Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner - I Won a Spartan Race!!

Last week I was feeling a little adventurous with my work outs. As in, "I think I'll try interval training! I can totally do that!". I know. Super exciting, right?

After one of these productive treadmill sessions, I came home and saw one of my favorite blogs, Random Rants of an Army Wife, was doing a giveaway. And not just any giveaway, a Spartan Race giveaway!

Blindly excited that the word "race" was in the sentence, I wrote about why I love running:

 I happily went about my day, moving on to the important things like hop scotch and hide and seek (my kids aren't the only ones that still play these, right?).

A few days later, low and behold, I get a friendly message: I won!! Wow! How exciting! How thrilling!

Then I looked at what a Spartan Race was.

How terrifying.

Think the love child of a serious 5k and a Crossfit Games. 

It looked fun. It looked challenging. It looked like the kind of stuff my wimpy upper half was unprepared for. Burpees? Pull ups? Army crawling through mud under barbed wire?

Dude.

Maybe this was just what I needed though. To be honest, I have been struggling on the fitness front. My moods have been all over the place, and even when I work out I don't push myself as hard as I can. 

My nutrition has been as bad, if not worse. Coffee and ice cream are not a special necessary food group. I need to remember that.

Now I have a goal. I will be running in the southern California Spartan Sprint in January. And I will be in the best shape of my life to do it. 

I met with a trainer today to start a weight training plan. For running, have a goal of hitting 15-18 miles a week, with 3/4 being speed training. I am dragging my butt out of bed at 5am tomorrow to make it to a boot camp class, because apparently I "have no ab muscles" (per the trainer) and bootcamp class can help with that.

It is going to be hard. But what about my journey has been easy? In the end I will be a Spartan. I will be able to say I made a commitment to myself and followed through. 

Thank you, Amber at Random Rants of an Army Wife and Spartan Races, for giving me back my drive and motivation. 

Have any of you run a Spartan race or something similar? Please share your training tips! And I will share my cookies. Or protein powder.