Spartan | 2021 North American Championship | Elite Men Coverage

hello spartans i'm david magee and we're in north lake tahoe the home of the last five world championship events and this year the host of the north american championships presented by yokohama and i'm joined today by a very special guest my good friend dave watson spartan head of sport all the way from abu dhabi david it's great to have you back dave it's great to be here a little bit different clothing here in north lake tahoe it's going to get warm soon but this is so exciting the premier ocr race in the nation this weekend and setting the stage for abu dhabi in december the north american championship this weekend and the athletes today are going to be facing one of the most challenging courses in the country so dave a little bit different than years past why don't you break it down for us let me tell you an interesting fact to start off with in the local washu language tahoe actually means lake so technically we're racing at north lake lake this weekend day but i'll tell you something about the course 4 000 feet of elevation gain that is the killer here it's the it's the steep steep uphills it's about 1200 meters um 13.6 mile course that's about half a mile more than the standard half marathon and then no water on this course so no swim dave uh no dunk wall it'll be very much a race focused on the running and uh core obstacle components this weekend now the big thing that he said was the no water obstacles and i know there are a few athletes that are going to be disappointed about that and a few that are going to be excited as well and as we move to the men's race i think this is a story of redemption we have two athletes who really need redemption here one is ryan atkins who has finished second place on this course like four times and of course ryan woods who had a missed spear here in 2019 that possibly cost him the race what are your thoughts i mean if you don't know in 2019 the snow came in there was a really strong cross breeze both of those gents missed the spear throw i think ryan particularly this weekend is is going to be absolutely focused on that redemption story that you mentioned he needs a first place finish also uh i think we should talk about mark cadet your training partner yeah margaret is my training partner or was because he moved out here well to colorado about a month ago and he's been training at altitude so he's probably the fittest he's ever been as a guy who does not fare well in the super cold wet conditions take those out you're looking at a dangerous man who was top five in west virginia and is now getting that altitude acclimation i see him as a major threat for the podium as well as vince pykowski fellow army ranger just like mark cadet he's a 14-17 5k he also won the best ranger competition this year before switching his focus to spartan so look for that guy to be very dangerous very impressive mark battras will be here this weekend racing as well and then lars arneson you probably don't know who that name is i didn't either he's an fkt holder at the grand canyon room to room to rim we'll see him race for the first time this weekend i'm sure he's a great runner let's see how he goes on the obstacles well we have an incredible race in store for you today a ton of amazing athletes an unbelievable course and the north american championship starts right now [Applause] [Applause] and the racers are off and as they head up this first opening climb there are a few athletes in this field who want to really set the tone here today we know ryan atkins likes to take his time and ease into these climbs but someone like a ryan woods is going to want to hammer him hard see if he can do some damage early in woods was one of the first to the top of the climb in 2019 the last time he raced here now if you're looking to the right that is angel quintero of mexico i did not know he was going to be here until we saw him on the start line and he's been racing a few of the smaller races but this is the first time we've seen him mix it up with the big boys in a couple years he is fast he is dangerous the man can climb and he has long distance endurance he won in breckenridge in 2018 he outran ryan atkins he outran robert killian on the beast course there up and down the mountains he is an incredible athlete and he is leading the climb right now followed by ryan woods and ryan atkins and these are most likely three of your strongest climbers in the field today but look for a few other contenders dave watson mentioned lars arneson if there's one thing that that man can do it's climb and i believe that's lars arneson right behind ryan atkins shirtless now they're up the steep portion of this initial kicker it's going to level off a little get a little more runnable roll and wind its way up and then there'll be a few more sections where it really kicks up again so behind ryan atkins you can see mark battres that's lars arneson and a host of other athletes as well and as you see up in the distance those are the big peaks so there's a long way to go as the athletes hit some of the initial hurdles right here you'll see some other faces in this field that we haven't seen in a while glenn race old fan favorite when they are the ryans up in the front