Two weeks ago, I thought I closed out my From Casual to Competitor series. And then, I somehow pulled out a personal pinnacle: completing three obstacle course races in three straight weekends. After that, I had a conversation with my girlfriend, and I was talking about being a casual obstacle course racer. She then made the very obvious point I’d been missing: “You probably should drop the word ‘casual’ from your vocabulary.”
Edit 2/16/17: Photos are in!
Yesterday, the journey I’ve been chronicling for the last few weeks finally came to fruition: yesterday I ran and completed my first competitive wave at Warrior Dash. A little over a month of training crammed in between long days of work finally finished off with a long morning and a great race. Here are some of the things I got out of my first competitive run:
First off, I’m normally up this early because of work. Even on weekends. But this morning is different. In 24 hours, I’ll be waiting at the starting line of Warrior Dash with the other competitor racers. As I stated in previous posts of this series, I don’t have any crazy expectations. I’m running the competitive wave to push my personal boundaries. I don’t expect to stand at the podium and hold up a check. I don’t expect to be in the top 10 and qualify for the OCR World Championship. I just want to finish in a respectable time. My goal is 45 minutes for the course.
Right now, I’m excited, nervous, and full of anticipation. Keep your eyes peeled for the followup to the race. And find me on Facebook and Twitter!
It’s pretty hard to imagine. In November, I took the chance of registering for Warrior Dash’s competitive wave. That was over three months ago. As of this writing, I am less than a week away from entering the ranks of OCR competitors around the world. With only six days (or five days and 16 hours to go for those who enjoy being technical), this is a good time to reflect on what’s to come from this experience.
The last ten or so days have been quite tricky as I get closer to my first competitive wave. As of this writing, I am 13 days away from my first time taking on real competition, where it’s not just me versus myself and the obstacles; it’s me against myself, the obstacles, and 50 other people who are also out to prove how good they are. While I have already chosen to not focus on being the best there, I still can’t ignore the challenge of racing other athletes. It’s not something I’ve experienced in years, and I don’t count friendly competition of HORSE on a basketball court. My main goal is still put up a respectable time in the competitive wave. And with less than two weeks till then, I’m officially in crunch time.
Today marks 28 days before I take on my first competitive wave at Warrior Dash. With just four weeks to go, it means that my training needs to be pushed to the next level, and soon! This week was the first full week back to work since break, so finding time from this point on to get my workouts in will be tricky, but as long as I keep myself focused on this goal, then I will be fine.
The first of my series. For those who’ve read my Prospective 2017 Calendar, then you know that I’ve recently signed up for the competitive wave at Warrior Dash. This is their first event of the year, and running in the first wave of the day lets me join the elite group of individuals who will be a part of their season’s kickoff. That in itself is pretty great. However, going from casual racer to competitive racer already has its effects on me as a person and an athlete. The focus of this series is to chronicle those changes.
Ryan Runs in Mud 