This morning my husband and I ran in a local 5K obstacle course race. It is a fun course that we also ran last year. The terrain is very natural, lots of hills, in fact the first half you are either running up or down hill. I am embarrassed to say, I struggled quite a bit this year. If I am being completely honest, I could not climb up a rope. What is even scarier, I don't even remember how. I understand the basic concept; however, I have not tried since elementary school. I am sure there is a place I could go to learn (maybe practice is a better word) how to do this. At least I hope there is. I don't belong to a mega-gym so perhaps I could just buy a rope and tie it to a tree in my backyard. Thoughts.
The major issue for me is upper body strength. I can't do a pull up or lift my body; I am very embarrassed by this. I do push-ups but have to figure a way to do pull ups at my house. Right now my plan is to jump up on the pull up bar, then just hold for 60 sec (I might have to start with 30). Then do that for 5 sets with push-ups in between. Hopefully, I can do that for 2 or 3 days a week and I will start to notice improvements. I believe if I am going to be truly, fully healthy, I will need to be able to run and jump and climb, uninhibited.
Lastly, and probably most comically, I "shot" a bow and foam tipped arrow for the first time. I also did not know how to do this. I started off with the bow, upside down, I was holding the bow where the arrow rests and not with the grip and my first arrow, sort of blew in the wind, I could probably have thrown it further. This is awful; considering I just wrote two paragraphs about how I really lack upper body strength. We only were able to use two arrows (time and participant constraints) but after a few tweaks, my second shot, while not exceptional, was significantly better than my first. Hooray for forward progress.
All and all, it was a fun event, I highly recommend these short fun races to everyone. They always support a good charity and the overwhelming support from both the participants and spectators is fantastic. Looking forward to more great races to come!!!