ryan woods followed closely by ryan atkins angel quintero lars arneson and there's mark cadet and vince pakowski right behind him so all those folks that we were talking about at the start and the men's field is getting strung out pretty significantly by this very aggressive starting pace ryan woods has taken over the pacing duties that's josh reid right there he's been living in a van close to these mountains training for the last month or so and is in the best shape of his life that's vince fukowski in the blue pokowski as mentioned before army ranger best ranger winner in 2021 [Applause] and again this winding rolling relatively even terrain for these guys to climb on it starts to get a little nastier as they get higher closer to the peak of this thing you get above the tree line it starts to get a bit rockier just about our approach to mile one mark uh we've got a nice pack of four guys uh wuzzy leading the charge just up here approach the mile one marker so there's now an initial lead pack of four men ryan woods ryan atkins lars arneson and now mark gaudette moving up into third position you could see the climbing and running ability of these four men a little bit stronger than the rest of the field just behind that was mark batress a josh fry sighting as well josh fry's had a number of podium finishes especially out in the west coast if you are one of these east coast racers you may not have crossed paths with him too often but he is frequently a podium contender and you're starting to see ryan woods assert himself a bit more he's found his rhythm this terrain is very runnable it's uphill but it's much quicker a bit more flowy and he is pressing on atkins and arneson but atkins looks very comfortable right now as quintero's fallen back now in that pack with josh frye also looking very smooth lars arneson from alaska this is your rim to rim to rim fkt holder all right and i would be remiss if i did not mention that ryan woods has made it known that this is going to be his last major spartan event old man woodsy trying to pull off one more big win as they work their way through the z-wall and you can see just how obstacle proficient atkins is he just took a solid eight seconds or so on woods went from a few seconds behind so we've got ryan atkins ryan woods just off sea walls angel quintero just going by in about six or seventh and mark cadet is fourth not sure who's in third i think there's a guy called lars but we'll check on that good mountain runner um we're about one and a half here super exciting but a long way to go in this race well even steve was surprised to see lars arness in there as we also caught another look at joshua reed and once again ryan woods trying to put the hammer down on some of these running sections hoping to gap atkins he knows as we got some heavy carries coming up we have obstacles that can be failed he needs to really separate himself if he's going to pull away run like he did in west virginia in 2019 where he just broke away from the field and never looked back as atkins is being followed closely by mark cadet approaching bucket carry and the mile 3 sign ryan woodsy kind of uh leading the field a little bit he's just put a bit of a buffer on right now coming in it might all change in the bucket carry and then just behind woodsy we've got a pack of three um i think we've got an unknown coming up out i think his name is lars arneson uh really good trail runner see how we were doing the obstacles nice job buddy lars right how are you good how are you good so i'm not mistaken i think lars just broke the rim to rim fkt so we've got a proper trail runner here as well competing with some of these uh ocr legends well we've made it to the top of the mountain and the athletes are about to come ripping down this trail grab a bucket leave it over the shoulder and head straight up this climb past the olympic rings up here it's a spectacular view and unlike previous years you won't be frozen solid at the top so these guys are going to be hammering moving hard once they finish this loop they'll come back down they'll dump the bucket on the other side right where they found it and then the obstacle gauntlet begins and this is going to be an incredible sequence coming in first place ryan woods this is very similar to what we saw two years ago in this course he loves to come out and climb this first trail hot but the bucket carry is an equalizer here but he's a good carrier athlete look how he's running this thing right now second athlete is about to come in it looks like it's about a 20 25 second gap back to your second place athlete right now and then right behind him to the ryan atkins and then mark gaudette as well so you have a four-man race right now this is where things begin all right guys so woodsy had a really good bucket carry to the top he's just going down there now got lars einerson ryan atkins mike cadet the ultra athletes have started about 6 a.m this morning and ryan woods is now finished with his bucket carry over bender ryan atkins has moved into second position on the carry okay big moment here now for ryan woods we're approaching the spear fro uh brian atkins and uh lars are just in here neck and neck coming into the spare throw woodsy hits here's the spare and here we go ryan