Paying it Forward

I seemed to have had a small hiatus from blogging. Since the epic Spartan Race a lot has happened.  I have found some other lifetime non athletes to take on the Chicago Super. We have become a ragtag team each with our own fitness story to tell. Each one of us coming from a different unhealthy place for a variety of reasons. Slowly but surely our team has grown in just one month's time. We have learned to become accountable to one another and encourage one another and now every last one of us is financially committed to this 8-11 mile race.

This single thing had me thinking about public journeys. Going public with my journey was a bit like being naked at Wal Mart on Black Friday. Terrifying. Vulnerable. We all end up on this journey due to some sort of failing or pain and to make it all public is the chance to relive it all and be rejected all over again. Yet I have found something different entirely.

Our team is 1DOS.  One degree of separation. A teammate deemed me the "Kevin Bacon" of the group as all members know me from a different place. As it turns out, a friend not on the team knows Kevin and let him know about our team and apparently he is now in our corner too....no pressure there. Only Kevin Bacon watching. Well as my friend explained he texted Kyra as Kevin is not great about answering. Ok wait.... Kyra Sedgwick?  Well 1DOS would not let her down either....hopefully.

This week our team has grown to seven members. Seven terrified people risking public physical failure and staying on a path none of us have been able to stay on before. Seeing everyone's gains is awe inspiring as everyone pushes a wee bit harder each day to do the team proud.

With all this I was finally able to answer a lifelong question. Why?  Why am I fighting obesity?  Why am I bullied? Why can I not do this?  Decades of anguish.  Decades of failure. Now I am able to take that and use it to drag others along this path.  Seeing the excitement in their posts, the enthusiasm over our big race which by all rights none of us thought we could do makes every last bit of this lifelong battle absolutely worth it. My ability to pay this forward this holiday season is truly a gift and a constant reminder that once again the best is yet to come.

So hiatus is over. Time to get this blog moving again as Team 1DOS has a story to tell and we have only started chapter one. AROO!