Are you sick of the relentless pussification of Wall Street? Does it just burn you up inside that the majority of your co-workers consider eating 8 items from the vending machine over the course of 12 hours a challenge, which most of them would fail miserably and not be put in a burlap sack and beaten? Do you want harken back to a time when instead of being asked to participate in some dinky little JPMorgan 5k “challenge” or harangued into taking a Pilates class with one of your colleagues and getting your nails done after, you were going around the office signing people up for a feat of strength involving rolling around in the dirt, being lit on fire, and possibly dying? You’re not alone.
A small but growing number of financial services professionals are taking part in “extreme adventures” such as the “Spartan Race” and the “Death Race,” in which participants are forced to, among other things, crawl under barbed wire and defy their food allergies. The events are operated by Peak Races, which was founded by Collins Stewart managing director Joseph Desena, who describes the company’s MO as such: “Our best analogy to present our message is that we are all animals. Visualize this: You come home one day and your pet is watching Oprah, drinking a coffee, toenails painted, smoking a cigarette, and complaining that she needs a new mattress. Or you come home and that same dog just ran 22 miles chasing a bird, killed it, ate it raw, and drank some water. Which animal is the normal one?” I honestly have no idea how that is supposed to communicate what PR’s message is but what I think Desana is getting at, and what I suspect were probably his original words before his quote was cleaned up for print was, “You wanna be a man or you wanna be a f*g?”
Assuming you said you wanted to be the dog that eats birds “raw,” here’s what you’ll have to look forward to in exchange for a $50-70 entrance fee:
“Spartans, prepare for glory!” bellows a bearded man in a cape and helmet as he paces before more than 1,700 jittery aspiring warriors. “No retreat! No surrender! That is Spartan law. Remember to return with your shield—or on it!” Then he grunts—”Ah-roo!”—and a horde of adrenalized hoplites charges forth with abandon. Soil abounds in Brooklyn’s Spartan Race. For more than three miles, racers overcome irregularly spaced hurdles, a 12-foot-high pile of wood and dirt, a horizontal climbing wall, an inclined ramp greased with shortening, and—just before the finish line—two bare-chested men with jousting sticks. It’s messy, but is it really Spartan? “I’m a big fan of the movie 300, and we were looking for a symbol that represented ingenuity, bravery, strength, and the will to overcome adversity,” says co-founder Sevigny. “The Spartans were renowned for that.”
And it’s not just for Spartan dudes, Spartan ladies are welcome, too. Stefanie Bishop, pictured, has been doing these things for about a year and says the events are a great way to put the ax she owns to good use and to also pick up new clients for her day job as a vice-president of equity derivatives at brokerage firm Elevation. She was the first woman finisher and sixth overall in this past winter’s Death Race, in which she had to sit in an “ice-broken pond” for 45 minutes and chug a gallon of milk. “One of the girls was lactose-intolerant,” she said. “She put it down pretty quickly, but part of it came up.”
Another bafflingly cruel Death Race task required Bishop to bushwhack through mountainous woods carrying a pack filled with $50 worth of pennies (about 28 lbs.), 10 lbs. of raw onions, and an 8-lb. Greek language primer (for later use in translating the sentence “The race is only a quarter over”). In the middle of the woods they were met by a crowned man who called himself the Onion King. Contestants were forced to chop up the onions in 1-in.-by-1-in. pieces, sort them into 1-lb. bags, and eat one bag. On the other side of the mountain, they had to eat another pound. It could have been worse: During the winter running of the race, contestants were given a sequence of eight two-and three-digit numbers to memorize. After running four miles, they had to recite it correctly—or else run back up the mountain.
WHO IS IN?
In the Nebraska version of the story, newly minted bankers have to run through the town of Beatrice, Nebraska, stop a local citizen and mispronounce the name of the town as “BEE-ah-triss” and then suffer the harangue that follows on how to properly pronounce the name of the town as “bee-AT-triss”.
what ever happened to speed hummers?
Handbridge required.
This is so unbelieveably fucking lame
get a job on a ranch and add value you pussies
running around in the woods eating onions is about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard
“I’m a big fan of the movie 300″. Dude probably drives a Cayenne, too.
A really tough part of the Death Race I participated in was when we had to shave our chests and simultaneously try to explain whether our options book was net 2 billion short or net 4 billion long to a Barclay’s rep.
