Dealing With Change

What Happens When You Fall Asleep Around a 5-Year Old

One week into the recovery, and I'm really sick of sitting on my butt.  Sixteen to twenty hours on my couch each day, with sleep respites in my bed, and I'm starting to go a little stir-crazy.  Of course, this is the time that Tough Mudder decides to make some rather large announcements about the nature of the WTM, and I've started to wonder what those changes may portend for my ability to participate.

Me, With My Stickers

First thing first, they've announced that the WTM will be open enrollment this year.  This means that anyone who wants to participate can sign up for the madness.  The Facebook group dedicated to past and future WTM participants has taken what would be considered a "negative" view of this development.  It seems that many people feel that some of the luster is lost in the competition if it's not a qualifying event.  I'm not sure I agree, since anyone could simply lie about their course time and qualify that way.  But, having said that, I must say that the competition seems a little bit less "elite" with that open enrollment.  Also, I'm not sure how it changes my ability to participate.  Given the fact that I wasn't sure if I would be recovered in time to run in the first place, I was planning on waiting as long as possible to sign up.  That may be counterproductive now, especially if there are limited spaces available for enrollment.  In other words, I might end up being physically capable of taking part but still not run because the spaces have all filled up.

My Daughter Had A Solution to My Injury

Second, they announced that there wouldn't be any penalties for skipping obstacles.  This was tempered with the news that there would be less running and more obstacles, but it seems that these two changes have been made to make the event a little more inclusive.  This would seem to be good in the grand scheme of things, but it also makes it a little less appealing as a test.  Of course, I say all of this having no real sense of what's involved, so everything could be entirely ass-backwards.  After all, we all thought that the WV mudder would be easy based on the observer map that we saw ahead of time.  Our experience with Tough Mudders has demonstrated that they're perfectly willing to make changes to make the experience more challenging, so I'm assuming that the obstacles would be pretty tough in WTM.

The upside of all of this is that this week (and my injury) have really caused the need to deal with injuries to hit home.  I can sit here and feel bad about what's happened to me and the changes that have been announced, or I can accept them as things beyond my control.  The only thing that I can control is how I react to those events.  I can't speak for Danny or Brian, but I plan on using these events as learning experiences.