I guess race season has officially started for me. It kind of snuck up on me. Two weekends ago was Tough Mudder. Last weekend was Run For Your Lives. My friend and I signed up for it 5 months ago and it seemed so far away. Last Monday he emailed me, “We’re still doing this, right?” and I realized we were. I have put no thought into things lately.
The race kind of sucked. I wouldn’t call it an obstacle race. There were 4 “obstacles” — none of them were hard. What was hard was trying to dodge left and right while in knee-deep mud to avoid getting our flags pulled by the zombies. It was an ACL tear waiting to happen. If the path wasn’t single file and the mud wasn’t so bad I think it would have been more fun. You could really try to outrun them. I love the concept of it and it could have been so much better. I wouldn’t do it again but I’m glad I tried it out. This video (not mine) makes it look more fun than it was but you get the idea:
I survived, btw. I had one flag that I protected with my life. I don’t know if I was allowed to do that but the zombies were cheating too. Some of them took their job a little too seriously.
What was fun(ny) to me was the realization that for 2 Saturdays in a row I ended up in a tent wiping mud off of me with a bunch of other women as we all tried to protect a little bit of modesty changing into our dry clothes. That’s not something I can say was ever a part of my life before.
My next event is Warrior Dash in June. It should be more fun, there’s a decent number of obstacles. From what I’ve seen they are Mudder lite but at least they’re real obstacles. From there it’s all tough, tough stuff. The Vermont Tough Mudder in July which is my Disney of obstacle races. It was SO hard last year and I was SO bad at it that I really want redemption this time. They had the first VT TM this past weekend and a few people I know did it. They said it was harder than last year. Great. I need to be ready this time. Like, really ready. Not pretend-ready like I was for PA. Then it’s the Spartan series, and then Marine Corps Marathon. So now would be a great time to throw myself into training.
I think a lot about training. What motivates me to do it, what makes me want to continue it, what would make me stop. On any day there could be a dozen reasons for any of those questions.
The other day I was driving by a Globo gym and I saw something that made me so angry. I’m going to call this the Biggest Loser/CrossFit effect. Every gym is incorporating CrossFit-type training. But that shitty Jillian Michaels bossy trainer mentality is still very much out there, apparently. I was on Route 1, on a busy section, at rush hour and I saw a very heavy woman doing air squats right near the edge of the road and I could tell the trainer was yelling at her (from behind her, mind you, not even in front of her making eye contact). I saw some big tires around them so I knew it was some kind of CrossFit hybrid personal training session. I’m projecting my own feelings onto this woman but if I were her I would have felt humiliated having to do that in front of the world with some bitch screaming at me. For all I know she thought it was a great workout and liked having someone on her ass. Me — thinking how I felt at her weight — wanted to stop my car, hug her, and invite her to CrossFit where she could keep her dignity in tact. There is a fine line between pushing someone and punishing them. I have never felt punished at CrossFit. I have been pushed to the brink but I’ve never felt like my trainers were doing it because I was a dumb fat person who had gotten myself into this mess and they were going to yell me out of it. Again, I’m projecting on a scene I saw for all of 45 seconds but I’m a pretty good judge of that kind of stuff. The bottom line is that there was a huge parking lot the trainer could have brought her to if she wanted to do an outdoor workout. Putting her on display on Route One was an exercise in power.
I know our journey and our decisions are our own. I know that, regardless of the quality of trainers at CrossFit or the type of marathon program I follow, it’s me that has to do the work. I’ve been fortunate that I’ve been able to tap into an inner drive I never knew I had to be fairly fit today and at-the-ready to take on new challenges. I never kid myself though. I never think I have it figured out and that I could wake up tomorrow and decide I never want to run another step again. It’s constant work but having supportive friends and family keeps me in the game. I’m realizing more and more it takes a village to keep someone fit. I hope that woman I saw finds her village because — to me — she deserved so much more than what she was getting that night.
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