No Post-Race Blues Allowed!

The obstacle course race I looked forward to for months is over. I finished the Spartan Super, and now it's back to regular life. And there's this natural let-down, the feeling you get when you no longer have something big to look forward to that for so long was motivating you in more ways than you'd even realized.

But I refuse to be depressed about this, even one bit. I had so much fun doing my first obstacle course race!I wish there was another one this coming weekend. I want to run faster, go harder and do it even better than I did last weekend.

Barbed Wire Mud Crawl at the Mid-Atlantic Super Spartan 2012. Photo from Facebook.

And so I will train, I will run, I will work hard, I will do pushups and pullups and squats and burpees even when my body protests, becasue someday I will race another obstacle course and I want do even better.

Mid-Atlantic Super Spartan 2012: Done!

I completed my first obstacle course/ mud race on Saturday: the 10+ mile, 74-obstacle Super Spartan in Leesburg, VA. My time was two hours, 11 minutes, giving me the 13th place for women in my heat and 3rd in my age group.

 I did it!

It's hard to believe that only a few months ago I could barely run 1/3 mile without stopping to walk. I could only do one pushup, only one pullup at a time, and couldn't get off the ground when trying to climb a vertical rope with knots.

And on Saturday, I ran the race and completed nearly all the obstacles without a problem (the last two got me -- 30 burpees times two!) If I did it, you can too -- and by you, I mean anyone who wants to -- decides to -- and works for it.

I'm a mom of five, and my youngest was only six months old when I decided to run the Spartan obstacle course. I hadn't worked out consistently in years, and I was more than 20 pounds overweight. 

Once inspired, I started training in my yard, on the roads and in the woods. I did not join a gym or buy any fancy program or workout videos. I just used my own body weight and a few weights and homemade obstacles to get my body back in shape.

Apparently, it worked. I finished. And next year, I want to be on the podium for placing in the top three. This is my journey ... join me!