Spartans Finish ...Strong

I finished.

I finished strong.

I severely cramped up in the process.

I was down for about an hour, but I was strong and I finished and I'm proud of that (I focus on the positives, lol). There was actually a physical therapist on my team who gave me a 20 minute treatment on the course right next to one of the obstacles. It was brutally hot and I got dehydrated but I finished strong. My overall time was 3 hours and 35 minutes. Minus the hour plus delay, I still wouldn’t have hit my target finish time but I would have finished at a decent time which is pretty good considering it was my first race and I was battling through the pain. However, the course was treacherous. It was not easy at all. And the race I'm gunning for in September is harder than the “sprint” I completed on Saturday. So I don't know about that one yet. Lol. But I want to do another one. I feel like the race got the best of me and my competitive nature is unsettled by that. I am not ignorant to the level of fitness needed in order to beat the course – and it's not that I was "unfit".  My conditioning was not my undoing, it was more course management.  I burned out, ran out of fuel.  I dehydrated. A totally avoidable error but it was my undoing.  So, not that I wasn’t physically ready, I wasn’t mentally ready.  

Fitness is a totally different mental preparation than athletics and competitive play. The coordinated skillful grace of an athlete on their respective field is not the same as the grunt and grind of …50 more lunge jumps with burpies or scaling a nine foot wall in mile three while running up a rocky mountain.  Yet, both athletics and fitness require a competitive edge that will determine if “they” can do it, then so can “I”. With athletics, I see and know my opponents, they have a name and a position.  But with fitness, I am my adversary.  Meaning, at the finish line, I can both win and lose with fitness.  I didn’t understand this relationship prior, rather, I underestimated this relationship.  It wasn’t until the glory of the race – reaching the finish line – that it all made sense.  I now understand the difference between fitness and athletics. 

I saw all I needed to do and be in order to fulfill my goals. I saw strength in weakness. I heard, without audible words, "keep going... I have to be better than I am today". I know the areas I need to improve in – first things first, awareness.

My legs still feel like cement. I'm all scratched up and bruised. I feel like I used to after a rugby match. But all I keep thinking about is 'I finished strong'. There was never a point of quitting. I am Sparta. LOL