atkins lol dimerson might get that neck and neck we got ryan atkins lars arneson throwing the spear and lars with the miss he's going to take 30 burpees a stick from ryan atkins and lars 30 burpees is going to be costly and this is the price that you pay when you're a top level runner but you're newer to spartan these things become a little bit tougher lars arneson your rim to rim the rim fkt holder and mark gadette who was fifth place over in west virginia they were sitting right there in the competition but a miss spear has taken them into a situation where they are going to have to calm their heart rate down afterwards and now some of the other athletes are arriving vince mikowski angel quintero it's just about controlling their heart rates at this point that's a miss from angel quintero a miss from vince pakowski there's plenty of time for these runners to get themselves back into the mix but off in the distance ryan woods and ryan atkins have now put a sizeable gap on the rest of the field and the rest of these guys might be racing for third [Music] well that's ryan woods all the way over at twister and in the lead and you saw that carnage the spear throw caused in this field about half of the top men missed a combination of the fatigue of that climb the bucket carry and some crosswinds affecting things a little bit but woods looks very strong right now a full obstacle ahead of atkins at this moment on the armor obstacle ryan woods knows he's going to have to run like the wind right now because he's being stalked by one of the greatest champions in this sport and there's many obstacles where atkins is going to be able to pull a few seconds here or there atkins also an excellent downhill runner so as we descend off this mountain who would hold off atkins and with woods on the multi-rig as atkins approaches it's those clean efforts crisp and fast that woods is gonna need to keep up to hold him off behind us right now the question is who's chasing for third because it's josh reed that we saw exiting the spear throw area in third place after all those missed spears ken alar's arneson ken and mark cadet worked themselves back into this race and now the rope traverse wood's arriving still in first place a very good quick effort out of him in a good transition and right into beater no problem at all for old man woodsy as he hits the barbed wire woods just needs to keep on pressing [Applause] foreign here we go [Music] quick work of that slip wall note for those at home as they work their way down the back end of those stairs right there those are much more slippery than they used to be when they were wood the metal is slicker and we've seen a lot of people fall into those we've seen it happen to mark cadet this year we've seen it happen to josiah midow in jacksonville so be careful on those descents and now the heavy atlas stone it looks like atkins is charging back into this thing that's atkins you can see him and he can smell blood because he can see woodsy too we're just finishing the goal you got ryan woodsy absolutely smashing it but not that far behind him at all 23 seconds so far was the last little split there's ryan atkins just over here finishing the atlas carry 23 seconds isn't much at all on a long long course sandbag is next it's a long one and then it's downhill from there we'll see how woodsy's descending goes versus atkins but i think atkins got a lot left in him well we'll see and here's josh reed finishing up that multi rig job followed by josh fry right here fry really setting that grip being cautious tough transitions there's a battle for third and fourth place going on as well which is great uh we've got joshua um reading guard is just coming over uh slipper just now and we've got josh frye um underneath barbed wire crawl right now so very very close for third and fourth and if you heard me refer to him as joshua reed or josh reid uh that's what he goes by even though it is reading her we start some of this descending back down atkins such a talented descender woods also very good at descending in his own writing remember he was a member of the team usa mountain running team but he's gonna need to go for it to hold atkins off joshua riding god having the race of his life right now third place taking it all in beautiful scenery here hey good morning foreign heading down into the sandbag you see how technical it is right here all that rocky loose stuff really tests the ankles and your lower leg stability but atkins is attacking this with such confidence coming in here for the sandbag carry 60 pound bags third place josh dry not too far away in fourth place and then you've got ryan atkins and ryan woodsy right down there what an amazing race this is can you hear this for a second boy adkins has closed that gap hasn't he ryan atkins now just probably six or seven seconds behind ryan woods as they come out of this sandbag they're gonna come out basically together that's angel quintero coming in running hard it seems like he's in no rush his objective to stay with woodsy but he doesn't need to pass him right there he might pass him coming right out because it's now about a second and a half between them and this must be a moment of confidence for ryan atkins knowing i just closed all of that gap in one