This year, DeSena decided to experience the death race as a participant. For the 2009 running, set for the last weekend in June, he turned over course design to disinterested officials. He submitted his entry in an unofficial capacity, to avoid depriving less worthy contestants of the prize money.

Of the 57 registrants, 49 arrived, paying a $50 entry fee to compete for a $2,000 purse. They ranged in age from 16 to past 50. The townspeople welcomed them, for the most part, though somebody did object to the proposed use of an air horn to signal the 4 a.m. start.

“We enjoy having them here,” said Ron Colton, whose family has lived in Pittsfield for generations. “We wouldn’t want them every day.”

The course spanned 10 miles of mountain trails, ravines, lakes, underbrush and a burnt-out thicket known as the Labyrinth. The physical challenges included digging holes, chopping wood and hauling encumbrances like bicycles, tree stumps and buckets of gravel. The riddles included naming American presidents, assembling Lego structures from memory and cooking without modern tools. Each of the 14 tasks was expected to take two hours. A 24-hour time limit was set. Mathematically speaking, the designers considered their course all but impossible.

Image A mascot for the Death Race, a 24-hour endurance event of various tasks. Credit... Caleb Kenna for The New York Times

Four days before the race, Second Lt. Richard Lee of the Royal Marines (who list among their official values determination, courage and cheerfulness) arrived in town. Discharged last November because of a broken leg, Lee had been hiking the mountainous former colonies as a means of rehabilitation. At 27, he cut the dashing figure of a gentleman explorer, with a girlfriend in tow. He weighed in at 143 pounds.

“We managed to beg, borrow or steal the equipment: an ax, a bicycle,” Lee said before the race. Summoning all the bluster his Englishness would allow, he vowed to do his level best against DeSena, saying, “I’m going to keep going until I cannot physically move.”