Get up early, get the kids to school, get to work, meetings, meetings, and more meetings. Home for dinner, kids to bed, drained. Repeat.
Get up early, off to the airport, meetings, meetings, and more meetings. Dinner, hotel, drained, repeat.
No matter if you stay at home or travel for a living, no matter if you have kids or have pets, life is busy. It’s how we incorporate exercise into our busy lifestyle that helps separate us from the rest. Do we make excuses and say life is too busy, do we say we don’t have the time to fit it in our day, or do we step up, and improve who we are and what we represent.
We all know life is busy, there are very few of us that can dedicate our life to obstacle racing. Most of us have jobs, most of us have families, but we all have one thing in common, the love for mud.
Some say obstacle racing is just reaching the racing scene, some say it has been around for years. No matter your stance, the one thing we can all probably agree on is it’s here to stay. Obstacle racing brings out a different beast in all of us. It’s a change from the flat pavement running. It’s an excitement that brings us back to our youth.
So if we all love the sport, and we all want to compete at our highest level, how do we incorporate training into our daily busy lives? Do we wake up early, do we stay up late, do we fit it in over lunch? No matter what you prefer, the only wrong answer is not exercising at all. To be an obstacle course racer, we need to train in more than just running. We need to train upper body, we need to train lower body, we need to train cardio, we need to train mentally, we need to train on hills, and the list goes on. So running short on time the way it is with our busy lives, there are few opportunities to focus on our passion of obstacle course racing.
So what is the key? Well that key could be different for everybody. But ultimately we need to take every opportunity we get to make ourselves better, even the short amount of time we get. Maximize every opportunity.
When running, stay off the paved trail. Most obstacle course races feature no pavement, so why practice on it, enjoy the great earth given to us. Almost all races have hills, so hit them every chance you get. Obstacles course races include stop and go running opportunities, so your training should as well. Burpees, bear crawls, push-ups, anything to mimic a race course obstacle. Don’t shy away from running in the wind, rain, or cold either, look forward to it and take that opportunity to train in the harsh conditions mother nature gives us.
We can always find a place to run, most of us don’t need to look hard, and if you think you do, you are only fooling yourselves. Find a trail, find a sidewalk, or run around your work parking lot. Run the stairwells, run the parking garage, run in your hotel parking lot. Jumping jacks, jumping rope, burpees, planks, all of these exercises can be done in our hotel room, our bedrooms, our office, or a secret place in our office building. We don’t need a fancy workout facility.
While many of us do live life on the run, we forget to truly live life on the run. Think about everything you do and what you could be doing in that exact moment to make yourself better in the sport you love. Because being an obstacle course racer doesn’t just mean running pavement.
Nothing is normal about obstacle course racing, and nothing is normal about obstacle course racers. Dare to be different, dare to stand out, be proud of your sport. Train insane or remain the same.