obstacle you might see the pass right here on this obstacle the monkey bars and there you have it not too far behind the ryan's birthday he's trying to hold third place he's got josh frye [Music] joshua reed running like his life depends on it holding on to that third place position right now [Music] oh [ __ ] oh i just look at my shoulder oh [ __ ] do you know how to put back in his shoulder i don't ah [ __ ] and this is a big problem for josh reedinger as woods has managed to claw back that lead and now as he climbs again he's back in it good job brother thank you it looks like josh redinger also back in it shoulder back in place you're rolling keep it up so crazy descent but they've gone down to the bottom uh they've passed the model uh seven mile marker and they're coming up the hill now so you can just see ryan atkins just behind him ryan woods so it's still neck and neck um they've got a big climb all the way up to stairway to spada and then what they do is that horrific descent uh big lucy kind of baby head rocks all the way down and then to the obstacle gauntlet down the bottom very very tight finish you saw atkins looking back has he pulled away from woods this time it looks like so body language is a really important part we're going to go and find third place as well but just seeing ryan's body language his breathing is good he just looks relaxed i really do think that uh i it's early to tell but he might well have this in the bag ryan woods just seems a little bit you know trying to just keep up with him um i wouldn't say desperate but he's he's working harder by the looks of it um time will tell well i did not see that coming but that is awesome we've got angel quintero he's from mexico he's an awesome mountain runner he's just overtaken joshua uh joshua reid that's awesome for third place we know he can run we know he can run up these hills quickly he's done it before in third place right now this is extremely exciting nice right brother so third and fourth right there yeah you saw that right ryan atkins in the front followed by ryan woods and then angel quintero overtaking josh reid moving into third place quintero is but you can see reed on his heels right now as they do a little bit of power hiking it's gonna become about guts at this point we also saw a few other things we saw that don't worry about that that's an ultra runner right there we saw mark cadet moving back up into the field he passed josh fry we haven't seen lars arneson in a while but the question is are these guys who missed the spear able to run themselves back into podium contention there are races happening all over this course not just the race for first place the race for third just as close as woodsy has pulled atkins back again on this climb and you could see atkins shifting gears again starting to pick things up he likes to do some of this fast slow work 20 on 10 off things like that in his training as he does climbs and it looks like he's doing a little bit of that on this climb here working hard easing off the gas then working hard again because you see woodsy starting to pull him back again let's see if there's another acceleration from atkins this is the steep stuff right here there's a max incline or a max elevation gradient of about 29 somewhere on this course and they might be hitting it now as atkins throws another surge and again as steve mentioned the body language atkins looking so comfortable woods is giving his all starting the descent now how much can these guys go with the downhill can they go with gravity and avoid breaking it's steep but it's also rocky that's part of the issue here is that all this rubble in this debris that you see these ankle biters this is a very pivotal part of the race we've got ryan atkins and ryan woods we know ryan atkins can descend extremely well ryan wizzy is also a mountain runner but it is extremely loose if you have a look at the terrain down here this is a quite crazy descent so there's a bit of risk versus reward going on over the inverted wall ryan atkins such fluidity to that move right there doesn't miss a step here we go we're going to get on ourselves onto the western states trail and it's a crazy descent all the way down my aim is to show you right in action for a week snippet we will see that's funny we gotta love these first-person views that our rabbits are giving us this is what the athletes are seeing so we're here with ryan woodsy beautiful single truck running and quintero has made it over to the stairway to sparta such a tough obstacle so tough to get that leg up but he uses his knee a new technique huh everybody's got their own style to get up this one over the table top to the vertical cargo goes atkins and still woods has given chase atkins does not have it yet as good as he looks right now we know what woods can do with a little bit of extra distance and atkins you can see how he's really going with that hill he's not breaking at all he's not digging his heels in at all his squads aren't having a fire he's just rolling with gravity this is a lesson one-on-one in descending and look at quintero and his descent huh might as well be running on flat ground man he looks good right behind quintero though that's joshua reed still fighting for that podium position this