Tom Shankapotomous

This review covers the Spartan SoCal Trifecta Weekend at Perris Lake, including the Beast, Super, and Sprint courses. It focuses on terrain, elevation, obstacle placement, and overall race flow across all distances. Conditions, course changes, and practical takeaways are documented from an on-site perspective.

This four-part series examines how the ancient Greeks transformed fear into structure, from Artemis and the sacred moment of exposure to Apollo’s conversion of ordeal into law. Tracing the wolf from threshold to rule, it follows how what begins in the wild is drawn into the city and made authoritative. The series culminates in Sparta’s agōgē and Krypteia, exposing how societies decide who belongs, who endures, and what must be removed for order to hold.

his race season includes two parallel efforts: the Night Sky Archive and the Dirt Project. Together, they document the same material at different stages—elemental matter observed in nebulae and galaxies, and the settled material found at race venues on Earth. This work runs alongside race coverage throughout the season and provides context for the observations collected week to week.