Mission accomplished! It wasn’t a fast time, nor was it the slowest posted in our age group, but it was a steady effort that placed me in the 47% of the field overall. I’ll take it! Considering that I went from my couch to the course in 3 weeks. My partner could have finished much quicker if he wasn’t continually waiting for me and pushing me to keep moving. Sorry Qualk, but you should have taken off and run your race. I knew I would be fine, but it was great having you in sight the whole time. What an experience. It was an experience that I don’t plan on doing again anytime soon, especially at that distance. Ok, here we go. This may be a long post, but I’ll try to recall as much as I can throughout the event. I call it an event and not a race, because I never considered it a race. To me, a race is for time. An event is something you plan to endure and plan to finish. We both were awake a little before 5 a.m. and eating breakfast by 6:30. I had my regular bagel and Gatorade, and we were off to SC. We were planning on starting at the 9 a.m. heat, but got delayed a bit due to some registration issues. But we got parked, registered, and were on the starting line a little before 9:30. That’s when it hit me that I only had a few minutes before the longest event of my life was getting ready to begin. As we stood in the mass of people at the starting line I kept thinking; “ok, 4 hours of slow and steady”. As the gun or horn went off, we began to jog down a nice open trail. It wasn’t long before we hit our first obstacle of a series of 4 “moats” that you either had to jump over, go through or go around and take a penalty. As I watched Robert effortlessly clear the first one, I thought; “I’ve got this one, I’m a great jumper”. Right before my first jump, someone on my left landed short and slammed into the far side of the moat. I must have cleared the first one by 2 feet out of fear of short selling it. The others were not an issue and so we continued. There were a series of obstacles that weren’t hard at all. Small walls to climb, over-under, etc... We hit our first hill, which was fairly gaspy. Waiting at the top were the handle bars. My biggest concern was slipping, but once I got started, it was surprisingly easy. Got water, and we moved on. I remember a lot of the trail running to be very pleasant. It reminded me of running Cross Country in High School. Nice flat trails in the woods in the cool of the morning. It was nice, but then came the hills. Every time I climbed a hill, I thought, I wouldn’t attempt this on a motorcycle and they have us “running” up them. Some I ran up, but most of them were too steep for me to run, so I walked. Some hills were so steep that you had to hold onto trees to help pull yourself up. Crazy. I’ll spare you the boring details about the trails. There were easy sections and sections that made you want to curse, plain and simple. I knew that there were obstacles that demanded power and strength, and I knew that they would be the ones that would give me the most trouble. The ones that were the toughest were the 50 lb. concrete carry approximately 20 yards, drop it, and then pick it back up and carry back 20 yards. Actually, once I got the weight up, the walk wasn’t difficult. The 25-30 lb. sandbag carry up a loooong hill was pretty bad. To guess, the hill was over 100 yards long, and then you had to carry it down. And this one came after the 12 miles marker. We drove past this obstacle on the way in, but by that time my mind couldn’t think of what was to come. So I completely forgot about it until I came up to it. And that’s pretty tough on the mind to convince yourself you can do it. I had trained my mind every day that slow and steady finished the race. I kept telling myself that to finish the course, was the same way you eat an elephant: one bite at a time. And that’s what kept me going through the finish line. There were 2, 20 foot rope climbs which actually went very well. They were fun and reminded me of childhood. The cargo rope climbs were like climbing on a jungle gym as a kid. I enjoyed them. There was an approximately 50-75 foot rope across a pond that we had to shimmy across, which I have never done. I watched other people’s techniques and tried one of them until I found one that helped me effortlessly complete. I was astonished at how well this one went. I kept thinking: “this is going to be tough”. But once I got started, it wasn’t so bad. I contribute this to my training and my buddy Qualk being there to push me along. It’s funny though how you don’t hear anyone when you’re doing an obstacle, only your breath and whatever you’re telling yourself while you’re doing it. If you don’t train your mind, your body cannot follow, period. There were a few obstacles that we had to do twice throughout the course. And they always came at the worst possible time. I almost ate it, well actually I did, on the second balance section. There were a series of poles (10) at different heights that you had to “walk” across to complete the obstacle. I choose the path that looked like the poles were fairly straight and began my “walk”. I counted the poles and knew I only had 10 steps to make to finish the obstacle. I was good up to about 5, and then vertigo set in and I found myself leaning to the right. I must have crossed 3 lanes of traffic, leaping on to the next pole until I hit my 9th one and lunged towards the last pole. The first thing to hit was my toe, followed by my right hand, followed by my knee, followed by my whole body. As I quickly assessed my legs and saw that I wasn’t cut too bad or hurting, I heard the crowd of onlookers asking the judge if I had made it. There seemed to be a quick moment of silence, and then the ruling: “He touched it before he hit the ground, he’s good”. And the crowd applauded. I had passed the obstacle and was on to the next one. It was a little crazy. Now I had 2 goals going into this event: 1-to finish, and 2-complete every obstacle without penalty. I’m proud to say that Robert and I finished the event without a single penalty. We completed every obstacle the first time with success. I am extremely happy with this accomplishment. There were a few obstacles that absolutely, for lack of a better word, just plainly sucked! The crawl under barbed wire was nothing short of brutal. The first time we had to do it wasn’t so bad, but the second one was after mile 12, and it was at least 100 yards, up a crazy steep hill. Not to mention that the barbed wire was so low at points, you couldn’t help but get stuck on it. Oh, and don’t forget the fact that it looks like it’s just mud, oh no, what you don’t see is the gravel rocks that is underneath the mud. Every step with your knees and elbows were excruciating. At one point, I was completely spread eagle and sliding down the hill. I thought: “this is impossible”. But then I saw others making it through, so I knew that I could get through it. Out of all of the obstacles, the barbed wire crawls were hands down the worst! There’s no preparation you can do to get ready for this abuse. Overall, it was one crazy experience. I am so thrilled, now that it’s over, that I accepted the challenge and completed the course. My hats off to all of the other competitors that were able to complete this challenge. A special kudos to my teammate, Robert Qualkenbush. I don’t think I complained too much, but thanks for completing this event with me. It’s something I will always look back on with satisfaction, and will draw from this experience in the future when there’s an obstacle in front of me that I don’t think I can get through. I learned a lot about myself throughout this journey, and grew more in 3 weeks mentally than I have the last 40 years of my life. Thinking back on the journey, it all gets melted together. I’ll remember parts of the course that I hadn’t thought about for a couple of days, and then there are certain parts that have been burned into my mind that I will never forget. It was an awesome day! It was painful, but man, what an experience. As for soreness, I felt great after the race. Sunday morning I felt good, but the pain started to set in as the day progressed. I finally had to bow down to the Ibuprophen calls in the afternoon, but as for Monday, I feel great considering what I put my body through just a couple days ago. I enjoyed it, but will not be doing one of these events, at least at this distance, anytime soon. As for anyone thinking that something isn't possible, remember this: I was challenged to complete a 13 mile obstacle course with 3 weeks of training. I accepted the challenge and finished it with pride. It wasn't pretty, but I completed it. I've always heard the old saying that "you can do what ever you set your mind to", and now I've experienced it for myself. I will forever look back on this moment in my life when things get tough, and know without a doubt that anything is possible. To Robert, thanks again my man! I truly enjoyed it.
