Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Learning to Gain Traction in Slippery Mud

Anyone who knows me well understands that I am not someone who appreciates change all that much.  I am a planner.  I enjoy the quiet predictability in any situation to bring me to my comfort zone.  Changing course quickly generally does not go well for a period of time as I try to wrap my overthinking brain around circumstances I suddenly cannot control or make sense of.  I suppose that is why when I set out to run my seventh Spartan Race last Saturday, I was able enter it with a quiet confidence of an absolute known.  After all, I already knew I could do the monkey bars and the multi rig.  Grab hold, swing, swing, release on the back swing, patience, grab on the front swing, repeat, repeat, repeat....ring the bell.  I could do the spear, watch the rope, aim higher than the target, put some arc into it, step and throw.  I was working on the rope climb, j-hook, reach high, pull up... repeat, repeat, and maybe this time will ring the bell.   At the very least, I appeared to know what I was doing there.  I even learned the roll technique under the barbed wire was way easier than the crawl.  There really isn't an obstacle I have not seen before, and the ones I struggle with I have my core race team to pull me along.  As far as my running was concerned?  I had a full year of training under my belt since facing this same venue last year.

The venue itself was familiar too, as I had done it last year here.  It was a flat course, so no mountains to conquer.  Really, the only issue I had was worrying about that small stretch of mud we had last year.  It was probably a third of a mile of ankle deep mud where both of my calves cramped and I stood unable to move in sticky mud screaming as if my legs had been amputated. I think my business partner thought I had been shot at the time as he and my son struggled to limp me through that whole stretch while I struggled to keep my shoes on. Not this year though. I made sure to preemptively solve that problem, and drank some electrolyte water in the morning.  I left for the course with my biggest worry being supporting my team of newbie racers as they discover what they are made of. That was truly what Saturday was about and I was going to show them the way.



Then we arrived at the course.  It had rained all week in Chicago and getting off the bus to the venue we were met with mud.  Ankle deep mud.  Everywhere we turned there was mud.  As a rule, I never put my race shoes on until we get to the start line.  However, on Saturday, I lost a flip flop in the mud before I even reached check in and found myself walking to the start line barefoot not even sure how it was I was going to get my race socks and shoes on, as I already had mud well above my bare feet and ankles with no visible water source for a rinse off.  I finally decided that I would wipe my feet off with the outside of my long socks, figuring they would get muddy anyway.  It wasn't ideal, but my my shoes were at least on.  A group of sharks is also known as a shiver, and as we are the Team 1DOS Sharks, I lined up with my mighty shiver, the proud Mama Shark of a team of 7 experienced racers and 8 newbies.  We had the obligatory "I AM A SPARTAN, AROO, AROO, AROO" of the start line, we were off.  I should clarify we were off into ankle deep mud.  What began as a third of a mile of mud last year, had turned into a full 9.5 miles of ankle deep or more mud.  My worst thing.  My biggest challenge of last year was suddenly present the entire race.

I found myself slipping and sliding along with no opportunity to enjoy the quiet confidence I had awoken with that morning.  The things I knew how to do were suddenly all new and different, and my ability to conquer obstacles I had in the past was completely compromised.  I was not running how I had planned, as it was not possible with miles of sticky mud.  I was not in any kind of rhythm to focus on the quiet cadence I thought I had mastered at the monkey bars.  The first barbed wire crawl?  Inches of water overlying sticky mud making the rolling impossible and turned that more into a muddy slip and slide.  Nothing was going as planned.





I found I was frustrated with myself for a good bit of the race because all of the huge things I assumed I would adeptly demonstrate for my team of newbies had essentially fallen apart in front of me due to circumstances I didn't plan on.  I pondered all of this as I took a moment to pull ahead of my team for a minute to pull it together.  As I did that, I suddenly realized my timing chip was gone, lost in a sea of mud somewhere.  Now I would not even be able to analyze ranking later, or possibly would not even get credit for finishing the race.  Not one single thing was going according to the plan I had in my head for that day and I was well out of  the structured design I had come up with better known as my comfort zone.

