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Don Schwartz gives up first place in toughest race
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The Death Race in Vermont packs more pain into two days than practically any other race in the world, but it's not the physical challenge that wears competitors down as much as the mental beating. Last weekend, Whistler's Don Schwartz proved he could handle both, though in the end Schwartz and the other two first-place athletes made the decision to quit.

It's not something Schwartz imagined he would do and if either of the other two athletes kept going he probably would have gone, too. But enough was enough. At the time they were four hours ahead of the next person, and six hours ahead of the person after that. Most of the field was at least 12 hours behind at that point — those that didn't drop out as a result of heat, hunger, dehydration, injuries or other complaints.

The official record shows that only four of the 200 starters finished, or just two per cent. Except that isn't exactly right — Schwartz found out later that some of those athletes didn't have to do certain challenges along the way, or were given easier tasks. But then again the theme for the 2012 was betrayal, and in that sense all bets were off.

He doesn't regret pulling out.

"At that point we were 54 hours into this race," he said. "It was a horribly hard decision to make on my part, given what I said about wanting to finish, but my feet were in bad shape and it was at the point where continuing on would have been stupid and ruined the rest of my summer.... It was time to stop and be a smart person, rather than come home with destroyed feet. I have a world champion barefoot waterski event to attend to defend my gold medal this summer, and I need my feet to work.

"It's probably the first time in the history of racing that the three leaders have pulled out."

The other two leaders, P.J. Rakoski and Ken Lublin, also made the decision to call it quits. They expected that the organizers would look at the gap and the time remaining and call the event, but they wanted the three athletes to go back over a mountain they'd climbed over several times already.

"We thought the organizers would look at the gap and everything we've done, and think that it was a perfect place for the race to end," said Schwartz, adding that it was already the longest race yet in the series.

A blow-by-blow of the race is astonishing. They started with a hike to the top of a mountain for the weigh in and registration, followed by three hours of work on the farm leading up to the 6 p.m. start. They were sent out to float in a cold swamp in life jackets while getting briefed and were then made to form groups based on what ping pong ball they pulled out of the water. Teams of four then had to work together to carry heavy objects including 200-pound pipes full of water up and over the other side of the mountain, a 20-mile (32km) distance that took about 12 hours.

Halfway through they traded with another group that was carrying a four metre, loaded kayak, which was almost impossible to guide along the tight trail. Oh, and they also had to do 700 burpies.

One group was selected to push a 310-pound tractor tire, an impossible task, with the result that all four pulled out. Like Schwartz noted, it wasn't exactly fair.

Next up they had to do a short lake swim, then lift buckets of gravel onto a driveway while the other groups caught up. None of it meant anything and the real solo race wouldn't start until later — once people were exhausted and enough people had dropped out. They also had to write a 250 question quiz that they never saw again.

"By now we were about 20 hours into the race and we hadn't been able to replenish our food supplies. A lot of guys were out of food," said Schwartz, who noted that the next food stop was 27 hours into the event.

Next up, the group hiked 305 metres up another mountain where each group was told to find a stake with their number on it on the side of the mountain, and fill the hole with buckets of gravel.

"I ran about 15 kilometres trying to find the stick. It was 30 degrees with a blazing sun, and I couldn't find it — it was just an impossible task."

Eventually Schwartz did find the stick, and moved onto the next team challenge — splitting a 100-pound chunk of wet, rotted wood from end to end into 12 pieces.

After that Schwartz knew the real solo race would start, and he figured he was about an hour behind the top teams at that point. So he got angry. "I chopped so fast that I left there in first place," he said.

They spent some more time in a cold pond before heading out again. They went back over a 457-metre mountain and down the other side, and up another 305 metres where they had to study instructions how to fold an origami swan. They were told they'd be tested at the bottom, and if they screwed it up they'd have to climb back up and look at the instructions again.

Scared to get it wrong, Schwartz stared at the instructions for the next 45 minutes before he went down, made something that looked like a plane and was told "It's good enough." In the meantime two other athletes caught up.

"So basically we wasted an hour up there frustrating ourselves when it didn't really matter," said Schwartz.

They went back up and over the 457-metre mountain, following a steep creek on the way down, and at the bottom they had to grab 60-pound sacks of concrete and carry them back up the top of the mountain. The three leaders stuck together through this part, and were together at the next obstacle — a 750-metre course through a farm field that they would have to roll through like logs. They were expected to do it 20 times, stirring a vomit-inducing bucket of cow innards and passing under a black tarp that was roasting in the sun along the way, then answer a trivia question after each lap for it to count. However, after the first lap took 45 minutes the organizers cut the number of laps down to six.

"I couldn't believe this was what we were doing," laughed Schwartz. "You train for a year in the gym, do a thousand pull-ups, run up and down Blackcomb, lift weights and train with a 50-pound weight vest, and you're being asked to roll on the ground like a log."

They finished that task at around 6 p.m. on Saturday, then headed up and over the mountain again to the farm. That's where they expected the organizers to finish the race, but were told to go over the same mountain once again with buckets of rocks.

"That's when we all said, 'thanks, no, we're done," said Schwartz.

Despite all the pain and the unfairness of it all, Schwartz said on Tuesday that he's actually considering entering the race again next year, his third year in a row.

"The thing that was frustrating for me this year was the group event, there were 24 hours there where the race wasn't even on, it was just a bunch of group activities to beat people down and frustrate them. That's half the race — 24 hours to make you tired and then 24 hours of racing. But next year will be an all-out solo race," he added. "Cheating won't be tolerated and it's based on gambling — if you've raced before and finished, you'll be gambling away your previous finishes. And if you don't finish (2013) then you can't enter the race again until 2015."

All told, Schwartz said he raced about 85 miles / 136km and climbed 30,000 vertical feet in about 54 hours, carrying a 30-pound pack of gear the whole way as well as concrete bags, buckets of gravel, logs, water-filled pipes and other objects.