Headbands are for weirdos.

Hey guys.  I hope your weekend was as eventful and thrilling as mine.  With that said, let’s get started.

So, as you already know, I competed in the Tough Mudder in Wintergreen, Virginia this past weekend.  Overall, I had a great time.  I got to hang with a Marine buddy, Donnell (of whom I have had the honor of serving with over three tours) and my step dad, Dave.  I will try to not make this entry so much a review of the event, but more an update on where I stand with the Death Race.  That is, in fact, the point of this fancy blog.

 I hate to say it but the word “compete,” in retrospect, is a verb that I would not use to elaborate on what I did this past weekend during the Tough Mudder.  Granted, TM headquarters will be the first to tell you that they are not concerned with what your elapsed time was on the course but that you just finish.  So when I say I didn’t compete, it’s not that it wasn’t challenging because it certainly was to a degree, I just didn’t feel the need to metaphorically smoke-check the “mudders” around me.  And I hated that.  I want my efforts, both of preparation and during execution, to be measured and held accountable for during an event such as this.  The most challenging facet of this race was the repetitive ascending and descending through the mountain slopes.  For those of you who do not know, Wintergreen is a ski resort.  And I’ll be honest; my legs were pretty tired at the end.  There were a lot of mudders walking the entire course because of all of the hills and this included the finish.  I remember looking back down a half-mile hill (of which had an ascending angle of about 130 degrees) and thinking that the entire pool of mudders behind me looked like the walking dead.  So when I finished the race… I felt no degree of satisfaction.  And that pissed me off.  I did a lot of thinking and asked myself repeatedly, “why didn’t I feel anything?”  I think the main reason why I didn’t feel that satisfaction was the fact that the race’s difficulty was completely indicative of the hills that were there.  Without them, the race is just hot air.  Let me try and convey to you what I mean.  Let’s say that you have a buddy that wants to do this “awesome workout” and to do this work out, you guys plan on meeting at the gym in a few hours.  You get there and ask him what the workout is and he simply replies, “a thousand pushups.”  Two things are for certain; one is that you will feel fatigue because you are working, and only working, your chest and triceps.  Secondly, you’re going to get bored really quick.  That’s how I felt at the end; fatigued and bored.  To top it off (and this is something of preference) but all you get at the finish line is a stupid fucking headband.  What is this, the fuckin 80’s?  Don’t tell me that I collectively paid over FIVE HUNDRED dollars to “noncompetitively compete” in an event and you guys can’t put forth effort to give me a medal instead of a headband?  Really?  Come on, guys.

            Anyways, after giving a couple of days to let my legs rest, I decided to hit the gym this morning.  I am pretty excited because I decided to change my routine up a bit.  It’ll be a two week routine where the first week is nothing but heavy lifting, stretching, and abdominal workouts and the second week will be nothing but intense running and circuit workouts.  The main reason why I am excited is because I get to look forward to two weeks a month of relaxing at the gym with my weight lifting routine.  After my workout this morning, I had almost forgotten how relaxing it could be to just go to the gym and throw some weights around.  I actually felt guilty about it and ended up finishing my work out with some dynamic stretching and calisthenics.   Mehhh… C’est la vie. 

            I had promised you guys that I would tell you something funny that happened during one of my workouts a couple of weeks ago.  To set the scene, one of the workouts that I do is that I jog with a 40lb. weighted vest and a very large rock (between 10-20 lbs).  The idea is to throw the rock, walk to the rock, pick up the rock, and throw it again.  This is done for just over three miles.  And just for an added bonus, I make sure to drop and do thirty burpees, thirty squats, and thirty static lunges every half mile.  FUN!  So I was doing this and jamming out to some AWOLnation on my iPhone and walking through the soccer field that is about a quarter of a mile from my house.  I am almost finished when I suddenly notice flashing blue lights around me.  I turn and look and get blasted in the face with a very bright light from what appears to be a police car.  Sweet.  In this dialogue, our policeman will be referred to as John Law; not only because he’s a cop but because he had one of the biggest noses I had ever seen and reminded me of John Law himself, the famous Scottish economists from the 18^th century who was also one of the most famous gamblers of his time (some say he invented the counting-card technique).   What…?  Don’t judge me.  Get a freakin book and read.