is a battle for third place between these two men and here's woodsy again ryan woods in his final major race if he doesn't go to abu dhabi we'll see but looking very strong this is right before the big finishing gauntlet and he is by himself he seems to have passed ryan woods put some distance between him atkins is off and moving and ryan woods not far behind maybe about a minute back given chase it's gonna be a tough task to overcome ryan atkins right now who looks very solid on this sandbag carry now this thing is not super steep but it's just long it's just deep enough to hurt there's a couple little kickers you can see one just up ahead before that curve where it really breaks your rhythm you have to hike it it's almost impossible to run and then as it gets further up it actually gets steeper for a while ryan woods is clearly putting a big push to the finish seeing if he can close this gap and atkins looks like he's in no rush on this carry he looks back just to see what his lead is does woods does old man woodsy have one more charge in him he's smiling all right so right now it's a two-man race it's ryan atkins it's ryan woods it's the battle of the ryans and these are the two guys that we knew had redemption on their minds at the start of this race and one of these guys is going to leave a champion on this course and the other one is going to have to settle for second but both of them running strong still close together only about a minute apart there's a ton of obstacles still to go and a bit of running where if one of them starts to fatigue anything still could happen it's anybody's race but right now ryan atkins is in control a little bit of friendly love between friends right there competitors first but always friends both of these ryans and atkins is just coming to the end of this carry and life gets a little bit better here because there's no more climbing and no more running with heavy things that is and by the looks of it quintero is closing in on that sandbag carry himself ryan atkins closing out this sandbag carry he smells victory he's just a few obstacles away and he's still got that lead solidly ahead of ryan woods as he heads into the gauntlet quintero arriving at the sandbag carry now that's the village in the distance third place coming into the carry angel quintero of mexico we were surprised to see him at the start of this race but we turned and said to each other this is a guy who's going to be a huge factor today we've seen him win in breckenridge we've seen him beat atkins there and a number of other top racers and he is looking strong right now oh [Applause] and quintero is on his way up this last climb as atkins has made it to the helix and watch how fast he gets through helix he has figured this one out [Music] so ryan woods about a minute 10 behind ryan atkins right now coming off the sandbag carry one last push quintero has to finish out this climb he does have a hungry josh reed behind him [Music] ryan atkins now entering the village as he comes over the a-frame cargo net and as he works his way down next up it's gonna be the tire flip [Music] quintero just about to the peak of this climb told you it gets steep and ugly up there [Music] but everything is flat from here on out for ryan atkins even if your legs are absolutely done you can run through this village with that crowd those cheers and look how close this is between angel quintero and josh reid who is really close the gap on that carry third place still up for grabs [Applause] but here's your men's leader ryan atkins coming to finally claim victory on this course here in tahoe and here's the tire flip nice level surface should make this very easy to get your fingers under get grip no problem at all for atkins he's one flip away ryan atkins making quick work of that tire flip and he's on to olympus now katero's gonna have to move right now to hold off josh reid [Applause] atkins again putting on the clinic standing between ryan atkins and the north american championship so fast through olympus [Applause] and now a rope climb [Applause] ryan atkins is on to the final obstacles josh reedus hit the eight-foot box he is not far behind quintero clearly feeling that shoulder still we've seen athletes dislocate their shoulders on this obstacle [Music] and into the pipe layer for josh reid part of that finishing gauntlet ryan atkins knows he's a man who has this championship wrapped up just a few pulls ryan atkins with ease to the top [Applause] and ryan atkins will claim the north american championship for 2021 an incredible effort from ryan atkins who finally wins on this tahoe course and ryan woods chasing right behind finishing his final go here at this lake tahoe venue just a few hoist pulls [Music] so strong and still having fun with it that's a lot different yes yes ryan a much lighter hoist than in west virginia ryan woods has wrapped up the day second place overall for ryan woods as angel quintero closes it in and ryan woods is gonna relish this second place finish his final run here in lake tahoe and not a bad way to finish a big hug from ryan atkins and ryan woods two champions showing a lot of respect to one another two north american champions and now angel quintero is trying to close this thing out as he tries to hold off