fear

When I started my fitness journey I had made a promise to my son I would get healthy. It was hard. I remember being on that treadmill at a whopping 3.8 miles an hour pushing so hard to work up to two miles at a time. Then, I always knew I pushed hard when on the way home I would break out in hives. To this day, none of my medical colleagues can tell my why in those moments I would have such a huge histamine release, but I did. Here I sit, two years later, many more training sessions behind me and have not experienced that in a very long time. However, it is stuff like this that seemed to provoke fear. Would I anaphylax and stop breathing?  Couple this with my history of terrible obesity fueling previous difficult exercise attempts. I had fear of wheezing, fear of sweating too much, fear of looking silly, the list was endless. In talking with a team 1DOS member yesterday who was trying to figure out how to push harder it suddenly dawned on me that every harder thing we attempt is limited solely by fear.

I started to think about all the things I was afraid of along the way. Would I hurt my shoulder if I tried a heavier weight despite being more than comfortable with what I was lifting at the time. Truthfully, I pushed past that through a trainer laughing and telling me to lift heavier, thus fueling my fear of looking silly. I was afraid for a time if I rowed harder I would pass out. Well that is possible, but I could probably go a bit harder than I was and not pass out. Little by little. Fear after fear. Slowly putting them to rest until I got pretty comfortable with making progress. The hives went away and I found myself in a good place. Chugging along like the Little Engine That Could. Small gains every week, new goals set. Over and over.

Then came today. A Spartan workout. Two hours of Spartan training by Spartan trainers. Yep I could do that. I did a 90 minute Orangetheory yesterday. I got this. Then I got the email. The confirmation of today's adventure. Um. This workout was partially outside. Um. It is Syracuse. It is December. Outside?  Enter fear. Yesterday, watching the several inches of snow fall I got really worried. I had no idea if we would be in a park or a parking lot or what. But the Batman to my Robin, my son was going. I simply could not bail out on him. So, I did my best to dress in layers and try to be ready.

We got up early, 5:30, as Syracuse is a 2 hour drive. I guess it was a good thing the snow had stopped.....maybe not such a great thing it was replaced by freezing rain. The drive up just fueled my concern. On arriving, we found the hosting gym was a warehouse gym on the fourth floor of this old industrial building. It was painted black with rings a ropes hanging from the ceiling. Yep a badass gym. We were told at the door we would be outside for half the workout. Well, that meant parking lot. I spent the first half worrying about what being outside would be. It was cold. It was wet. It was a light mist of a rain. I would soon find out.

The trainer outlined the core Spartan exercises and several of them involved being on the ground. I looked around at the puddles and slush and it seemed terrifying. Pretty soon it was time. I would realize doing diamond push-ups on cold wet concrete with numb fingers and wet hair from the rain that those people who told me in the beginning that I was capable of so much more just may have been right. People knowing I was doing this,  did laugh at me today. Why on earth would I get up at 5 in the morning, drive two hours to workout in the snow and rain today? Because I am finally learning that there is something amazing that lives on the other side of my biggest fears and sometimes that means spending a little time doing burpees in the snow.