With World’s Toughest Mudder in the books. I can sit and reflect on the race and the year as a whole. This race would not have been possible without Juliana, Matt, and Alex. It truly was a team effort and it was almost a year in the making. World’s Toughest Mudder can be run as an individual but I think it’s meant to be run as a team. I see this now. Each races teaches us something and this race was no exception. Putting it into words can be difficult but here it goes:

Lessons Learned

1. Life Happens – this year was filled with ups and downs, as much as you think you can prepare life happens and we are forced to adjust.

2. Inner Demons – this race forced me to face my deepest inner fears, and combat them head on. Am I broken of them, I don’t think so, but I did have look them in the eye for hours and deal with my own insecurities.

3. The team is greater than the individual – I have no doubt without a team by my side I would have never gone back to WTM. It was the group as a whole were strength was gained not from one individuals actions.

4. Limits – for the first time in years I really pushed my limits. I pushed harder and further than I have in years. I can go further than I think and this race showed I still have yet to truly hit the edge.

5. Teamwork – I have always been a loner when it comes to sports, not the best team player, this race forced me to think outside of the individual, trust others, and ask for help when it was needed.

6. Friendship – Having the support crew around for the entire race reaffirmed the bonds between my friends. Truly I am very very lucky to have such amazing people in my life that they are willing to fly across the country to stand around in the cold all night and cheer us on.

7. Strength – I am stronger than I think, this was reaffirmed hour after hour while racing.

8. Stubborn – I continue to be reminded how stubborn I am. This race there was no way I was stopping until the race was finished.

9. It’s all Mental – 95% of racing is mental 5% is the physical part. In endurance racing we truly are racing our own mind.

10. It’s Not about the Numbers – In the end the race wasn’t about where we finished, what place we came in, how we stacked up against others, it became a very internal race for our team. It’s not about a black headband, a poop brown bib in the mail. It was about starting something and finishing it as a team.

In 2011, I just did WTM, overall it wasn’t fun. I had great people around me and we laughed but I didn’t get a personal sense of enjoyment out of it. WTM 2013 as painful and hard as it was I enjoyed my experience. It left me wanting more, and gave me the drive to go back and try it again. By the numbers we came in 18th out of 30 teams that finished, almost 50 started. We were the only team to have 2 men and 2 women. There were 3 other teams with one women on them, otherwise they were all male teams. We might have been able to push through to get 55 miles but there was no point we had our experience we had our time, and we left the race a true team. The four of us had never all raced together and live all over the county and started as 4 people who knew each other and now are bonded for life.