The sounds of his job fade into distant echoes, barely a whisper in his mind.

His focus, instead, locked on the trail ahead.

Mud clings to his shoes.

Ninety pounds of chain drag at his shoulders.

Rope climbs and monkey bars dare him to quit.

Barbed wire forces him low, every inch forward a test of strength and will.

On days like this, he is the true definition of a weekend warrior.

Through it all, choir teacher Janson Guillen pushed past the pain to place 10th in the world in his age group at the West Virginia Spartan World Championships. 

“I fell in love with the challenge. The community, the physical test, the mental test, it’s unlike anything else I’ve ever done, Guillen said. “You see veterans, people who’ve lost limbs, people who do it every weekend. Everyone supports each other, and it’s motivating to see how much people push themselves.”

Unlike traditional road races, Spartan Races combine distance running with military-style obstacles. Runners carry 70-pound sandbags or 90-pound chains, climb ropes, swing across monkey bars, and crawl under barbed wire. Some courses even include half-mile swims or rock bucket carries, adding extra distance beyond the listed mileage. 

Guillen first attempted a Spartan Trifecta weekend, which includes a 5K, 10K, and half-marathon, all in one weekend, in March. 

“I wanted something that pushed my whole body, not just running,” Guillen said. “These races force you to train your upper body, your grip, everything; it’s a total workout.”

Training for Guillen is intense as he divides his workouts in ways that benefit his body for Spartan races.

“I split my week into push days, pull days, and Spartan-specific workouts,” Guillen said. “That includes stair machines with weights, weighted carries, and lots of grip training: monkey bars, rope climbs, anything I can find.” 

Recovery for him is just as carefully engineered as his workouts, from tracking protein intake to scheduling dedicated rest days, Guillen ensures his body is ready to withstand the next course. 

“[I recover] with lots of protein,” Guillen said. “I try to get at least 180-200 grams of protein a day. It’s a lot to do with supplements, whether that’s the protein, creatine, amino acids, to try to help my muscles recover quicker, but also help them grow and get stronger. And then for that fourth day of rest, it’s really important for me to just do nothing to kind of help recover everything.”

Even with a disciplined routine, finding time for training around his teaching and personal life can be a challenge for Guillen. 

Regardless of the difficulty, the payoff for Guillen is more than the medals. 

“There always comes a point in every race where your body’s just deteriorated, your mind wants to quit,” Guillen said. “But you always end up finishing somehow, someway. Finishing [the race], getting the medal, getting your picture taken with it, is like a big reward factor for it. And so is the fact that no matter what difficult things you may encounter in any aspect of your life, if you practice going through the difficult and coming out on the other side, you end up feeling a lot more confident in your abilities. I think you can take that like anywhere in life.”