What Makes You Come Alive?

5.09

I've posted before about 2018 being a big year for me. Yesterday was part of the celebration. A couple years ago I first understood what an obstacle course race was, and I learned of the Spartan Race. Spartan Races have become the top obstacles course races world-wide, with the goal of ripping 100 million people off the couch.

With lots of doubt and misgiving, I put a Spartan "Sprint" on my calendar for 2016, and had this passing thought about a stretch goal of doing a Spartan "Trifecta" to celebrate my 50th birthday. For the Trifecta, you need to complete a Sprint (~5 miles), Super (~10 miles) and Beast (~15 miles) race in the same calendar year.

At the time I remember thinking, "well...that's a dumb goal, because there's no way I'll ever be physically fit enough to do it..." Fast forward through a couple hundred of miles of running, thousands of pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups, jumping rope, planks, and eating a diet of real food, and I had gained the confidence to sign up.

I admit I was a bit anxious going into it. Some of the obstacles are really strenuous. Lifting, climbing, jumping, numerous monkey-bar obstacles, cargo nets... and lots and lots of mud. To me, these races are truly awesome.

What are some of the results of this journey? One of the ones I'm most grateful for is that a couple years of focused diet and training have kept me out of trouble. I have very little time, interest or bandwidth for anything that didn't invest in my faith, my family, my work and my fitness. Very cool, and that's the kind of unintended results I like.

So, do you have to go do some crazy mud-run for your wellness journey? Absolutely not. I don't know why, but obstacle course racing brings the best out in me. I love the intensity of training, the challenge of finishing, the exertion of participating. There is, no doubt, a wellness challenge you can grab onto that will make you come alive and keep you out of trouble. Find it, and it may change your life for the good..

By the Way

Catching my breath after the race

Fought hard for this one...

The race yesterday was the 13+ mile Spartan Beast on the ski slopes of Mountain Creek Resort in northern NJ. Wow was it an experience. 31 obstacles later, I finished in 5:04:09. The five hours took me up and down the mountain about 8-10 times for a total elevation
gain of 4,600 feet. I think another Beast race will be in my future... someday.

Running Hot

5.08

I ran my first half-marathon of 2018 yesterday. It was an awesome day... turned out really hot for mid-April, but no matter how you look at it, it was a great day.

It was the Garden Spot Village Marathon, Half-Marathon and Kid's Marathon. Our daughter ran the Kid's Marathon on Friday night (and I ran with her for the 1.2 mile finish on her 26.2 mile journey.)

Yesterday there were over 800 runners for the marathon and half-marathon, through the Amish farms and farmlands of eastern Lancaster county. It is a well-run, fun day, and celebration of an active lifestyle and supportive of runners of all ages.

I have one or two other half-marathons I plan to do in 2018, as well as a number of Spartan Races and other timed workouts... all as part of my 2018 celebration of being 50. Yesterday was a wonderful start, and it's going to be a great, active year!

How about you? What's on your calendar?

By the Way

Even though I trained well in late winter and into the spring, the heat yesterday really took the starch out of me. I probably started out too fast, and the GSV course is hilly, and a number of the hills are long and slow. At about halfway, I realized I needed to tone it down, or risk not finishing because I was just going too hard. The result? I walked several times during the race (something I had never done before) and still finished with a PR of 10 seconds faster than my best GSV time from a couple years ago. It was a great morning of running!

New Hardware!

5.07

Sometimes you need an upgrade (or at least your wellness toys need an upgrade.)  I have had some form of a pedometer or Fitbit for probably 8 or so years. My most recent was a Fitbit Blaze, and while it still works, it was getting a bit tired. Two issues with the Blaze is that it isn't waterproof, and doesn't have on-board GPS (you need to have your phone along to sync your workout in real time.)

In search of something next, I shopped a bunch on line and just wasn't satisfied with what I was learning about new Fitbit trackers. So when a business acquaintance and I were talking all-things-running, and I saw his Garmin Forerunner, I thought, hmmm, I need to give that a closer look.

What I learned is that while not quite as popular, the Garmin trackers tend to be more robust and offer better data collection for your workouts. As a trained engineer, I like to make things objective. Numbers don't scare me, and drawing trends from data seems like a good thing to do.

So I got myself a new Forerunner 235. I've really enjoyed it, and while I'm still learning and digging out more content from the data collected, it's been great so far.

My Garmin has on-board GPS, tracking my runs accurately without having my phone along. And it's water proof. Both beneficial to my half-marathons and Spartan races. It is great to see the data gather in the background, and know that the more I workout, and the more details I capture, the better I can draw conclusions about how I'm doing.

As they say in business, what is measured can be managed. Look into some objective measurements in your wellness journey, and event think about stepping it up a notch. Your future self will be glad for how you managed your efforts.

By the Way

One of the great things about the Garmin trackers / watches is that there are all kinds of cool widgets and watch faces you can customize to. You also have options for how your workout data is collected, and what you see on the screen during your workout. I'm still having fun personalizing my new tool.