Unbelievable

There is no other word to describe the experience of a Super Spartan. And to say "unbelievable" doesn't even begin to capture the chills that run down my arms every time I think of what I accomplished.

I won't lie. The hills were BRUTAL. Straight up and straight down at times. The wind was gusting, it was hot, it was dry. Somehow, I kept putting one foot in front of the other.

I pushed my body, I heard that voice telling me to stop, telling me I couldn't do it, telling me to give up. Every step, every bead of sweat, every obstacle and burpee completed, I killed that voice. Mile by mile, step by step. As long as I kept moving, that voice got quieter and quieter. Until eventually I started to hear the faintest of whispers, "You can do this, you've got this." By the final downhill stretch to the finish, that whisper had turned into a roar.

With several more obstacles to go right before the finish, I never once gave a thought to not completing the obstacles. At the obstacle just before the rope climb, another runner (male) said to me, "I'll never make it up the rope, I'll just do the burpees and call it a day." I remember looking at him and telling him I didn't know if I would make it to the top or not, but I certainly wasn't going to come all that way without at least trying.

The rope climb had been the one obstacle I was most worried about. I found that by the time I had run over 9 miles, I was no longer thinking about the obstacles, I was just doing. And before my brain knew what I was doing, I was at the top of the rope ringing the bell. That single moment was my greatest accomplishment that day. And my kids were there, right behind me, to see me do what I thought wasn't possible. And to think that I could have missed out on that just because I didn't know that I could do it. That experience alone was worth a million burpees.

In the end, I finished. I knew I would. But not because I trained. This race had very little to do with strength in the long run. It had to do with heart. Turns out I have quite a bit of that. I learned a lot about myself in this race. Safe to say I'm floating on a cloud. A Spartan shaped cloud.