The only easy day was yesterday, this is my life motto/creed which I borrowed from the Navy SEAL's as it is their motto/creed. As I noted in my Bone Frog pre-race article, this event has been one of my most anticipated races all year! The day was just as it should be for a Navy SEAL OCR, it was pouring rain and not exactly warm.
I have been counting the days since participating in my first BattleFrog 15K in NJ (August 2, 2014) and the time was finally here! I volunteered in NJ and had a blast and gained a great deal of respect for BattleFrog, so I decided to take a PTO day from work Friday and drive to down Thursday night to volunteer all day Friday. I was offered a media pass by MRG and didn’t need to volunteer, but I made a commitment to Oscar and Lex and wanted to honor it.
The Mighty Run was developed to raise money for care provided on The Masonic Care Community campus. The Mighty Mites course rose over $12,000 to benefit its Child Care Center (the Center cares for children ages 8 weeks to 5 years old from all over the community). The Mighty Run raised almost $38,000 for its rehabilitation center. Everyone connected with the Mighty Run, clearly felt a great deal of pride on Saturday, despite the rain and cold, participants ended the course with smiles and energy!
This was the fourth straight year BoldrDash was being run at Yawgoo Valley Ski Area & Water Park in Exeter Rhode Island and it was easy to see that BoldrDash had a great idea how to best use the ski mountain as an obstacle course. They designed the course to use the mountain in a zigzag (snake) pattern which took you up and then down the mountain many times. This was great for several reasons as it created a course that was a challenge, and as well used every inch of the mountain to its fullest potential. The four mile course consisted of over twenty five obstacles on a mountain that has some very challenging vertical ascents and descents.
I researched City Challenge and what separated them from other OCR players. The first thing I noticed was that the course has no mud or water obstacles. What also caught my eye where some of the obstacles such as Battle Rope Jumps, Sumo Squat Kettle Bell Swings, Slam Ball Strikes, Caravan Parkover, and Heavy Bag Guantlet
Brian explained the NY course is very different from the New England course, for starters almost every inch of the course is on some form of micro terrain, meaning there are almost zero flat spots on the course except for a few and that is where they are placing most of the obstacles so runners legs are going to be smoked early and often. The course is going to be 8.7 miles long, and packed with the hardest obstacles they have. The actual race will take place on three separate properties that all connect to each other.
I arrived excited but after talking to these seasoned Tough Mudder's (those that have completed two or more are known as Legionnaires) I was now even more ready to rock and roll. Time passed pretty fast and before I knew it I was at the first starting line and ready to go. At this point we had someone really pumping up the group and getting us to stretch. We were then allowed to begin and I started to get myself in gear and noticed the group was stopping a short distance ahead as we had not actually started the course yet. The group was now being pumped up by Tough Mudder Motivator Sean Corvelle and he is very good at his job.
I refused to let the fact that my SUV had a catastrophic breakdown, or that we arrived really late, deter me from having a great time and writing this great article. Even though the zombie participants were no longer on the course I decided to still run the course. I love “bling” (medals) so my plan was always to die one run and survive the other (so I could get both medals) and this seemed like the perfect run to do as infected. I took my time running the course and I was able to get a good feel for it prior to running the Black Ops (night time version).
After learning about BattleFrog I was thinking about going and running the course. While researching the event and obstacles I noticed the volunteer link on the BattleFrog website and checked it out. The idea of volunteering and getting to run the course for free made BattleFrog seem like a no brainier. BattleFrog would get awesome help (me) for the day and I would meet the staff, hang out with SEAL's, meet more OCR regulars, and run the course for free?
I hope my being completely honest can help even just one person that reads this, I truly know what it feels like to feel hopeless and helpless and not want to live life that way anymore but I promise you its better spend every day killing yourself a little than to call it quits and remember... The only easy day was yesterday, embrace your beast and always be insanely focused.
