This...Is...Sparta!!!!

The Spartan Life 

So most of you know that I've had several goals since late May. Primarily given that Dani and I are adopting, my "ah-ha!" moment came: I really need to be healthier. I need to lose this weight for my girl. Secondly, and only a week after firmly deciding that I need start doing that, I found out about a race series called the Spartan. I found a deal to sign up for one called the Spartan Sprint. This amounts to a 5k mud run / obstacle course / burpee challenge....and that's putting it kindly. So...from May until October, several of my friends and I trained hard for this race. In the process I lost over 40 lbs, overcame many demons of self-doubt, and began to truly believe in myself; to believe that I'm capable of things beyond myself; that the Bible is literal when it says "I can do all things through Christ, who gives me strength".

Before the Race

October 19th - Race Day

My friends and I, team DragonClaw as it were, arrive for the race. It's funny how you wistfully ask for challenges, get what you asked for, and are immediately regretful for opening your stupid mouth. In my case, I had mentioned to my friends that we needed to train soaking wet to account for the water weight we'll have on the course. The idea of a mud run was also mistakenly glorified in my minds-eye. On race day, I got both. The course, as I came to find out, ended up having a split of about 20% river/stream, 68% shoe sucking mud that often had an appetite for feet, ankles, and knees, and, perhaps, 12% navigable land that was kind of/sort of dry...but even that may be an exaggeration.

You see, this Spartan Sprint clocked in at about 4.2 miles of course, 15 or so obstacles, and mud.

Mud.

Mud, mud, mud, mud,  mud,  mud, mud,mud,mud,mud,mud,mud,mud,mud,mud,mud,mud, and more mud.

After the Race...and a shower!

Seriously. The amount of mud cannot be described with humans words. Perhaps a series of manly grunts, screams, cries, and growls are a better indicator of the overwhelming amounts of mud.

The preparation my team and I did did not go to waste. When we had begun training, I couldn't do 2 burpees without getting winded. In this race, the tagline that's unique to the Spartan races, is if you can't do an obstacle, and typically you get one shot and that's it, you have to do 30 burpees. At this venue there wasn't really anyone enforcing that. Still, I trained for these damn burpees and I was going to wear this wound with pride. I estimate that I had to burpee something like 5-7 obstacles. So, I did, at best guess, a minimum of 150 burpees, to a mind numbing 210. Somewhere between that.



The effects of exhaustion

Now I'm not going to play up the drama here. I wasn't about to fall over. I had an idea of how long it'd take me to finish this course; I did not, however, factor the mud into the time. I also knew that I would be doing a lot of burpees. I mean, A LOT of burpees. I'll also fess up and say that the burpees I did were half-burpees. With all of that said, and so much counting, I found myself dazed and stumbling through the course and my brain kept counting. Always to 30. It was utterly maddening. It made it seems that even when I wasn't doing burpees my brain was processing the trauma of the burpees to come and getting a good 'ol jump on those counts.

Triumphs

While there were several obstacles I failed, there were an even greater number of them that I could do. I felt pretty confident with all of the strength related obstacles. They proved harder than I thought, but I managed them. The Hercules Hoist had me lifting about 100 lbs of concrete via a rope stringed through a pulley. This began the first of a great many manly grunts. Later was a part where I had to lift from the ground a 75 lbs (give or take) block of concrete, carry it 15 yards, do 5 burpees, then carry it back. Again, I squatted down, grunted and heaved, and picked that concrete up and fought through. Then there was a sandbag carry. It must have been at least 50 lbs of sand and it was a very long, muddy (but not quite as muddy) loop you had to carry it through. Lastly, and most proudly, was a wall that was at about 60 or 70 degree . It had a rope. You climbed up it using a combination of arm and leg strength. This was indeed the greatest of my manly grunts. I promise I wasn't doing this to be dramatic. There's something about exertion combined with yelling that yields a greater strength output. This is also one obstacle I hadn't been able to fully train for. It was the end of the course. Almost 4 hours of moving, walking, burpeeing, and moving more. I had one good effort and I was determined to just get up the damn wall. And so I did.

The obstacles aren't on the course. The obstacle is You.

This is the best nugget of wisdom I learned from this was by the inspirational speaker guy (sorry I don't have a better name for him...this guy was really terrific at firing up the Spartan spirit). He mentioned something I had come to learn in my months of training - that on the course the greatest obstacle you will find is yourself. I fought this when I was doing couch to 5k and counting drive ways instead of seconds; when I was pushing my endurance from 1 mile to 2 miles to 4 miles; when I was attempting mock Spartans with my friends where we simulated as best we could the course; when I was fighting self-image and trying so hard to lose weight and all of Satan's minions seemed to besiege my brain with doubt and venom and self-loathing for what I had let myself become. It was truly the hardest thing I have ever  done. And I'm far from finished. But I'm learning that the one principle ingredient for success is self-belief. And that comes from one step at a time. You push yourself one step further; squat that weight a few lbs heavier; take that burn in your workout hotter; strive for your lungs to breath deeper. You do those things and you will grow. Cause and effect. Simple physics really. Only its the furthest thing from simple because the lies the doubtful side of us speak in our heads are not always logical.

