Dear TEAMS,
This past Saturday, I was honored to run and complete the
Spartan Race at Blue Mountain Ski Area in Palmerton, PA. I know that T and S might remember me telling
them the day before that I was nervous about it and needed some leniency and
grace with their normal challenging me in “mom” stuff.
Race morning at 5:45 AM, I found love notes of
encouragement from T and A which made my heart soar and feel so comforted. Then after we got home, all of you in your
own way said, “Great job, Mom!” This
made my smile that much bigger and made my already proud chest expand that much
wider. You guys are wonderful that
already you would acknowledge my achievement—not many kids at your present ages
would.
I cannot convey to you how extraordinarily proud I feel this
Monday morning. I always feel great
pride in you as children, and I live in a dull, continuing pride in myself for
being the kind of mother that I am. As
earlier posts have intimated, to have children as you, it only cost me
everything. And you were worth every
tear, act of submission, emotional cost, physical cost, etc.—because ultimately
I was emptying myself of the stuff that got in the way of treating you the way
God ordained and built my relationship with Him. But the pride I feel this morning, well, I
haven’t felt this way in quite some time.
The course was arduous and I completed it with integrity and met one of
the 2 pre-race goals I had set: to
finish within 2 hours, 45 minutes. I
finished in 2:32:00.
The other goal—to attempt every obstacle—I did not do. The race had 25 obstacles over its 4 mile
upmountain/downmountain climb. In the last half
mile, there were the following obstacles:
crawling under 50-100 yards of barbed wire in extremely coarse mud, some
puddles being a foot deep; scaling an acute angled wall, starting in 3 feet of
muddy water; scaling an 8 foot wall;
climbing a 25 foot rope and ringing a bell, starting in 3 feet of muddy water;
climbing under barbed wire to a high, A-frame structure that had ropes to climb
up one side and ladder boards to climb down the other; jump over a fire; and
run a gauntlet of men who were hitting people with big, heavy sticks with pads
on the end.
 |
| My actual Spartan Medal. I did it. |
By the time I was at the first barbed wire, about 2 hours
had passed. I was aware that fatigue was
setting in, although I certainly felt strong enough to cross the finish
line. After getting through the mud,
Sean P., who had caught up to me, offered to help me over the wall. I declined, because I was aware—while I was able
to"muddle" through it with help--I didn’t have enough strength left in my
reserves to do the obstacle well enough without exercising the type of caution
I needed on the other side to get down.
Sean pressed me, thinking I just needed encouragement. I simply explained to him that it wasn’t that
I was afraid of the obstacle. I just was
aware of what I could and couldn’t do at this point in the race, and felt it
was better just to walk around and do the 30 burpees on the other side. I walked around the medic team who was
tending to the woman with (I think) a broken leg at the left of the obstacle,
and started to do the drill.
At this point in the race, I could only do about 10 in a row
without stopping. I listened as the
people behind me slid down that side of the obstacle, slimy and slippery as it
was from the muck and mud. Vroom,
thud. Vroom, thud, thud. Lots of people sliding and landing in mud
below.
As I started my second set of 10, I heard an especially loud
thud and the distinctive sound of a crack.
Immediate shouts of “Medic, Medic!” and someone running made me stop and
turn. There, sitting in the mud at the
bottom of the slope, was a young man in his 20s, holding his leg up. At the bottom of his leg, his foot was turned
to the right about 180 degrees, so his toes were pointing backwards. He was smiling. Everyone around him was telling him not to
move. I was so tired, all I could think
was a very factual, “That man just broke his foot off. He will need extensive surgery, with
pins. His recovery will probably be
close to a year. For the rest of his
life, he will be hampered from the damage done.” And then, I went back to my burpees.
(I know it sounds a little calloused, but that is what the
Race is like. Every person is out to
achieve their individual goals, and if a medic hadn’t been available for the injury
on the other side, I am sure the camaraderie of the Event would have had him
tended to by many.)
When I finished my burpees, I turned again to see his
status, and he was still sitting there, with the same smile on his face. A Race rep was right by him, telling him not
to move. He looked almost goofy, as if
he didn’t realize that toes shouldn’t point that way. My analysis/survival
mode realized he was probably starting to trend to shock. And, that there was nothing I could do. So, off I ran.
As I ran down the hill to the next obstacle, I had a moment
of non-narrative clarity. I knew myself
well enough to know the previous obstacle shouldn’t be done by me in the state
I was in, and I even got to see proof that what I knew was right. But that knowing—that unquestioned, unpretentious
reaction to the obstacle that was knee-jerk in its timing—was actually wisdom. I knew that I knew something (I wasn’t strong
enough to complete the wall safely), and I chose to act on that truth over how
I felt in the moment or emotional consequences I might face later.
There is a reason Proverbs 3 dwells on wisdom. Its benefits are at listed at length. However, I’m here to tell you that on
Saturday, I lived the benefit of having wisdom listed in verse 26: And will keep your foot from being caught. Or, in that poor man’s case, keep my foot from sustaining a life-altering
injury.
Love,
