Why?

Why am I willingly subjecting myself to miles of hurt and pain to walk away with a speckling of bruises and scrapes? Why do I jump into freezing cold ponds only to fall off of a slippery rope? Why do I climb a sketchy wooden plank tower with legs shaking from sheer fear? Why do I spend countless hours running through the woods stopping every so often to do a set of 30 burpees on my weekends? Why do I crawl around a soccer field on all fours getting weird stares from maintenance men? Why do I spend hundreds of dollars on trail shoes, CamelBaks, registration fees, hotels, socks, all things compression, spandex, ropes, kettle bells, free weights, pull up bars, weight vests, bandannas, Body Glide, Gu's, sand, buckets, etc? Why don't I just run 5k's, Half Mary's, or Triathlons? Why don't I just go to the gym like normal people? Why do I cherish like gold all of the cheap medals that get draped around my muddy neck at the finish line? Why the hell am I running down the street in urban Cincinnati with a military bag packed with charcoal? Why?

I know the answer from my inner child, through my nonsensical reasoning, and in my heart, but its often hard to explain. More than once, me, my training or my races have been called crazy. I accept that. It is crazy when we live in the 21st century with all of our luxuries. But that's the point. I tried to explain in my first blog post. Below is an excerpt by Jason Jaksetic from the Spartan eBook. He answers perfectly the "Why?"

In the middle of a race, in the thick of things, when your mind and body start to unravel around you, there is a revelatory wonder and sense of ‘now’ that goes beyond what we can rationally express. And thus the irrational act of racing through mud and fire becomes rational—an insane behavior transforms itself into a very sane demonstration of human will. Spartan Race orchestrates for its racers the sense of wonder that is found in a kind of self-reliance that we seldom need in this society, where we have far more than we could ever use. Spartan Race forces you to awaken your senses, and it is through the acuity of our senses that we feel human. 

This is what we mean when we say, "You'll Know at the Finish Line.".

The Duke couldn't have said it better.