasons. Number one, if my water bottle falls out, I'll have a few extra calories. And number two, like I mentioned, I'll have about three hours worth of fuel in that water bottle. But I plan on the race taking more than three hours, so that's at least a couple hours more worth of fuel just in case I break my leg or something. Oh, and then of course, for the nether regions in the feet, I got some of the hammer nutrition seat saver. So, yeah, that's it. Wallah. That's all the gear. So if you have questions, just post them wherever you happen to watch this video and I'll be happy to answer them. Right, boys? They've lost interest. Thanks for watching.
