“Challenge yourself, but know your limitations.”

I was so excited this morning to get up and go do the Beat Cancer Boot Camp Challenge, which is a 5K run combined with a series of obstacle courses to include several sets of tire stepping, jumping hay bales, low crawl, overhead chest presses with a heavy toolbox, jumping jacks, pushups, sit-ups, walking lunges, obstacle course lugging around a fire hose over your shoulder, climbing wall, and a mud pit (among other things I can’t remember right now).

I started out doing awesome – for the first mile or so, I was in the top 25-30% - a BIG deal for someone who is not exactly naturally athletic. Unfortunately, on the third or fourth set of tire stepping, I slammed my foot down at a strange angle on the last tire and immediately felt severe pain on the side of my foot.

I tried to shake it off and keep running, but the pain was too severe – any time I put pressure on the inside of my left foot, it felt like it was on fire. I didn’t want to give up, though. I wanted to keep going. I hobbled on, putting my weight on the outside of my foot and even hobbled along at a slow jog for a while. I even managed to get through the jumping jacks and lunges through sheer will. I stayed in the first half of the group somehow but then we got down to the river bed (Tucson’s rivers are all dried out, so it’s just sand and rocks down there) and the sand made it impossible to distribute weight on just part of my foot.

I have a high pain tolerance, but after about ¼-mile of running/walking though the sand, I couldn’t take much more – I was actually getting dizzy/nauseous I hurt so badly – and I let one of the volunteers take me back the rest of the way in a cart.

I was so disappointed. I really, really, really wanted to finish and I would have been fine if I hadn’t hurt myself. I could have done a great job, but I couldn’t finish. I hate, hate, HATE not finishing what I start. It makes me so upset.

So now I’m home with my foot iced and elevated as the nurse at the event told me to do. I don’t think it’s broken, but it certainly is painful. And you know what? I’m not as disappointed anymore. I supported a great cause, got a great workout, and I really DID push myself. I hurt my foot after about a mile, but I managed to make it through not only another mile and a half, but also the majority of the obstacles – the only ones I missed were the rope climbing and the mud pit, which were at the very end. I fought through the pain but also recognized when I needed to stop pushing. I don’t want to be out of commission any longer than absolutely necessary, so I am going to take care of myself.

My husband had cancer when we got married, so it’s a cause close to my heart. Last year, I volunteered at the Beat Cancer Boot Camp Challenge. I was so overweight and so out of shape last year that even walking back from the volunteer station to the starting line (about a mile) had me totally worn out. This year, I’m around 70 pounds lighter, infinitely healthier, and I ran about 2 miles of the race AND completed the obstacles, even with an injury. If that isn’t success, I don’t know what is.

Just before the race started, the founder of Beat Cancer Boot Camp said this:

“Challenge yourself, but know your limitations.”

I think that’s pretty fabulous advice. We SHOULD push ourselves to do better and get stronger each day, but we also need to recognize when it is time to choose prudence over pride. I’m not an athlete, but I am committed to being fit and healthy. In the end, that’s what counts.

So even though I didn’t succeed in finishing the race, I did succeed in challenging myself. So that is why I’m posting this here, under “Success Stories.”

Remember that, along your journey to good health, you are bound to stumble occasionally. The trick is to learn from each misstep and then move forward.


Before the race


Hauling the fire hose


I don’t remember what this is called, but it’s a wall thing we had to scale. There were two of them.


They made me do extra push-ups since I couldn’t run in the sand with my stupid foot.


Running even when it hurt REALLY badly.


Practicing my flamingo stance to keep the weight off my foot once I was done.

Oh, and just for reference, here’s what I looked like last year, when I could hardly walk from Point A to Point B without getting out of breath: