Year 2, Week 10 (Days 430 - 436)

This week's featured sponsors: 

Xoelle

Ties.com

Instead of highlighting a particular bow tie this week I thought I'd include a brief recap of my weekend outside of my comfort zone.

I signed up to participate in a S.E.R.E. Urban Challenge about three months ago on a whim in response to a late night conversation on Facebook. I have been training with this team of part-time obstacle course racers for a few months and was inspired to take a step toward completing a challenge that was designed to test me mentally and physically farther than I thought possible. 

What did this test consist of? I won't share too many details so I apologize if you're trying to train for this and happened upon this blog with the hopes of trying to piece together an idea of what to expect. Part of stepping out of your comfort zone is dealing with the unknown. I will only say that our class of 45 was put through 16 hours and 15 minutes of a variety of physically and mentally draining exercises with some instruction peppered throughout. My favorite obstacle involved low crawling across the Brooklyn Bridge somewhere around 3AM. Unlike many folks who sign up for SERE I had no intention of competing (Did I forget to mention this was a race?) and instead wanted only to take pride in finishing with my entire GT team intact. Many of us lead very civilian lives and rarely have time to train for this sort of madness, but we've sacrificed so little compared to the brave men and women in uniform who go through worse to protect our freedoms. It was an honor to participate with this in mind. 

Shortly after the race I was reminded about why I started participating in these type of events, pushing myself to limits that I had always been told were impossible for me. Pediatricians and physicians always told me I wouldn't grow much over 5'3'' and that I shouldn't bother lifting weights because it wouldn't add an inch to my stature. Doctors would ridicule me later on in life after breaking my wrist playing basketball with my students and tried convincing me that I shouldn't be running at all after breaking bones in both my ankles. I train because I want to experience life to the fullest of my potential. I refuse to be defined by my age, my stature or my profession. So as we traveled home on Saturday evening one of my teammates fell asleep behind the wheel for just a few seconds, hitting a parked car and flipping his vehicle on its side while I sat in the passenger seat. As soon as we realized we were not hurt we climbed our way out and thanked God for the opportunity to run another race - hopefully with a greater appreciation now than when we started.

When I want to run fast, I run alone. When I want to run far, I run with my team.

In front of the memorial at Firehouse 10 near the WTC

Poor Ruby never saw it coming