AROOO, AROOO, AROOO!!!
This blog for anyone who is setting themselves a goal that is scary. Hopefully there’s a take home message that you can use to benefit your journey or validate what you are already doing. This Saturday is the first Australian Spartan race for 2016 - a sprint event obstacle race of +6km to be held at Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane.
Saturday still feels like too long! I want it to be tomorrow.
I have a strategy. My strategy is to run as fast as a leopard. No, seriously, my strategy is to start strong find my pace and hunt every obstacle.
The whole reason I like the Spartan obstacle thing is because in the past running has not been my main focus, the obstacles are or were. However, now that I have decided to become competitive, and the only real thing that I feel needs improvement is my running. It is something I have to work for. After 12 weeks of training I know that I can run better now. I actually enjoy it a little bit … not much, but a little bit, which is kind of strange. Running has always been a chore.
Beyond learning to run well, race preparation has highlighted to me essential mental skills that every Spartan needs.
1. To get comfortable with the idea of being uncomfortable
2. Patience.
I’ve always been patient outside of the training arena, but learning to be patient inside that arena too is different.
3. Humility - its well and good for me to say that I’ve done this type of race before and set myself a goal, but its important to be humble about the fact that goals may not be achieved the first time round.
In the race environment, even the best still have to practice and when you’re not the best you have to practice twice as hard. You can’t get upset with anybody else in the race, not even yourself, taking a moment to step back and say wow, this just happened, its not what I expected but its ok I can still enjoy myself and still get on with it and achieve something. It’s that ability to recognise that you are not the only person on the course. The course is designed to challenge you. It’s meant to get you to question why you started to run it. It’s humbling to be a part of that, even if I’m not the best.
4. Trust - your body, your training, your preparation
5. Resilience - when things don’t go your way in the race.
It’s easy to be defeated by falling off the balance beam, but if you do your burpees, earn your obstacle and get on with it, you have something to improve on, so you’ve learned a lesson and because you’ve got on with it you will be stronger next time. That resilience to continue the job when you hit another obstacle, perhaps is the most important.
From a purely physical point of view I have worked on:
being able to run up a flight of stairs and be able to recover within a few minutes to do it again;
co-ordination
crawling
changing levels quickly - up and down; down and up
changing direction quickly
carrying heavy objects without injury
jumping - up, forwards, sideways and backwards
creating 3 dimensional hips to avoid injury
holding my body weight by my own hands
connected breathing and physical rhythm.
For every Spartan racer/Runner/Athlete I know, there are 3 things that stand out for all of us about the experience of competing.
ENJOYMENT - of what we are achieving and have achieved, celebration of why we are doing the race, enjoyment of being in the race as well as achieving the end goal
HEART - we all love it! If you don’t love it, you need to find something else to do. Even when the training sucks, if you love it, you are doing the right thing.
COMMITMENT - When you commit to a race you know at the finish line, you work for it and you earn it!
Anybody can set a goal, and any body can achieve that goal; and that your goal should change you if you reach it, and change you if you don’t reach it. I want to share what I’m attempting and how its challenging me along the way and how it’s changing me along the way. If it helps make that learning curve a little shorter for someone beginning a journey, awesome.
Bring on Saturday!
