It's 12 days away.
Nervousness has been replaced with excitement. It's beginning to feel like a family reunion of sorts and I'm feeding off of everyone's excited energy. It's one of the reasons I love OCR so much - it's a celebration of life with like-minded people. Everyone I've met so far has found this path through struggle or overcoming some big challenge in their lives. All of them have been through "baptism through fire" and it's changed their outlook on life. It's intoxicating to be around people like that. Their attitudes towards life only fuel my own fire.
12 days. I'm pumped. I'm stoked. And I swore I'd never run an OCR again after my first one, the Run for Your Lives Zombie 5k. Now I'm running this one for the 2nd time and am registered for the ROC Race in April, plus with 2 more on the books.
When the race was about a month away, my mind started playing tricks on me. In my dreams at night, the 8 foot wall grew to 30 feet and the top of it was lost in the clouds above. "It's not 30 ft, it's EIGHT", I'd snarl with gritted teeth as I made that wall shrink back down to it's proper size. My mind would remind me of the pain and the fear I felt last year. I remind it that I made it through last year - with a smile. I AM A SPARTAN. Nothing can ever take that away from me.
Before the first "big" road race I ran (the US 10k Classic on my 18th birthday), I had a haircut scheduled a few days just before the race and I did really well on the race. Since then, having a haircut before a big race is almost like a good luck ritual to me. I used to do it before my racing season began, however, since I started running at least one race per month last year, I don't really have a "season" anymore. ;)
Haircut is scheduled for this Saturday. The last one I had was almost a year ago - just before the first time I ran the Georgian Spartan Sprint. Things started feeling real after I scheduled the haircut. This is happening. This is happening SOON.
Madness? THIS. IS. SPARTAAAAAAAA!!!!!!
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