How in the World Did I Get Here?

The old saying that the journey of a thousand miles begins with one single step is certainly true.  For me my journey of a thousand miles began with a single step straight into a mud-filled obstacle challenge that showed me that my life needed to change.

Hold Your Wood - Carolina

I participated in my first Tough Mudder only as a dare from  Patrick whose backstory you can read here.  I did not train for the event at all.  I had actually let my weight balloon and fitness was the furthest thing from my mind.  I had become in my own words "Chunky but Funky".  I even spent the day before the race tailgating at a University of Virginia football game.  This was hardly  a recipe for success but it was an absolute recipe for disaster.  I am the last of the three to post my story to start this journey of "Our Year in the Mud".  This is fitting since Patrick and DC spent most of the first race waiting for me to reach each obstacle so that we can go on.  This exemplifies one of things that draws people to this type of challenge.  Tough Mudder is not a race but a challenge that requires assistance from a team or even perfect strangers.  I'm pretty sure I almost died up in Wintergreen during the first race.  That may be a slight exaggeration which might be a theme that you see during some of these posts.  I do know that I never would have completed it without DC and Patrick.

The humbling experience at the first race inspired me to get in the best shape of my life.  We signed up for a second race and I began training.  This could be considered by many as a mid-life crisis which could be accurate (let the record show I am the youngest of the three) but it is more about three guys who are challenging ourselves to push the limits of what is possible.  During the training for the second race I was able to drop nearly 40 pounds which made running more of a possibility.  I was excited to see what we could do with some intense training.  The second race was in Pennsylvania and our team which expanded to four absolutely crushed the course.  You can see a comparison of me running the same fire walker obstacle at the two races.

Fire Walker - Virginia

Here's a hint:  I wasn't actually running in the first picture.  I was being overcome by smoke because I couldn't move another step.

Fire Walker - Pennsylvania

As guys typically do we decided to raise the bar again.  We set our sights on a third race in South Carolina which would mark the anniversary of our first race attempt.  This time we would run it twice which meant instead of 12 miles and 25 obstacles we would take on nearly 24 miles and 50 obstacles (no exaggeration on this one).  Could I actually go from barely completing the first race to running it twice within the period of one year?   This would motivate me to train even harder.  Working out tends to get boring by itself.  I need a challenge to motivate me and Tough Mudder, Patrick, and DC became that motivation.

This time we expanded the team from 3 to 5 with only 3 being crazy enough to take it on twice.  I'll save the whole South Carolina story for another post but we did manage to complete the course twice, inspire a lot of people in the process, and even save a life.  That's not bad for a day in the mud.  I did end up in the ER but isn't that how you should live your life????

October 2011 - Wintergreen, VA

We now have our sights set on competing in the World's Toughest Mudder.  To accomplish this latest challenge we will crisscross North America competing in Tough Mudders to prepare for the 24 hour race in October 2013.  Our next race is scheduled for Miami in March.  This time we will run on both Saturday and Sunday.  It definitely isn't the way most people would spend their time on a vacation to South Beach.  As you are beginning to find out...we aren't most people.  We'll keep you posted on the training, the races, and even some leadership/education lessons learned along the way!

October 2012, Florence, SC