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PEOPLE PROFILE Richard Lee
A lifelong fitness enthusiast, Lee was forced to rethink his career as a Royal Marine commando following injury. The result is Spartan Race, an obstacle race concept taking the world by storm
From a former Royal Marine to a race organiser – how did that happen? My military employment was cut short due to a bad knee injury. I was planning to make a career out of the military, but found myself in a position where I had to rethink my plans. As luck would have it, it was during that reassessment period that I travelled to Canada on holiday and met my partner Selica. After a brief long-distance relationship, I returned to Canada to be with Selica and as part of my rehabilitation we decided to walk the 2,500-mile Appalachian Trail. On the journey, we passed through
Vermont and came across something called ‘The Death Race’, organised by a man called Joe Desena. The Death Race is a 48-hour, truly crazy endurance race for insane people, during which you never know what’s going to happen next. We ended up competing in the race. Selica was the last woman standing and I finished joint first with an American marine. We realised that Joe’s concept could work anywhere, so we approached him after the event.
So you took the original concept and changed it slightly? We realised that you would only ever find a few hundred crazy people to do a Death Race. What we wanted to ensure with our event was that we took the core elements of the Death Race – the unpredictability, the sense of accomplishment – and then made it more accessible. By doing that, I thought we’d have a model that could be easily replicated pretty much anywhere – and that’s what we now have. Spartan Races range from a three-mile
sprint to the Ultra Beast event, which is a marathon-length (26-mile) obstacle course. Every participant has something different
to aim for, so we offer a range of accessible goals. This ensures that, no matter what their fitness levels, participants have the ability to progress up and eventually do one of our more ‘insane’ races.
April 2013 © Cybertrek 2013
Have you always been into fitness and keeping yourself physically fit? I’ve always been interested in sport and running, but I was more of a mountaineer. In my time, I climbed various peaks in the US before joining the marines. I was also a very active rock climber and skier.
You now work together with your partner Selica. How does that work? I think we’ve done a good job of segregating the roles and our understanding of the business. Selica does fantastic advertising, the branding, the merchandising, the theatrics of it all – making the experience incredible for the user. Her background is in TV and film, so she’s very passionate that every Spartan Race offers an unforgettable experience, and that our brand is perceived in the way we want it to be.
Where do the races take place? At the moment, we have races in England, Australia, Mexico, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Scotland, Canada and India. We’re in talks with about seven other major countries that are signing up this year. We’ve set a goal of having races in 22 countries by 2015.
Who’s your target customer? Age-wise, our core demographic is probably aged 21 years to late 30s. In terms of their profiles, as the races get harder, the participants obviously get fitter. Not everybody is going to sign up for a 26- mile obstacle course race, so we do get all shapes and sizes. We’ve had a 73-year-old, and the youngest participants are 14.
What drives you? When we first came up with the concept, I was driven by the fact that this kind of thing didn’t really exist – we were breaking new ground. Now the drive to succeed for me is the amazing stories we get from our participants – people write to us telling us how much they enjoyed the experience.
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