josh reid the two of them on this tire flip huge moment right here joshua reid he's on olympus right now he's just overtaken angel quintero for third place this is super super exciting he makes it through this i believe that he's gonna get it and he's got burpees joshua reed's shoulder is dislocated once again and angel kotero able to go by because josh reed is working on one arm and cannot make it through this olympus obstacle and he's going to have to take burpees here and angel quintero is through reed momentarily over overtook him on that tire flip obstacle and then that shoulder came out of the socket again oh that is just so painful not just physically but just such an emotionally crushing blow for josh reid massive turn of events just there josh for the second time he uh dislocated his shoulder so he did that on monkey bars and uh did that again on olympus so he's just straight through um and he'll can tear into third place amazing amazing run but uh yeah i feel really sorry for uh joshua was having the race of his life and angel quintero doing his best to finish this last strength obstacle to put mexico on the podium one canadian athlete one american athlete and now with angel quintero joining the mix one mexican athlete as well you can't ask for a more perfect podium than that as angel quintero comes out of nowhere this year we haven't seen him all year but here he is to take third in the north american championships an amazing finish from the mexican legend angel quintero [Music] josh had his shoulder put back in he did burpees on olympus he's still in fourth place mark cadet and josh fry are doing burpees on the tire they're finding it really really hard this course is uh this course has been epic it's a very very testing for them especially on that last descent but let's see if josh just needs to use a lot of his feet and get up this is just such a hard thing to watch an athlete who's put in so much for part of their body to fail them but look at him using his legs and getting up this thing can his shoulder last for one more obstacle [Applause] usually i say the man who finishes second suffers the most of anyone in a race but today that man just might be josh reid trying to take home fourth place can he get this shoulder to hold together for just this hoist so josh has got here technique just to look after his arm this is the last stop score if he gets this he secures fourth place bloody amazing there's a spartan right there and josh reedus pulled it off he's on his way over to the finish line fourth place today striding out is joshua reid still the race of his lifetime he sadly won't take the podium he ran a podium race and he'll have to settle for fourth but a great showing and those are your top three men we're here with your north american champion ryan atkins and this is a moment of redemption for you today on this course so first of all what did this race mean to you before we get into everything that happened i think it meant a lot i've never like actually had a great race here never felt good top of the climb so i really wanted to come back and just race well and whatever that meant if that meant third or second or first um i'd be happy with it but yeah i felt good out there already smart everybody's clean and yeah finally buried that demon congratulations amazing race and and we finally got that monkey off your back so cheers i'm here at the finish line second place finisher north american championship ryan woods ryan what a phenomenal performance today you just didn't manage to hang on yeah i can still get those steep downhills so each time we crashed to the uphills you just put gaps on me and i was fighting back and uh you know i got to watch them run away from me on that final descent you know which is it's always good when you're hanging in there with acting so probably screwed up in terms of my season like i raced a race in late may and normally that's when i'm starting my build back up so i took my summer break much later and i just wasn't ready to go for utah nashville and i'm kicking myself because you know i did pretty well in those races without being too far now i'm starting to really round into shape so what does the future hold for ryan woods from here well i mean this is probably my last race you know uh i won't be chasing the series anymore you know i'm getting it'll be 43 in march so uh you know it's kind of a good swan song for me i uh still gonna be fit and running so if you guys will have me back at races i'll do definitely the local ones if you guys have a local us series like west virginia you know i'd love to come out to those but i think this is kind of the end of the line for me mate we will always have a spot for you a phenomenal athlete congratulations today uh great performance ryan woods second place well it's been an amazing experience watching ryan woods over the years we're gonna certainly miss him and a big congratulations to ryan atkins for everyone who watched this race thank you for joining us we will see you all in telluride [Music]

Channel: Spartan Race

Views: 9,747

Rating: 4.9111109 out of 5

Keywords: Spartan Race, Spartan, OCR, Obstacle Course Racing

Id: bxYoDRXOxiM

Length: 52min 3sec (3123 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 29 2021