I did it and I have proof! The video is at the bottom. But first…

I was never the athletic one… E-V-E-R-!  I was picked last for teams, am notorious for tripping and stumbling (especially if I’m carrying a tray of food) and just in general I am the opposite of what one would call, ‘an athlete.’ However, I married the complete opposite! He is athletic and is very use to all things that require skills coming easily to him. Except when we did the Segways – I dominated him on the Segway but that’s a different story! 

So when he first asked me if I’d do one of his obstacle races (I say his because he’s done dozens – he’s even traveled around the country and to Canada to do them) it was an obvious and resounding, “No!”. But after two years of asking, I guess I just ran out of excuses. 

After I said yes, I immediately wished I could take it back, but I knew he wouldn’t let me. I WAS SO NERVOUS! I started training several months before our race. I started only running a mile (and that seemed like an amazing feat to me!), very slowly I added more and more distance to my run until I ran just over 4 miles the Saturday before our race. That was the longest distance I’d ever run in my life! 

The night before the race, I couldn’t sleep. All I could think about was how bad I was going to embarrass myself…I had dream after dream playing out all kinds of scenarios in which I could do it. The morning came and I wanted to back out…but the Mr. was so excited that we were having this little bonding experience and whether it was the death of me or not, I couldn’t disappoint him. 

3…2…1…The race began. I was so scared of the obstacles, but I would have to wait till I got through what seemed like a never ending track of sand. Eventually the obstacles came and I was shocked to be flying up and down them before the people ahead of me had even finished… As we came to the finish line, I couldn’t believe it was already over. 

The hubby smiled his cute little smile and asked, ‘do you want to do it again?’ and I said SURE. So we ran the 3+ miles again. Not only did I just run the longest I’d ever run in my life, but I did it with obstacles in between. 

I couldn’t believe what I had accomplished. For many it probably wasn’t much, but for me…it was incredible. I had just completed something I didn’t believe I was capable of doing…TWICE!  And it was that thought that I couldn’t shake. Why? Why had I been so sure I couldn’t do a race like this?

I had allowed outside opinions, past fears and childhood memories to convince me for more than 3 decades that there was just certain things that I couldn’t do…well it turns out I was wrong. Absolutely wrong. 

How many old ideas and former opinions (often not even our own) are we holding onto and allowing to block us from great things? 

Are you sure you can’t do that thing, you’ve always wanted to, but never believed you were capable of? 

I believe I know you can do hard things! 

And to prove it, I’m sharing my oh so embarrassing video that I am secretly really grateful to my amazing husband for making (and forcing me to even be in), with you. For these races my husband always wears his GoPro camera (not to be mistaken with Go4Pro – lol), this time he wore it so that he could make a video and show our kiddos what their mommy can do (he also shared it with our friends, family, neighbors and the UPS delivery guys – okay not really that bad – but close!) and then he asked, ‘you’re gonna share it on Go4Pro right?’ 

So here it is… Courtesy of my amazing husband. Thank you baby!