I'm not a merry clean slate health wise. I was born with many issues. At present, I have Crohn's disease. I've also been anemic for nearly the whole part of my training and even when I did the race. I have vitamin b12, D, and iron deficiencies.

Now, I'm not an idiot. I've also been seeing a doctor and my GI throughout my training as well. My G.I., in all of his wisdom, kept pushing oral vitamins on me...a person with Crohn's. He also said I needed b12 injections, but wouldn't write a prescription for them. So, yea, I fired him. I also started seeing a new Endocrinologist who prescribed me once a week 50,000 ITU Vitamin D pills. We'll see if that holds. As of race day, I had taken 3 weeks worth. I also have an appointment with a Hematologist, but despite trying to get that set up in September, the soonest I could be seen was 5 days after race day. Bollocks.

It's been hard to tell myself I can rise above these. It's been hard not to day dream of a world where my body worked like it ought; of what I could do if only I were at full potency. But above and beyond these thoughts is the fact that I believe in a God that makes beauty from the broken and shows His strength from the weak. Perhaps, I am what I am in the here and now so that the world can see what He can make out of the least of us. I believe that my story is being written by the finger of God Himself. And not just mine, but everyone's. He loves and plans for all us in very intimate ways and wants so desperately for us to trust Him to let ourselves be part of that plan. And so I have believed. That belief has bought me self-respect, honor, love, and so many other things I can't describe.

I finished this race. It took me 4 hours and 26 seconds - not an enviable time at all. But I finished. I set a goal, strove toward it, and, kicking and screaming and grunting, God brought me through to the other side of that finish line.

The Fear of Failure

So I've been pushing myself since late May. Everyone reaches their breaking point; that point where one more step just can't be taken; or it's all become too hard. We try to aim higher, push harder, lift heavier, move faster...and, yet, on this fabled day, we are found wanting.

What then? What happens? For me, I began by trying to rationalize the failure: lack of sleep, ate a little worse this week, etc, etc. Then our demons come along and "help": you're not cut out for this; maybe the weight you're losing isn't fat but muscle, maybe that success the other day was just a fluke...I mean how could it not be?

What becomes of us when we fail our own expectations? This is a question I have wrestled with on and off through my training. I especially wrestled with it Friday as that was the first time I ever walked out on a crossfit workout. It just seemed too hard; too demanding; and I just didn't have it in me.

I called Dani quite literally in tears. Fear hit me in a massive wave. What if this is just the beginning of a long string of failures? What if my successes were just flukes? What if I regress?

The mind is simultaneously our greatest asset and our greatest enemy. How often does this paranoid line of thinking hit me elsewhere in my life? Holy crap, this stuff in the milk carton might not be milk! This bottled water really isn't bottled water!

Yea...I'm odd, but not even I do that.

This is something everyone probably deals with in their own way. For me...well...since I'm being so melodramatic anyway, why not hollywoodize it? I think back to Alfred asking Bruce Wayne "Why do we fall down"? Bruce Wayne responds "so we can get back up again". So that's where I'm coming from. Failure is only your enemy when you make it final. Every failure before that is fuel. Given my circumstances, I would most certainly rather experience my failures now before this race.

It's interesting that I also don't give myself enough credit. I imagine most of us don't. On Tuesday I set a personal best running record of 33 minutes and 42 seconds of continuous running. I did 2 laps around my neighborhood running circuit. Six weeks ago I didn't think that was something I was capable of. On Thursday, I did my first public running event. It was a 2 mile run in Fondren. Did I run the whole way? No. But I got out and I did it. I ended up still pacing pretty well. Yea for Runtastic.

I've seen steady and consistent gains over my 6+ weeks of training. The law of averages probably had a failure coming my way any day now. And so I count myself blessed that it came.

It's caused me to think about this and my training a lot. I've, of course, considered what I might have done differently. My problem on Friday was an all of nothing mindset. There were specific reps for each exercise and a total number of sets. I couldn't do them. I kept looking at how much further I had to go and it was mentally exhausting. Even so...I could have rid myself of this all or nothing thinking and scaled the workout. If I really can't do x number of reps, then lets pick a number for this set that I can do. If I only do 1, then that's 1 more than 0.

The bottom line here is that failure will happen. There will be set backs. Things might not go as planned. Do not let failure be your end. You are capable of more than you know. Believe in yourself. Don't worry about tomorrow or the next mile. Just focus on the very next step and keep putting one foot in front of the other.