Spartan race is more than a race to me. It’s been an azimuth for my compass, and my purpose for continuing to better myself over the last 3 years. When I signed up for my first Spartan race, I was going through a challenging and tumultuous time in my life. Spartan racing, and more importantly, the daily, weekly, monthly training for the Spartan race, helped me find motivation and purpose and gave me a reason to keep believing I could be better.
When I signed up for my first race 3 years ago, I had just moved my family of 4 to Texas and also switched careers, for the 4th time. As a military family, this was our 5th out-of-state move, and I was thoroughly drained of all that moving entailed. This was the most difficult move of all with my kids being 8 and 5. Starting over with a family of 4 in a new city is exhausting and takes months. It entails everything from finding new housing to schools, doctors, sports teams, gyms, and for me – work. Moving a family is one of the most stressful experiences in life. As we were moving to Austin, TX, my husband was on his final year of his military commitment and decided not to reenlist after 14 years of service. We finally decided it was time.
Time to put down roots. Time to to buy a house to make our home. Time to settle in and enjoy the hell out of raising our kids. In just 15 years, I transformed from International Business undergrad turned Army Persian Farsi linguist turned Fitness Professional turned High School Teacher. I grew up in Indiana but I joined the military at 22 and have since lived in California, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, and Louisiana. At age 35, I was in the middle of a tumultuous adjustment to my new life in Texas and I was having a difficult time keeping myself healthy – both physically and mentally.
It was the first time in my adult life that “working out” wasn’t simply a requirement of my job or highly woven into the culture of my professional organization. From age 18 – 35, I was a college athlete, Soldier, and Personal Trainer. As I went from being single to married to motherhood, working out was still an anchor because for those first 17 years of my adult life. When I became a teacher at 35 with two older school aged kids who were now both involved in after-school activities, I was lost without my daily workout time. I was also struggling with my own big picture questions too.
The schedule was insane and I would spend hours on weekends writing lessons as a new teacher. So gradually my lifelong fitness habits just started slipping away as I immersed myself into my new world… It wasn’t long before I just started to feel blah. I could feel my pants getting tighter and and my energy levels sagging. Even though I LOVED my new job, my students, and my colleagues, as a high school health sciences teacher, I found the situation too ironic. Here I was teaching high school students about health, fitness, and wellness, but I wasn’t taking care of myself at all! I was stressed, overwhelmed, eating crappy food, and wasn’t exercising!
I happened to listen to a podcast where Tim Ferriss interviewed Amelia Boone, who is an athletic goddess and mythical legend of obstacle course racing. She was so inspiring. I had to take action. If you’re interested to hear that interview, click here:
https://tim.blog/2015/12/22/amelia-boone/
I had heard of Spartan races before but that podcast was my pivot point. I looked up Spartan races in Texas that day and without really thinking about it – REGISTERED. I signed up for the Beast, the 13 mile, 30+ obstacle course, set in the rugged hills outside of Dallas. I was both excited and terrified!
Signing up for that first race less than a year into my new job as a teacher helped me find much needed focus, drive, and determination I didn’t know I had. When I started making the workouts a priority, I started making nutrition a bigger priority. Then hydration, sleep, and most importantly – stress management started falling into place like dominoes. I purchased some second hand kettlebells, barbells, and bumper plates and I started getting up early most days to run and / or lift weights in my garage. My husband hung a heavy bag in the garage and we saved up for a squat rack. Now with all that equipment and by signing up for 2-3 races a year, spread out throughout the year, I’m proud to say I have my habit back. I lift weights 2-3 times a week and run 3-4. I do yoga as often as possible, sometimes on my own and sometimes at an actual class. Gradually my pants started to loosen up again and I have the energy and positive vibes I need to get through my busy days and also help as many people along the way as I possibly can.
3 years later, I’m proud to say that I’ve done 5 races altogether and I’ve learned ALOT along the way. I’ve gone from doing hundreds of burpees at races, ala my first Beast, to doing less than a hundred, at my last Super, and hope to someday go through a whole race with 0 burpees! I’ve also gained ALOT – knowledge, strength, motivation, purpose, commitment, healing, and a stronger sense of who I am and who I want to be. The training for the races is what carried me through yet another career transition with grace, confidence, and self-esteem. I have found tremendous purpose and motivation from signing up for these races.
I sincerely believe that we all need to have a goal to keep moving us forward in life. The goals keep us moving, even when it’s hard or inconvenient and self-belief is running low and self-doubt is high. Even though it seems counter-intuitive, the more I started making time for myself, the more I had to give to others. Self care is not selfish whatsoever. You cannot pour from an empty cup. If you want to help others, you have to make sure you’re also helping yourself. The biggest lesson I learned from signing up for these races is simply that you have to have goals in life to keep yourself moving forward. It’s not easy to make time to work out or even to go do the races when you work full time and have two active kids, but it’s absolutely worth it!