Me:                  Can I help you, sir?

John Law:       You can start by dropping that rock for me son.

Me:                  <drops rock>

John Law:       Can I ask you what the hell you’re doing out here.

Me:                  Just workin out, sir. 

John Law:       Workin out, huh?  Step closer for me.  You can just be walkin around a neighborhood at 4:30 in the morning with a flak jacket on and tossin’ a huge rock around.  That dog don’t hunt ‘cause then I get a call and have to drive out here.  It’s a waste of my time and that is somethin’, young man, that I do not take too kindly to.

Me:                  It’s a weighted vest, sir.

John Law:       Don’t argue with me.

Me:                  Yes, sir.

Before you guys get your panties in a twist, the officer recanted his attitude once I told him that I was a home owner in the neighborhood.  I guess thought I was just some joker doing whatever I wanted, wherever I wanted.  

            As far as my up-and-coming challenges go, I still plan on running in the TM event in December.   Jessica had bravely signed up for it and I couldn’t be more excited or proud of her because this, my friends, is not her bag.  But as a caveat, this will be the last event in where I do it with anyone.  I need to become more competitive and that is not going to happen with me treating these events like they’re one step above a friendly activity.  Now, remember what I wrote on my last blog about the challenge that I set for myself?   Well, I will now elaborate on that challenge. 

With the three Spartan events that are coming up next year in my area, the Carolina Spartan Sprint, the Mid-Atlantic Super Spartan, and the Carolina Beast, I plan on doing all three events on both days that they are available. And it doesn’t stop there.  I also plan on competing in these events multiple times throughout each day.  I will run the Spartan Sprint four times each day for a total of eight runs.  With for the Mid-Atlantic Super Spartan, I plan on competing twice each day for a total four runs.  And for the Beast, it will just be a single run each day.  Unfortunately, the average time to complete a single Beast is just over 6.5 hours so I pretty much guarantee that I will not make it back for the last heat in time to run it twice.  But still, that’s over 80 miles of mud trudging and Spartan obstacles!  So I am very, very excited to do this and I am looking forward to the prep-work that will go into all of this.  Of course, walking away with fourteen Spartan Race medals will be pretty sweet too!  Again, these are just small milestones that I want to put in front of me in order to step up my competitiveness.  If I really want to do the Death Race, I have to build quite a resume.  Spartan HQ only accepts 200 applicants a year to compete and if I want them to take my application seriously, I have to set and complete challenges for myself such as the ones stated above.  I hope you guys stay interested and keep up.

Thanks for reading guys.  Have a great week!

And then?

So I am feeling pretty good being fresh off of my half marathon that occurred this past weekend.  I was pretty excited when I crossed the finish line and had managed to shave over seven minutes off of my last half marathon time.  Plus... Jessica took me to McDonalds.  And it was fuckin sweet.  In regards to my time, with my first half marathon I had to wait until three days later until I wanted to work out again given the fact that I was pretty sore.  This time, it was a day and a half and I was out and about and going full speed.  So I am seeing progress.  It’s progress that I am happy with.  It’s not like I am in a platoon anymore or that I am a part of a soccer team or any other type of group related activity where folks work out together.  I’m up at 4:15 in the morning 5 days a week for at least an hour busting my ass and doing the most ridiculous work outs I can find (or that are provided to me via WODs).  I’m out there in the dark where no one can see me; where no one notices me.  I have only me to hold myself accountable.  For those of you who don’t know I also hold a full time job that requires me to travel quite a bit and I go to school full time.  So I don’t exactly have time to breathe much during the week.  Now I would be a bold-faced liar if I told you that I have never turned over, reset my alarm, and slept in until 0630.  Those days are few and far between…. Don’t judge me.

