Reclaiming Saturdays

For the last year or so of college, I would wake up on the first day of the weekend with “Saturday’s a Rugby Day,” on my mind, whether or not I was scheduled to play – it’s one of those phrases that gets ingrained into your thought process.  It was nice to get up and moving for a game, or to head to the fitness center knowing that just across campus, the team was kicking ass.  I’d never been an active person; sports were exclusive and stressful when I was kid, and it was much easier to escape into a book for the hours of the weekends than to lace up and head out somewhere for a hike.  Rugby was a surprise while I was at Castleton – I joined initially because it looked do-able (no one was intimidatingly fit, and I’ve always had strong legs), and because someone told me I wouldn’t be able to.  That tiny doubt made me motivated – I spent almost every early morning doing cardio in the gym, and pushed through practices.

Proof that I was cool with getting muddy waaay back in ’06

Sports thinking doesn’t come naturally to me, so while I was pretty good at simple plays and the basic gameplay, I never rose to become a star player.  But that was fine – I enjoyed the physical aspect of practices, and the team camaraderie kept me going when I thought I was done.  Unfortunately, as it tends to do, Life got in the way.  I needed to spend more time on studies and student teaching my senior year,  so the fitness piece of my day got further obstructed.

After college, Saturdays devolved into a mash of retail hours and couch-potato-ing.  While sleeping-in was nice, I’d get to Sunday night feeling unfulfilled and, let’s face it, lazy.  The days of Rugby games were long gone, and the elliptical in the back room of my apartment was a non-motivating beast of overly squeaky gears and creaking parts – nothing makes you feel Fat Chick Syndrome quite like exercise equipment screaming under your weight.

Then the mind-shift happened.  I’d been following Aja’s progress for a few weeks, and struggling through my own 3-4  weekly weight routines and cardio, and I realized what I needed to do.  I started running outside.  My first run was ugly, but I beat that first tiny goal.  I kept it up, and weeks flew by.  I signed up for races, completed Spartans, and did the best thing I could:

I reclaimed Saturdays.

Looking back over my calendar for 2012, I have more filled Saturdays than ever before in my lifetime.  There are the expected geeky weekends here and there, but also more races, hikes, runs, and other active events than bear counting.  By the time I reach Sunday night, I feel accomplished and motivated.  Sunday mornings can be a little lazy, because I’ve likely done something borderline-epic the day before.  This Saturday was an excellent example, as I spent a few hours trekking through a training run along Shale Hill Adventure Farm‘s obstacle course (ORTC: Obstacle Course Training Center).

At first look, Shale Hill is this unassuming plot of land in the middle of South West Vermont farm country.  Driving along the road, you can easily convince yourself that it’s just another hilly cow pasture dotted with hay bales.  But in true VT spirit and ingenuity, this 100+ acre property holds some of the most challenging terrain and obstacles that any Spartan or Tough Mudder can handle.  The brainchild of Super-Fit-Dude Rob Butler, Shale Hill’s winter training run was harder than any OCR I’ve tackled to date.  Keeping in mind that at my fitness level, ALL OCRs are tough, this one is in a separate class.  Despite the challenging obstacles (some of which I’ll talk about in a sec), the course was downright fun.  It’s understood that climbing a fire pole in January is hard.  Climbing over a 15′-20′ cargo net (nicknamed “The Abacus” for its unique construction) is frightening in dry weather, and sometimes you just don’t have the “spring” to hop over a hay bale after sliding through 3 miles of shin-high snow.  You do your best, and enjoy the successes where they come – carrying a log, a snow-filled bucket, and a frozen sandbag through hilly, snowy terrain; climbing up a notched log on a rope higher than you thought you could; getting one rung higher on a wide-spaced rope ladder than you planned; climbing the steep uphills (over and over and over); owning the hercules hoist like it’s your job; getting across a wet traverse wall that’s longer than any spartan wall.

Five miles of laughing with a mixed level group, watching technique, and supporting each attempt is invigorating and addictive.  Sliding on my ass down steep snowy inclines (in nothing but cheap waterproof pants, goretex shoes and winter road running gear) was one of the unexpected highlights of the day.  The course was hard, the obstacles challenging (steep uphill monkey bars? tarzan swing? again, climbing UP a fire pole?), but the whole experience was exciting.  I’m pumped to return in two weeks for the 8-hour Benson Polar Bear Challenge – Crazy Rob has some mysterious new obstacles planned, and some great scaling options in the works for the traverse wall and hay bales.  My goal is to get a minimum of 2 laps done, and get to the third, where it’s rumored you’ll be able to run the course in reverse (SCORE!).  I’ll have a hefty number of penalty chips to take to the finish line of each lap, but beating the rest of the course will be worth every push up, burpee, or other random activity I’ll be forced to own up to.

Looking ahead, I’m definitely checking-in to see how the Shale Hill race series matches up to my Spartan/Larping/Road race schedule – if you buy a season pass, you’ll get a number of ORTC training passes included.  This course has epic obstacles, and a great mentality of encouraging you to train up to that level – I plan to get down to Benson as often as wallet and calendar allow this summer to take advantage of that.

Looks like 2013’s Saturdays are numbered.  Just like they oughtta be.