Former Lehman Trader
I’d let her chop my wood….. metaphorically speaking.
Pussies. Let me know when you are ready for some real fun.
Lights on, and by ‘lights on’ I mean by moonlight on the side of a wooded mountaintop while the Onion King sodomizes me with three rolls of quarters and whispers sweet nothings to me in Greek.
cocktail napkins.
No mention of a certain “Tavern”? Must not be much of a race then.
You have to shroom before all this, right?
I once ran barefoot through Penn Station to catch the 5:04 to Ronkonkoma.
So my choices are the coffee, cigarettes, and couch-based TV watching package, or playing make-believe army man with people who ask to sit on a frozen lake and chug milk. Who did this asshole say was the normal one?
I’ll teach her some “Greek”!
Lame. try a fucking Ironman or triatholon instead of this bullshit fantasy land.
Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.
Oh, the stories I could tell.
The Onion King
That axe never gets old
Someone call the waaaaaabulance!
I train athletes for extreme endurance events.
-Ping Capital Quant
I’d like to buy the rights to the “Onion King” moniker for a potential new line of adult themed toys and devices for personal, sensual use.
Gundlach
Why not just shoot guns and kill animals. This is as awful as LARP. Plus I can eat the onions, run the hills, kill and dress a deer, AND bench 250#.
Pretty good for a bantamweight player.
well played my good man(?)
What’s the first rule of Spartan Club? THere is no Spartan Club!
Yeah, well, the Spartans were also renowned for sodomizing little boys (it was ok as long as there was no anal involved).
“Visualize this: You come home one day and your pet is watching Oprah, drinking a coffee, toenails painted, smoking a cigarette, and complaining that she needs a new mattress.”
Sure, but how is her ass?
-D. Kneale
In Soviet Russia, your money wastes you!!!
go on get them out.
Sounds gay.
i have a sneaking suspicion the onion king will be with us for a long time after today
http://76.my/UserImages/Items/0907/07/madkit@12.jpg
BLEWME–GUNDLACH HEADLINE “BOTTOMING PROCESS” Help me
Pussies. There’s an organization that will PAY you to walk around in the Hindu Kush, chasing actual tough guys. No onions in this “adventure,” just AK rounds and IEDs. This Cayenne-driving sissy embarrasses himself.
Pussies. There’s an organization that will PAY you to walk around in the Hindu Kush, chasing actual tough guys. No onions in this “adventure,” just AK rounds and IEDs. This Cayenne-driving sissy embarrasses himself.
The Spartans were Catholic priests, too?? Who knew??
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-31/doubleline-s-gundlach-cuts-treasuries-as-yields-begin-bottoming-process-.html
helped myself thankyouverymuch
I see the “Like” and “reply” button, but where’s the “Little Bitch”?
My 17th interview at Goldman was an exact rendition of The Most Dangerous Game. LvP made me swear on GS’s Businesses Principles (“Commandments”) that I would never release the details, but obviously since I’m posting here, you can correctly deduce that I was asked to come back the following week for another chat.
I would look so regal in that shirt
in soviet russia, the king onions you.
Hey Desana, you pussy. Meet me at Minetta’s to discuss how I will turn you into sour mash and drink you. I will be the poodle with pink nail polish drinking a cosmo.
As they say in Australiar, I’d chop her!
Anyone catch this nugget in the comments section of the BW article?
“King Tito-Neidas
Aug 27, 2010 11:35 PM GMT
Great Article! Any chance you can tag the photo of me? Tyler “Tito” Keefe as King Tito-Neidas Thanks! “
I know which one the dog would prefer. And I’d agree. Especially with me not being a massive whoopsy and all.
Man these Spartans are fags.
-Elton John
Theoretically stupid; economically unproductive; in practice retarded.
Other than that I have no concerns.
That race is for the meek. Try drinking a gallon of breast milk while in a hot tub located at a Rocky mountian resort. That reduced O2 is a pain to deal with.
Of course.
What’s all the nay-saying about? Punch of pussy bankers can’t complete the challenge?
Ya that’s what I thought, get back to correcting the font on your pitchbooks. Don’t worry, after you have realized you wasted all your 20′s analyzing worthless shit, I’ll make sure to bust a nut on your forehead as I complete a deal in Paris that leaves me the rest of the week to party. Leave the tough shit to the traders.