Now if you have the chance and ever want to find out more about the kind of person it takes to surpass the death race, you can look at Jason Jaksetic’s blog.  Guys like him have redefined the word “athlete” for me.  I have an insurmountable amount of respect for that word now.  I feel that the term is let down, misused, or even clichéd these days.  Just because your kid got a fitness award at school, it does not make him an athlete.  We live in a nation where our physical educators (or P.E. teachers), and even our coaches, are a bunch of huge blubbering fat asses.  Who the in the fat-taco-fuck are these people and how in God’s name did they obtain their credentials and their positions as hierarchy to our youth?  Really? You want to teach me about health and education, how to climb up a rope, and make me run sprints for a half hour when, in fact, if you were to jog for five minutes you would run the risk of shitting out your own heart.  Too harsh?  Ok, fine.  So you’re telling me that you would take weigh loss advice from someone whose arm waves… when they wave?  If you would well, then, you can eat it.  Or not.  Yea, don’t eat it.  Belay my last.   Anyways… athlete… good word.   Let it be known to you that I am not an athlete.  I don’t think that I could truly represent that word so therefore, I humbly refuse to consider myself one.  Maybe one day.

So If I have been able to do it correctly, I have actually uploaded a list of the events (at the bottom of the page) that I have signed up for or are seriously considering signing up for.  I was thinking about going through and deciphering all of the different events and who brings what to the table and how difficult they are or how long they are, yadda yadda yadda.   Not going to.  If you would care to know more about a certain event then just simply Google it.  Rest assured that before I take on an event or shortly after it, I will tell you know all about it.  The one that I will probably elaborate more about here in the upcoming months is The GORUCK challenge.  And I am psyched about that event.  It will be a twenty-hour metaphorical kick in the balls.  The Wilmington Iron Man will also be one hell of a mile stone to cross.  And it being only a year away and very little time to prepare for will make the finish line all the sweeter.  These events only represent the small milestones that I am making.  I never stress about them.  They are what I live for.  When I run these events, it is nothing but game day romantics coupled by pure agonizing bliss.  I am an addict because of that feeling.  I beg you, if you can, do something like one of these events.  Get out there; train your but off for a few months and kick ass at the event.  I promise you it will change your life.  Afterwards, you will be scavenging around to almost every race oriented web site looking to sign up for the next ten races.  What they do is inject a practical reason to be in shape.  And you will because you are going to want that feeling again.  I almost come to tears every time I cross the finish line whether it’s a simple fun run or a half marathon.  I’m not going to beg you again.  This is me telling you that you’re missing out and you’re selling yourself short.

                So, as you can see, this weekend I have the Wintergreen Tough Mudder.  I will be running that with my friends Jacob, Nels, and my stepdad, Dave.  It will be epic.  Game day romantics, remember?  I am excited.  Pictures and all of that happy nonsense will surely follow.  In my next follow up, I’ll talk about the Tough Mudder and how awesome it was along with some challenges that I have set for myself.  When I told Carrie from Spartan Race HQ what I planned to do, she concisely emailed me back saying “I dare you.  We dare you.  Give us your best shot.”  And just as an added bonus, I will also share a funny story of how I got in trouble with John Law during one of my work outs.  So stay tuned.  J

My begining of beginings.

Where and how one begins to describe them self and what makes the way that they are is somewhat beyond me. I think that if you’re normal-ish, you shouldn’t like describing yourself. However, I suppose that honesty is always the best policy and I will try my best to stick with that approach. Please keep in mind that I’ve never done this before and I can’t help but have flash backs to when I was a bit younger and had a MySpace page; this is somewhat awkward for me. I will do my best to keep in short and sweet, keeping only what is important for you to know and what is applicable to my little synthetic soap box.