It was in that moment I found myself climbing the castle stairs.  A wooden structure off the ground.  Firm footing, confident steps and solid ground.  Seven feet off the ground with my first confident steps an hour and a half into the race, I realized it was time to let loose of my preconceived notion of what a successful race looked like for me as the team captain and Mama Shark, and instead focus on firm footing, and leave the rest.  By the time I came down the back side of that I was ready to dig in and go again, only this time worrying about staying steady on my feet, encouraging my team, and finishing the race.  I paused and waited for my team to catch up and we did just that.  One step at a time, one obstacle at a time. Some we conquered, some we failed and had to do burpees, but in the end we came together to finish 5.5 hours later as one mighty shark shiver.



As I reflect on the events of Saturday, I think about how many times in life we as leaders enter into situations we feel are absolute knowns.  We set out to lead those around us through obstacles, assuming the best way to do that is to confidently show demonstrate our own prowess.  However, we seem to forget that sometimes, circumstances change on a dime.  What we feel is an absolute known can suddenly provide shaky footing and no longer resemble anything we thought we knew.  When the ground begins to shift we can suddenly feel our plans crumble as we slip and slide to gain traction yet still appear to lead.  Maybe the better answer is to stop sliding, toss out the preconceived notion of the experience, embrace the demonstration of vulnerability that goes with failure, and to learn to climb those unstable muddy hills arm in arm with teammates just as we did, drawing strength from the shiver, not personal position or past experience.  I am beginning to think that this is where leadership really exists.

I am grateful today to my 8 newbies who gave this course hell and held me up through my own stumblings.  I can't think of a more amazing team of gifted sharks each of whom taught me something different about myself.  I only hope you are starting to see as I have, that it really doesn't matter how many goals you reach or how many obstacles you conquer,  the best is truly yet to come. AROO!


Tuesday, June 12, 2018

Pushing Past the Finish Line Pull Back

The summer of 1987.  Yes, those were the days.  I had finished high school and had not yet started college.  Complete freedom with little in the way of responsibility.  My friends and I would wear kickin' Swatch Watches and slap bracelets.  We would discover the world of vampires with the ever amazing Kiefer Southerland and his other lost boys.  There were the nights of me putting my finest mix tapes of Prince, Madonna, Cindy Lauper and George Michael in the dash of my 1986 Nissan Sentra and cruise around town for no good reason.  I will say, I was the only one with a gigantic "Say Anything" boom box that had a dual cassette drive making me the mix tape queen.



This was also the summer one of my best friends and I decided it was time for us to get into shape.  I was on Weight Watchers for the third time in my young life and thought maybe getting moving would get me closer to the ever elusive goal weight I had chased for so long.  We would set out from the grade school we went to in our double knit polyester track suits, Kangaroos, and a Walkman that was so big, it required some sort of harness to stay in  place while we ran.  We were not great runners.  We walked a lot, I was still heavy and usually I was just grateful for my much thinner friend who would not leave me behind.  If memory serves, we had some idea of what we eventually wanted to be able to do from the beginning, in terms of running ability, but there was a problem.  This was hard.  Really hard. I wheezed when I ran, my body hurt, and those polyester track pants may have been fashion forward, but on obese touching thighs attempting to run, they lacked a bit in functionality.  Ultimately for me it was simply easier to let life take over, pull back from the routine, and then stop all together.  To be honest, this pattern would be the perfect metaphor for the attempts at being healthy that would consume the 25 years that followed. 

I was thinking about those early runs last week as I had a client struggling with believing she could run any distance on her own.  No amount of talking to her convinced her.  The "I can't" was way stronger than the "Yes you can."  I decided it was just time to take her running.  I wanted her to see if I could do it, she could too.  Besides, I train at Orangetheory with her all the time.  I knew what she was capable of.  It was her who didn't.  As I headed into that day, it dawned on me, besides an organized race, I had not run outside the gym with another human being, besides my son, since the summer of '87. My history of running with others prior to that was limited to gym class where the ridicule ran deep and my confidence level was a firm zero, making this run almost as terrifying for me as she was saying it was for her. 

