Bigfork woman wins Spartan Beast elite division

Bigfork’s Kaci Monroe took the lead early in Saturday’s Spartan Beast and never gave it up, finishing the 12-plus mile gauntlet in just under two-and-a-half hours, a whopping six minutes ahead of the next closest competitor.

“I love the feel of competition,” Monroe said. “My goal is always to feel good about a race and feel like I left everything out there and did my best physical performance.”

Spartan races are miles-long obstacle courses designed to test an athlete’s physical and mental limits. Races take place around the country and this past weekend, Sparta came to Bigfork — turning Flathead Lake Lodge into an all-out battleground. There was a vertical cargo net to summit, slanted walls to traverse and massive stones to carry.

Oh, and all that plus a 12-plus mile run over hilly, uneven terrain.

Monroe was one of 15 elite female competitors who were running the Beast — the second-longest race offering in Spartan’s lineup — for prize money. Unlike athletes in the open division, elites can’t accept assistance from anyone else on the course. They have to either conquer the obstacle or pay the price of failure — 30 penalty burpees — a setback that can easily cost them the race.

Monroe, a Bigfork native who owns Riverbend Physical Therapy in Bigfork, comes to the sport with a background in competitive running, along with a consistency and tenacity that gives her a leg up over the competition. She ran cross-country and track in high school, finishing as state champion in the 3,200 during her senior year before attending the University of Montana on a running scholarship.

“My speed is not there anymore, but I can still be really competitive in these races because it mixes things up,” Monroe said. “It shows the true athlete — you have to be a little bit of a gymnast, a little bit of a runner, a little bit of a weightlifter.”

Twenty-thirteen was the first year the Spartan Race came to Bigfork. At the time, Monroe was working as a physical therapist in Kalispell when the owner of Flathead Health and Fitness asked for her help teaching a Spartan Race boot camp. While Monroe was an experienced athlete, she wasn’t quite sure if obstacle course racing was her cup of tea. However, not only did Monroe opt to help train the racers, she decided to become one herself and ran the Spartan Race that year in the open division.

“I ended up doing pretty well,” she said.

Her times were fast enough to beat the women elites. It was then Monroe knew she might be onto something and decided to take the sport more seriously.

She did a handful of races over the next couple years and upped the ante in 2017 with 25 races, plus another 25 the following year.

In 2018 and 2019, Monroe placed third overall in the Spartan Mountain Series — a collection of races held in strictly mountainous environments. She also took 13th in the world in 2018 and 16th the next year and has her sights set on a top 10 finish at both the Spartan North American Championship and the Spartan World Championship in Abu Dhabi.

“I run almost everyday and then I do strength training 2-3 times a week and work on grip strength,” Monroe added.

Her dad built her a rig — a structure with rings, a rope and bars — so she can build her upper body and grip strength, and she’s got a spear throwing setup at home, too.

“Usually on my birthday [my husband] will build me some kind of obstacle,” she said.

And all that practice is paying off. During Saturday’s Spartan Beast event, she ran a clear course, completing every obstacle race organizers threw her way. One of the most challenging to overcome was Olympus — a slanted wall affixed with chains and grips that participants have to pull and step their way across without touching the ground. It requires an immense amount of grip strength and proper positioning to avoid slipping down the wall.

“That one to me is hard because the surface is slippery and it’s all forearm and arm strength,” Monroe said. And while she conquered Olympus Saturday, it was the one obstacle she failed Sunday, when she ran both the Spartan Super — about 6 miles long —and the Spartan Sprint — a 3.1 mile course.

One of her favorite obstacles is also one of the most difficult — the spear throw, which is where competitors lob a metal-tipped wooden spear into a hay or foam target.

“It makes or breaks your race — it takes so little time to do the obstacle….but the penalty is 30 burpees, and that takes a lot of time,” Monroe noted.

The terrain itself can make a huge impact on the difficulty of the course — and Bigfork’s Spartan Race is notoriously hilly.

“It’s very technical and there’s a lot of steep elevation gains and descents,” Monroe said. The course also takes racers off trail so they’re running through brush and over downed trees.

But for Monroe, the constant variation and competitive nature of obstacle course racing keeps her coming back for more.

Adding to her already impressive weekend standings, Monroe is back to racing just six months after giving birth. Motherhood, she said, doesn’t have to be a barrier to athletic pursuits.

“You can do it all,” she said emphatically. “You can come back after having a kid. Having a family doesn’t mean you have to compromise being in athletics.”

Mother.

Spartan racer.

Business owner.

Monroe wears many hats — and many medals.

So what is it that gives her an edge over the rest of the field? Grit.

“I can take a lot of pain,” she said. “I’m a grinder. I go out, and I might not be the fastest one out there, but I’m pretty consistent with obstacles and going uphill … The best thing for me is just getting out and being competitive.”