Cove Necker to compete in Spartan Death Race

Brian Hennessy is preparing for the challenge of his life. Even though he is an endurance athlete, and has been training for months, his participation in the Spartan Death Race, a three-day, physical, mental, emotional challenge in Pittsfield, Vermont, will be anything but easy. The race combines running, hiking, calisthenics, splitting wood and orienteering all while carry a 50 pound pack.

The race directors of the Death Race make it so hard people want to quit. For Hennessy, the Death Race is the ultimate challenge, and no matter what the odds, he is confident he will complete it.

Hennessy, 37, the son of Regina and Alfred Randall, of Cove Neck, moved to the area when he was a senior in high school and returned after graduating from college. Soon he left to pursue a career in television production in NYC, never realizing he’d be back in Cove Neck to train. The hilly terrain provided challenging courses for him to build up his endurance by running. And then Sandy helped too.

“A lot of trees came down due to Sandy and although the trees were cut, no one split them,” Hennessy said. “I split them to train for the race. In Vermont people use firewood to heat their homes so they integrated it into the race.”

Hennessy came to Cove Neck on weekends before Easter to split the wood and do yard work at this parent’s house, which combined with running, was great training. Hennessy said you could never over train for the Death Race.

“The race is on a farm and one year they had the competitors build a stone staircase from the farm to the top of the mountain by hand with no machinery,” he explained, adding that you just never know what you’ll be doing.

Even though Hennessy has participated in other marathons, this will be different.