Finally the day came for our run.  We would hit up Lock 7, only for me, I had traded in my Swatch watch, my polyester double knit track pants, my Walkman harness and my Kangaroos for my trusty Apple Watch, Nike Dri Fit running shorts, a dri fit tank with my logo, a sleek neoprene arm band to house my iphone 10, and custom fit Brooks.  Yes, I was ready and a far cry from 1987.  As a side note, I cannot promise my play list was all that different though.   My newbie settled into her pace quickly and I found I was running comfortably enough that I could still point out landmarks, help her to count steps and breathe, and essentially work the whole mental side of endurance running.  Yes, this was going well.  She did not even stop to walk.  I guess in the 30 years that have passed I have gotten better at this running thing, and honestly having someone along really was not all that bad.

  Pretty soon I would see the yellow pole.  I love that yellow pole.  It sticks straight up out of the concrete signifying a road to cross along the bike path.  A pole placed to signify caution, yet to me it was the glorious finish.  I would tell my newbie to look at it, there it is, a quarter mile in the distance.  But wait, she's not next to me, she's behind me.  Wait.  Did I leave her behind?  Shit, my high school friend never left me.  I need to focus.  As I check my pace, I realize I hadn't sped up, she had slowed down.  She slowed down with the finish line right in front of her.  I found myself saying out loud,"you're pulling back.  We are at the end and you are pulling back. Oh hell no.  Not today." 

She picked it up, and we would finish.  Two days later we went on to run her first running 5k together.  She pulled back once in the last mile, and again, I employed the "hell no" strategy, linking arms with her and pulling her back on pace where she would stay until we saw the finish.  We came to the straight away and there it was.  I could see the doubt in her eyes, until I told her to look at the clock.   35 minutes.  She had done her last one walking, 75 pounds heavier months ago at 54 mins.  I felt this would be the one thing keeping her from pulling back at the end. She would see she was so far ahead of where she was months ago, she would surely want to triumphantly sprint to the finish.  I would point to a tree about 30 yards from the finish and tell her when we got there she was to give it all she had. Oh yes.  We had this. 


To my surprise, this very quiet racer to this point would say,"I F#@*ing can't!"  I was shocked.  She'd already kept pace for three miles.  This was 30 yards, she was winning.  Beating the prior versions of herself.  No.  This was not happening.  This was the moment at the wholesome family oriented Heart Association 5k I found myself shouting at her. "You F#@*ing can!  Now do it!"  You know what?  She did.  Sprinted to the finish completing it in under 37 minutes, almost 18 minutes faster than her last one. 

Since our two runs together, my newbie and me, I have thought a lot about this notion of pulling back just yards before the finish.  As illogical as it seemed with a glorious finish in site, the urge to pull back was stronger than the urge to succeed.  This is a notion I know all too well, dieting to within ten pounds of my goal, only to pull back and gain it all back.  Start an exercise program with a goal in mind such as a race, but never registering and giving myself an out.  Thing after thing.  Time after time.  I would come so close and pull back at the moment of truth. 

In the three years since I have been on this journey, I have learned there is something scary about success.  It changes who you are.  Being complacent in the failure is somehow easier than living up to expectations that will surely come with doing things you have never done before.  However,  we miss so much avoiding the thing we say we want so badly.  As for my high school friend, she and I reconnected some years back, both of us on a fitness journey, her as a marathon runner and me as a badass Spartan.  She would come to climb walls and  jump fire with me, and recently I would get to embrace the slap bracelet again with her during the handoffs of the 12 man 200 mile relay of Cape Cod Ragnar. 

Through it all I have conquered my fear of heights, well mostly. I learned that I need to stop calling myself a non-runner, because running is less about the hard I originally thought it was, and more about control.  It is that confidence and control that has leaked into other parts of my life, making the outsider's heightened expectations of me a bit easier to handle. 

Mostly, though,  I have learned the value of taking on these huge challenges with epic people.  Beyond all of the finish lines I have crossed in the last couple years, I have found some of the best times of my adult life, and learned I am so much more capable than I ever imagined.  These are things I would have missed had I continued to pull back like I did for all of those years.  A week from Saturday, I will take on the Chicago Spartan Super for the second time with my son, my friends and a team of newbies.  I hope those newbies realize, they will not pull back at the finish.  Nope.  Not on our watch.  As they will soon see, there is a lot of value that lives in the space beyond jumping the fire and the finish line and the best is truly yet to come.