Thursday, March 4, 2010

it's all about the stories you can tell later

I can think of no other way to get me interested in a race faster than to promise (warn? boast? taunt?), "it's the craziest frickin' day of your life!" That was what greeted me as I landed on the Warrior Dash home page. "I have to do this," I whispered, as a picture of a man jumping a firepit appeared.

Here's the thing, all winter the delightful Sylvia and I have been training. For what, we haven't exactly decided. We've been running and lifting weights and swimming. We'd like to do a triathlon. Scratch that, we're GOING to do a triathlon. And there are other just-running races I could be interested in (the Bolder Boulder), but I needed something to excite me. Something to motivate me. Like last year's Skirtchaser. I guess I like the gimmicks?

So let's cover 3.27 miles by first climbing what is essentially a ski run to the summit, and then as we make our way down, climb up and over hay bales, clamber over old rusty cars, high step through tires, crawl through mud under barbed wire, scale the cargo nets, crawl through tunnels, climb over wooden barricades, splash down a stream, run across a ravine on wooden planks, crawl across another ravine on tangled nets, and finish that up by leaping over the "warrior flames." THIS is what we're training for.

You know when you watch those movies where there's a montage of the person training for something (a race, something military or spy-based, fighting some comic book-turned-movie villain, etc.), I don't know about everyone else, but the thought has often crossed my mind - does my life even have enough moments of action to create a stirring montage? Or, I totally want to do that...for an afternoon. Or something. Here is my chance to life out those dreams. (second on that same list of dumb aspirations inspired by movies is driving in a caravan of 3 or more big black SUVs, very fast and very close, and then all stopping within seconds and inches of each other. I foresee this one being harder to complete unscathed.)

I'm so totally in, I might already be in the car driving up to the mountains.

On top of that, not only do you get a shirt and medal, they give you a helmet. A furry horned helmet. Have I mentioned that I love a good gimmick? I mean, I think every race needs to have a unique identity. So that years from now I can say, "And then there was that race where I got, I mean had, to crawl through mud under barbed wires. That was the craziest frickin' day of my life!" while wearing the furry horned helmet. I'm holding them to their promise.

3 comments:

Alex McMurray said...

Sounds like the course in boot camp. Exciting! The only way that I know that is that I've seen An Officer and a Gentleman one too many times.

Can't wait to see the pic of you in your helmet! :)

laura said...

Dude, I've already gotten several of my friends excited for the one in the Catskills in September. The response is inevitably, "This looks SO AWESOME!" Thanks for the tip.

Anne said...

this is awesome!