-Your bosses bosses bosses boss
Onions make me gassy.
other than that, I have no concerns.
These pussies also probably still play D&D in their mother’s basement.
Which is a lamer concept– this pseudo-USMC training thing (that sounds more like a frat hazing but whatever) or the dateharvardsq.com thing from yesterday?
I tried a Death Race once, and beat Morgan Stanley.
- Dick Fuld
“Playing D&D in your mother’s basement” is how I’ll now refer to having sex with someone’s mom.
Seems like the ’75 version of Deathrace would be more appropriate for this audience. Well, that, and hunting humans for sport.
Goldman?
OK, you go run up a mountain backwards eating onions while shouting in Greek that you like to have sex with goats.
I’ll show up with a lawnchair, a 12-pack and an air rifle and take shots at you while you lag.
Who’s going to have the most fun?
“Oh,” said the general, “it supplies me with the most exciting hunting in the world. No other hunting compares with it for an instant. Every day I hunt, and I never grow bored now, for I have a quarry with which I can match my wits.”
SAC.
Chuck Palahniuk would like his monologue back.
Where are my hips? Am I sure I am not a tranny?
Best. Tags. Ever
Since when does doing things in Brooklyn make you more manly…
In Soviet Russia it did.
“the traders”
Yes yes it’s always easy to hinder than create, right banker bro?
-Guy who likes to start shit with Bankers
it’s strange that you are under the bizarre assumption that everyone here is a banker and no one a trader.
Actually those were the Athenians not the Spartans
So that’s why the company is called Elevation…
Well done. Don’t you have a little league game to go to and knocked out at?
I’d let her eat my 1 lb bag of onions, if you know what I mean.
Stefanie Bishop should be running in the Preakness with the Noel sisters
I don’t knowwwwww Bessie I never met a trader that backed down from a challenge. I have met plenty of Bankers that think they are too good for getting their hands dirty.
I brought a bottle of Tanqueray and a shotgun and showed them the best damn time they’ve ever had.
The Onion King is a friend-a-mine.
-CG
That’s not a death race. This is a death race…
http://www.canadiandeathrace.com/
Beth – Take a Vaca
Actually, I’m a PM. Now please go execute your orders like a good little robot.
The Spartans sodomized their women– was the only form of premarital sex they allowed (go look it up).
What the fuck, Bess? I just got the pants I ordered from Bonobos, and they’re too short–by like 20 percent.
OptionsTrader is the coolest guy he knows
I’ll be the one with the 12 gauge over&under & a liter of Turk 101.
You ordered the right size? They run small since they’re targeted at investment bankers and bowlegged african primates.
That’s because they are shorts. So don’t go around pretending you’re too tall for your pants. You’re a midget banker, like everyone else.
Just so you know, you can toggle the PIK and send them worthless garbage as payment. But you knew that.
Watch your mouth, asshole.
best DB post of the year.
and yes, definitely required.
Sounds like that guy Desena never said or implied anything close to what this idiot wrote about.. he should sue her personally and should sue the magazine.. Desena is trying to build an awesome brand that appeals to people’s health and this idiot goes and put that slanderous thing in quotes implying that he said that? get a life lady.. the writer of this should be sued and punished for that.. its this kind of trash that works agianst our decent society. terrible.
Sounds like that guy Desena never said or implied anything close to what this idiot wrote about.. he should sue her personally and should sue the magazine.. Desena is trying to build an awesome brand that appeals to people’s health and this idiot goes and put that slanderous thing in quotes implying that he said that? get a life lady.. the writer of this should be sued and punished for that.. its this kind of trash that works agianst our decent society. terrible.
Sounds like that guy Desena never said or implied anything close to what this idiot wrote about.. he should sue her personally and should sue the magazine.. Desena is trying to build an awesome brand that appeals to people’s health and this idiot goes and put that slanderous thing in quotes implying that he said that? get a life lady.. the writer of this should be sued and punished for that.. its this kind of trash that works agianst our decent society. terrible.
Very cute, but if she starts singing “Only You” in six languages I would leave.
http://www.shawneepeakchallenge.com
bud does he lie it’s his wife’s car as his is in the garage?
OMG, you are never more alive than before you die!