Outta My League

This is a picture of us after the race. From the left:

Me, Sarah is on my back, Liz is next to me with Kim on her back, and next to her is Sarah's hubby Brian with Liz's brother Shorty on his back.

"I am sooooooooo outta my league!" That was what I was thinking as I dragged my ass up the first hill in Tough Mudder. Sweat slicked beautiful people poured around me as I trudged up the mountain. I knew it was going to be a haul. I knew I was going to have to face my fears. What I didn't know is if I would finish.

I cried about four times on the cliffhanger, my hands buried in dirt, and leaning at an extreme angle to keep from sliding or falling backwards. There were three others perched on the hill. Shorty, a friend from workout, and the two girls I crossed the finish line with. I don't usually cry in front of other people. It was embarrassing, but I doubt they could tell if I was crying or struggling to breathe. It sounded about the same.

Tough Mudder shook my confidence in my skills. I made me doubt if I even wanted to do American Ninja Warrior. I've never felt so weak, so shaky, or so clumsy in my life. Every obstacle I came to I had to struggle to stop the screaming in my head.

I finished, but I finished as part of the last three. I've been on an emotional roller coaster this week about my performance. My friends are amazed I did it. I got a million likes and comments on FB. But I feel like they had no idea how absolutely wrecked I was when I finished. My friends I went with finished 2 hours 15 minutes before I did. I skipped 6 out of the 21 obstacles. I felt like I had been beat with a bar of soap in a sock when I crossed the finish. I cried in relief when I was done.

I felt less joyful and more filled trepidation. It was horrible. The whole race. The first obstacle, The Death March, was hellacious and it just got worse the further I went. My friend Sarah said it quit being fun about mile five. My cage was rattled at the arctic enema before mile 3!

I shared how I felt with Scott. He looked at me in shock and said, "Are you kidding me? Do you know how many people they carried out on stretchers? How many people that just left the course and went home beat to shit. You finished. You did it. That was the point and you did it!"

It was like I couldn't let myself feel accomplished. I did do it. I faced a lot of fears. Yeah, I skipped a few obstacles. Mainly because either I knew I couldn't do them (monkey bars, warped wall), I was too spent to handle being plunged in water one more goddamned time and being rattled by the impact (greased lighting, Devil's Beard), or I was already so emotionally raw there was no way I was dragging myself into a confined space and confront my terror of being buried alive (Trench warfare, boa constrictor). Part of me wishes I had at least tried them, but I know I did the right thing if I wanted to finish.

My friend Alissa always says the most amazingly zen things to me. They are always slightly goofy, but infinitely brilliant if you grasp them. I dropped by Portfolio to chat with Alissa and Chrissy this morning. We talked about the Tough Mudder, and my emotional up and downs this week about how I felt about myself, my body and my haggard performance. I repeated my feeling of being completely out of my league and Alissa hit me with one of her Zen zingers.

"Well yeah, you were out of your league, but how do you make it into the next league if you don't play outside of your own league? It's the only way to advance."

Yeah, I know. I told you, Zen zingers. So, kids the lesson here is:

Play out of your league, it's the only way to get better.