From "Running isn't for me.." to Run-a-Muck 5k in 6 Months

I've learned a little trick to success this year, a special move I've spammed whenever the opportunity arises: say "Yes."

In January of this year, I went to an apartment party at the home of some friends I'd just made weeks prior. This journey started with me saying yes to one too many drinks, which lead to an out-of-character experience for me when the host of the party mused about wanting to get back into running 5ks. Her neighbor chimed in that wouldn't it be great if we could assemble a team to do a 5k mud run in the summer. Fueled by bravado, I said, "I'm totally on board with this!" And totally a little bit drunk.

But here's the kicker: I'd never in my life run a 5k. Or even really done team sports in school, or any sort of disciplined running outside of casual basketball for which I am always noted as not giving it my all. I knew it was madness to express interest in this (a 5k! With military-style obstacles!) and had nothing to prove to either of these two fine folks I'd just met, but I'd just gotten back into weight-lifting three months prior and wanted a goal to motivate myself to actually work on my heart rather than just my rippling pectorals.

Ahem.

Sobering up the next morning, I asked myself "WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?", but I had no intention of backing out. For the next 6 months, I began the arduous sweat-tacular process of learning how to run for more than 3 minutes without wanting to collapse into a pile of gooey regrets.

Because my 3 teammates were all already fit or "recovering fit" and had tons of experience running, I opted to train at my own pace so as not to hold them back. Good choice! I had a ton of catching up to do.

I tried to commit to jogging at least twice (but aiming for three times) per week, hopefully increasing the length of time I could run every week while doing the walk/run routine. From my teammate's estimate, the obstacle course could probably be completed in under 30 minutes, so my goal time was always set for no more than 30 minutes.

Each week, I managed to make tiny improvements, but each one felt triumphant to me (running for 7 straight minutes?? holy crap!). Each week, I pushed myself by degrees so that I wouldn't be the teammate who held the rest of the team back... too much.

6 months later, the time had come.

There were 200 teams in our time slot at this sold-out event, many of them looking to be in fantastic shape. My goal, being realistic, was simply "completion." I had no expectations and no idea how well I'd do relative to everyone else. But really: this was about proving to myself that I could do this, that my dedication could make an athlete out of me yet, even though I'd never pushed myself beyond casual intramural-style activities. We started off around the middle of the giant mass of people and took off in unison, with no game plan to speak of.

What happens next is about an hour of burning and being pushed by my teammates to levels I didn't think possible for myself. Despite no previously shared game-plan, my teammates are very methodical about overtaking everyone in sight, and all I can do to keep up is ignore the burning in my legs and the crazy fast heart-rate that I've never experienced before; I just have to keep my eyes on the ground to dodge all the roots and watch my step on the loose, wet rocks everywhere.

And then holy crap, tires!



That's me on the right, thinking "oh God, how am I still standing??" We've already burst through half a dozen obstacles and are finally in the downhill portion of the race. At this point, we start to pass runners who have been walking, and they reveal that they were from the previous time slot. We ask them how many are ahead of us, and they say "About a dozen, I think."

About a dozen. About a dozen!

Suddenly, I've got my second wind; up until this point I hadn't even considered the possibility of not only finishing this race but finishing in the top 5. Pleased by my surge in speed, my team carries on at a faster pace than ever. This competitive motivation carries us without missing a beat to the finish line, having passed a handful of others.



We finish together, as is the rules of the competition, and we see dozens of others ahead of us past the finish line. We can't be sure if these groups are from our time slot or from the previous. But soon, we're approached by a race organizer with a clipboard who asks when we started racing. "2:30," we say.

She smiles warmly at us and says, "Congrats! You guys took second place."

The sheer joy I felt at that moment! I never expected at any point in this--6 months ago drinking with new friends or at any point during training--that I would get a medal for this crazy whim of an event. I didn't think for a moment that others would be looking up at me on a stage as someone who outraced others, someone who had never attempted a race in his life.



This was a triumph. I'm making a note here: huge success. Whenever another opportunity like this comes along, I'm definitely saying yes.

In closing, forgive me my pastiness!