I am 27 years old and live in Jacksonville, North Carolina. I served just over a typical four year stint in the Marines of which I joined in December of 2003. Most were not at all surprised that I went in the Marines; dad was a Marine and so what his. However, most were shocked that I did it prior to completing my college education. And to add additional gray hairs to my closest loved ones, I joined the Infantry. When told by my recruiter that I was allowed choose any job that I wanted, I chose the Infantry. He followed through with a very cautious, “Are you sure?” My response: “Yea… what the hell else would I want to do?” So, to me, there was no choice. I wanted to be a REAL Marine. I wanted to fight. Well, I thought I did. In reality, the first time I got shot at, I pissed myself a little bit. Granted, it was a rocket propelled grenade that could have very well turned me into a puffy cloud of pink mist… but I was still scared shitless… piss-less… whatever. After only a few deliberate and very decisive engagements with the enemy, the fear was no longer a hindrance. It was more like wood for a fire that I had learned quickly how to control the burn rate of. In conjunction with greater control of my fear(s), I stopped thinking about myself and started to think more about the guys to the left and right of me, what the task at hand was, the commander’s intent, and how to finish the mission so we could get the fuck out of there. It all eventually came down to the guys I served with. These gentlemen were of the finest and most tarnished caliber of men that you could come across. Every single one was loud, vulgar, untactful, brazen, or a horrific combination of a few different traits listed. They dated strippers and beat each other up. But they were however, of the highest of moral character and it’s really difficult to describe as to why I feel this way. For instance, let’s say that one of the guys that I worked with, maybe a fellow team leader, a peer… let’s say he did something that, no-shit, saved my life. If I were to walk up to said Marine and thank him, he would probably respond with something like, “Shut the f*ck up and don’t be such a fag.”

I did fine in the Marines. Better than most and I came across tons of great challenges throughout my abrupt career. And who doesn’t love a good challenge? I sure do miss it a lot. It doesn’t help that I am still around them and that I still train them as a civilian. But I decided that it was time for me to get out. I get asked constantly from my training audience, “Dude, why did you get out?” Well, one reason that I decided to end my active service was because I made promises to certain people that mean very much to me of who will remain nameless. In order to fulfill those promises, I needed to get out. The second reason walks hand-in-hand with the first; I was turned down for the very coveted Marine Corps Enlisted Commissioning Program (MECEP). A female general from II MEF Command felt that the ink on my arm was an ill representation of what the Marine Corps was all about. I’m not going to lie, if I were to ever run into her again, I would probably tell her… never mind. It wouldn’t be nice.

So as of now, I am a very proud home owner, I have an awesome girlfriend named Jessica, and I work as a contractor on Camp Lejeune. For work I facilitate and direct simulation training as well as teach Marines how to use those training applications and programs on their own and how to tailor the training to best fit their individual unit’s mission. I refuse to describe my job any further because if I did, you’d fall asleep and thus would defeat the purpose of me writing this. I will tell you that I love my job. I really do. Almost just as much as being a active war fighter but doing my job now allows me to go to school full time as well earning my degree in Social Sciences with a focus in Homeland Security. The downside of my situation is that am constantly interacting and teaching active and reserve Marines. My day-to-day interaction with these guys places me in this perpetual cloud of nostalgia. Hearing their bitching, bull-shitting, and the retarded nonsense that they have to deal with on a day-to-day basis is really one of the highlights of my day. I’m lucky that I still have a few Marine friends in the area. They have been the saving grace of my sanity on a number of occasions. I just feel better being around them. It’s like that trite phrase you always hear: square hole, square peg. Almost everyone surrounds themselves with like-minded people… people we just lock step with based on moral commonalities. It boils down to human nature really. So, minus my military career, I really feel as if I am normal person. Kind of…

