Team Drea Challenge

My friend Andrea was recently diagnosed with ALS at age 33. She is quite an athlete, having completed many races, triathlons, and a 70.3 half ironman. Her ALS progression is making physical activity much harder for her, but she does what she can. She recently proposed a challenge for people to push themselves to do a race that represents a major challenge for them: the Team Drea Challenge.

I shied away at first, hoping maybe she wouldn't notice if I crawled my fat ass under the radar for this one. I'm not into running. Let me rephrase that: I HATE running. I think people who love running are bonkers (sorry Andrea - love you, mean it!). Actually, I dislike exercise in general, but running is the worst of all. But who knows... Maybe a few months from now, I'll be bonkers, too. (Since I'm totally normal and sane at the moment. Duh.)

I eventually warmed up to the idea of participating somehow. I thought maybe I could do a long hike (I actually LIKE hiking)... Or maybe just donate to other people's fundraisers and support them from the comfy cozy couch in my pajamas with my cat in my lap. However, I could tell how much this challenge excited Andrea, and I know how much she loves running and races, and my being slack was everything this challenge is not. A quote on her blog post really struck a chord: "You can do this. You GET to do this." Well, shit. That is true.

I grumbled some more cuss words and started searching for races. They seemed too soon, too far away, too short, too long, too hard, too dinky. Every time I searched, I would end up grumbling more cuss words and not committing to anything.

Then I suddenly remembered the Ninja Challenge obstacle race that has been held near Raleigh for the past few years. I love watching Ninja Warrior on TV (the original Japanese version "Sasuke," not the glitzy Americanized one), and this Ninja Challenge had always intrigued me. It's a 5K obstacle race with obstacles reminiscent of Ninja Warrior. I have been meeting with a personal trainer for a few months, and I thought, hey, I'm in better shape than I've been in years... I might actually be able to pull this off, and it would be way more fun than a standard road race. It's in May, so I have time to train. So, I bit the bullet and signed up. Aaaaaaaahhhh!!!

Luckily, a few of my friends are also registered for the Ninja Challenge, so I joined their team. Yay! Friends! People to keep me going, make it more fun, and call in first responders when I'm dying during the race!

So, I told my personal trainer about the race, and she is training me accordingly. We are doing circuits of strength training and running. I am only able to run at 5.5mph for short periods of time (a minute and a half tops), so I have a long way to go. But I still have a few months to train, so I'm just gonna keep on keepin' on. I've also heard that pull-ups are an important part of training for this thing, so I bought a pull-up bar and some assisted pull-up bands so I can work on that at home.

And... I bought running shoes. Real ones. Ones that cost 4 times what my old sneakers cost. Apparently the investment is worth it, so I went for it. Asics gel Kayano 21... Whatever that means. They are gelly and cushy and comfy! And totally tacky and dorky-looking like all running shoes... What is up with that anyway?

I still hate running. I don't know if I'll ever get over that. But I'm trying. I'm testing different distractions while on the [grumbled cuss word] treadmill - music, mentally playing connect-the-dots with the little light-up dots on the treadmill display, comedy audio, podcasts, audiobooks, mentally reciting the lyrics of "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel... Any runners out there with any good distraction ideas, please share!

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