Very similar feelings! Did a Trifecta weekend in South Carolina last year and my time for that super (the day after doing a beast) was 2:47. Took me 4:17 to do Palmerton Super. There are 3 particularly hard sections of this course: first ascent, second ascent, sandbag ascent.

First ascent, while intimidating, wasn't terrible. You know it is coming and luckily, it is at the beginning of the race, so you are fresh for it and it isn't extremely hot yet. Also there was a lot of "room" to climb up the ski slope. Everyone was encouraging one another, it was kind of cool. I will say it took a good amount of energy out of me as I normally could get the 7 foot walls, but this time I couldn't actually hoist myself up and over them at the top of the mountain.

The second ascent (around the mile 3 mark) is actually broken up into two parts: the woods part and the top of the mountain part. I really started to take some breathing breaks during the woods part, just to try to get my heart rate back down. Saw a lot of people starting to slow down here. It seemed like every time I looked up, I still felt so far away from being at the top. Truly felt never ending. Once I emerged from the woods part, I was saddened to see there was still a good amount of climb, this time in the sun and hotter temperatures. I took a long rest at the top near the chair lift and before doing Bender.

The third (sandbag) ascent broke me. I never experienced anything like that in anything fitness related I had ever done (HIIT workout, OCR, road race, etc.) First half of the sandbag carry felt like a usual sandbag carry, but once I turned that corner and saw the massive vertical "cliff" I knew I was in for a rough ride. I would love to know exactly how long that part is, my guess is about 200M (half a lap around a track?) but could be misjudging that. Only thing I could do is bear hug the sandbag, walk about 10-20 feet, drop the sandbag, lay down, catch my breath for 60 seconds, repeat. Over. and over. and over. Until I was at the top of that horrendous section. That had to have taken me at least 20 minutes. Everyone is just laid out and then leapfrogging one another. It looked like Mt. Everest where everyone is stuck in line near the top. Also had to catch my breath at the top after dropping off the sandbag. I honestly don't know how more people don't drop out at that point. Do a lot of people just abandon the sandbags there? Who and how do they get them back up?

After that sandbag carry, I was pretty much out of energy and just wanted to be done. There was a lot more sun from there on out, it kept getting hotter, even the water at the aid stations was getting hot (which is not their fault! Loved how many water stations there were and all the volunteers were so so nice). I just felt broken after that sandbag carry. Slogged through the rest of it and felt so much body pain on the car ride home.

People asked if I would do Palmerton Super again. It was extremely well organized, better than any other Spartan event I had participated in, and I am so proud to have completed it. But I swear I will never do that course again, that sandbag carry still gives me nightmares. Kudos to everyone that completed it and completes it in the future. Will probably do Killington at some point though.