You’re probably asking yourself, “What, kind sir, is this blog going to be about?” Well, I’ll tell you my loyal little minion, it’s going to be about my journey of eventually competing in the Spartan Death Race. Why do I want to do this? What the shit is wrong with me? I really don’t know! But I am absolutely enthralled to the point of pure obsession. The idea of completing this race just drives me; it moves me. It makes me absolutely slaughter myself in every work out that I do. “Slaughter? What, kind sir, do you mean by slaughter?” I’ll tell you what I mean, my little minion. If you cannot metaphorically draw a chalk outline of my dead fucking soul on the ground as it lays in a lake of my sweat after I finish my workout, then I didn’t do something right and I will indeed make up for it next time. I am just absolutely captivated by this race. I visit the web site, watch videos, read blogs, and dream sweet dreams about competing in the coveted race every single day. If you are unfamiliar with it, it’s ok. A part of what is so great about it is that it is so elusive. But I’ll tell you what I think is important and what little I do know about it.

Firstly, it is a race that occurs once a year in a little town called Pittsfield, Vermont. The race is an ultimate test of one’s mental resolve, fortitude, toughness, and skills in circumvention of difficulties and obstacles. Ninety percent of those who compete do not even finish. This is due to common injuries such as broken bones, exhaustion, and hypothermia… most of the time the racer just completely gives up and quits. There are also some pre-race duties that you will have to complete either by yourself or with a team. This is usually done the night before the race and the obligations, depending on how efficient you are as an individual or team, take you on through the night and are usually finished just before the race itself starts. For example, I know that some teams are tasked with building bridges, parts of obstacles, clearing paths, etc. On an individual level, this past year the racers were tasked with a very benign, tiring, and repetitive task just before the race started. The task was to pick up a rock (of which was provided) that weighs roughly twenty five pounds and lift it above their head and place it back on the ground. This was done with their racing pack which weighed anywhere from 50-70lbs. Oh yea… they did this for four hours without stopping. Doesn’t this sound like fun? I get all tickled inside just thinking about it! I’ll spare you on the other details. If you want to learn more about the death race, watch the video below and go to www.SpartanRace.com or, for more about the death race itself, www.youmaydie.com.

Now it would be madness to sign up and take a shot at this without competing in some sort of ultra endurance race prior to this. This race is eating up seasoned Iron Man triathlon athletes, men from all tiers of our nation’s elite Special Forces Operations community, and extreme outdoorsman alike. But for folks such as myself, just starting out in individual racing events, Spartan Race offers three sub-tier races as well. They are held all over the country throughout the year. Each race occurs outdoors and you can bet on getting wet, muddy, cold or a combination thereof throughout the race and you can pretty much bet on finishing exhausted and beat up. The Spartan Sprint is a 5k obstacle race that can have up to fifteen obstacles along the way and about 98% of those who start, finish. The Super Spartan is usually around eight miles in length with an average of over twenty obstacles, occurs in areas with greater deviations in elevation throughout, and about 80% of those who start the race finish. The Spartan Beast occurs in areas of mountain-like terrain, is around twelve miles in length, and only about 55% of those who start the Beast actually finish it. Conveniently enough, the Beast offers a “graceful exit” somewhere along the three-mile mark in which is a path that allows you to quit without having to trudge through mud, forests, and swamps to get back to the starting area. Competing in all three types within a single calendar year is known as getting your trifecta and should be the goal of every adventure racer. But if I want to compete in the Death Race of 2013, I have to do more; much more. And I will go into what that will be in my next blog.

Here's one of their promo videos:

So as you can see, I certainly have enthusiasm about competing and about one day finishing the Death Race. How far it will take me will be seen in this blog. I promise you this: if I ever quit or give up on my goal, I will post it in this blog and leave it up forever for everyone to see. So follow close. In my next entry, I will go over where I am at in my fitness level, what events I have signed up for, and any other information that I think is relevant or pertinent in my journey to The Spartan Death Race. Thanks for reading.