Yep, it’s that time of year again. Time to put one year behind us and set some goals for the next one (or resolve to do them, if that’s how you roll). I’m guessing we can agree that there’s one thing in particular—one media-dominating, taboo-shattering, anxiety-inducing thing—that we’re especially glad to put behind us. I have a brief (politically neutral!) post-election point to make below, but first I have a loose end to tie up. Around this time last year, I wrote that I would resolve to “finally enter an obstacle course race” in 2016. At the time, more than 6.5 million people had finished Tough Mudders, Spartan Races, and Warrior Dashes in the prior six years, and I wanted to see firsthand what this craze was about and challenge myself in a new way. I’m happy to give the following update just under the wire: I did one, it was great, and I totally get it.
True, I eased into it. I did not do a race with the words “Beast” or “World’s Toughest” in its name. As a lifelong Red Sox fan whose only OCR-specific training was a dozen weekly pullups, I chose my event strategically: the Spartan Race Fenway Park Stadium Sprint in Boston on November 12. It was about three miles of running up and down steps, through narrow rows of seats in the bleachers and grandstands, around the perimeter of the upper deck and atop the famed Green Monster in left field, and through myriad tunnels of this 104-year-old cathedral of a ballpark. The running wasn’t easy but it turned out to be easier. Sprinkled liberally throughout those three miles were more than 20 obstacles and deviously conceived cross-training stations. I scaled walls up to eight feet tall. I climbed a 20-foot rope. When I wasn’t going up or down, I was often lugging sandbags, cement blocks, and other heavy objects around. I did pushups and burpees and box jumps. I threw a spear, missed the target, and had to do 30 more burpees (Spartan’s standard punishment for failing to complete a physical challenge—yet another physical challenge). I did it all in just under 51 minutes, and I finished feeling humbled yet elated.
The toughest part? Accumulated fatigue, which by the end of the race made it hard to lift my arms, let alone climb a rope. The best parts? First, there were more payoff moments than you get in a road race, where the sense of completion doesn’t come until the finish line. But every time I rang the bell at the end of an obstacle, I got a mental boost. Another one done. I got this. It’s not better than, say, a marathon, just different, the way quick social-media dopamine hits differ from the sweeping sense of closure you get at the end of an epic movie.
The other cool thing was the camaraderie. A pre-race ceremony recognized a nonprofit called Special Ops Survivors, which benfits the family members of Special Operations personnel who have died in combat or during training. There are hundreds of “Surviving Spouses” across the country, and two of them were in attendance. Spartan Races clearly exude a militaristic ethos, but the people running, climbing, and jumping around Fenway Park came in all ages, races, sizes, and, undoubtedly, political affiliations. Some competed on teams, others solo. But we pushed ourselves and each other through difficulty, so no one felt alone.
This sense of common purpose felt especially good just four days after the election. The race, at least for me, was an antidote to the dissension and divisiveness permeating our national mood, and a timely reminder that presidential politics cannot create true and lasting unity. We have to do that ourselves, in our own communities, wherever those are and however we define them. And lots of people are doing it. You just don’t hear about them enough. Their stories get obscured by the conflict and negativity that typically saturate the media (especially this year). In the January/Februrary issue of Runner’s World, we profile seven Heroes of Running—inspiring people who turn away from adversity and despair to make their own lives meaningful, their own corners of the world better, and the lives of imperiled or less fortunate people more bearable. They include Makorobondo Salukombo, a Congolese immigrant in Cleveland who founded a youth running and education program in his former village called ProjectKirotshe, and Amanda Charney, a speech and language pathologist who launched Small Steps in Speech, a nonprofit that provides grants to families of kids with communication disorders. She took this rather large step a few days after her fiancé, U.S. Army Special Forces Staff Sgt. Marc Small, was killed in Afghanistan, and has since added the annual On Your Marc 5K in Small’s hometwon of Collegeville, Pennsylvania. Forget divide and conquer—these runners connect and conquer.
Sometimes, it’s the smaller, more obscure moments than resonate the most. In October, Khalid Elkhereiji, a partially blind runner from Saudi Arabia, finished the Chicago Marathon with help from two guides. One of them, Amanda McCracken, had taught English to Elkhereiji 12 years ago in Colorado, where she lives. They met up in Chicago and, along with a local guide, Kyle Larson, finished the race in 3:35, a 36-minute PR for Khalid. (McCracken’s account of the race and its significance can be found here.)
In Elkhereiji’s country, women aren’t even allowed to drive. In ours, anti-Muslim rhetoric is alarmingly common. But on a recent fall Sunday, a nearly blind Muslim was led through the streets of a city he’d never visited by two Americans, one of them a Christian woman.
It’s not just that they did it. More than 40,000 runners finished Chicago that day, and thousands of them ran faster. It’s that they did it together.
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David Willey is the editor-in-chief of Runner’s World and the host of “The Runner’s World Show” podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @dwilleyRW.
