The Lone Ranger or The A Team
Have you ever seen this acronym? Together Everyone Achieves More TEAM!
Ok scratch the pom poms and cheerleaders.
Yes, yes, nice little theory isn’t it? Well I have to say never have I experienced this more than last weekend when I endured TOUGH MUDDER!
For those of you who have never heard of it, in brief, it is a 20km military style, gruelling obstacle course put together by the British Special Forces to test your all round strength, stamina, mental grit, and camaraderie. Otherwise known as, the toughest event on the planet. Here is a little video just to set the scene for you.
After doing a half marathon last year I felt like I was ready for the next challenge, so enthusiastically signed up while clearly the adrenaline was still in my body. Does that affect sane thinking? I would assume so.
Before I knew it (or really had time to do any extra training) the day was here!! Do you find that happens?
To be perfectly honest, I hadn’t researched the obstacles. I think perhaps this was a good thing. If I knew claustrophobic cavities with little breathing room were included, I may have given this one a miss. I was aware I would need to jump off a cliff, get thrown into ice water, crawl through a lot of mud and get electrocuted as some point. That was the extent of what I knew. The reality was a whole lot more challenging!
Here’s the point! There were three occasions during the course where I really thought I couldn’t do it.
One was crawling underground in a small dark tunnel. How long I would be down there and whether I was going to run out of air, was a little unknown. I also couldn’t see any paramedics around! (side note, they seemed quite void from the whole event, however to take part you do have to sign a legal death waver). The second obstacle I found challenging was crawling backwards (is that possible? Yes!) face up in a cage full of muddy water with a small amount of breathing room. Third was the first of the two electric shock obstacles.
Now I’ve touched an electric fence before, surely it couldn’t be worse than that, yea? hmmmmmm no, it was worse, FAR WORSE. (Why I would touch an electric fence is a whole separate story). I was crawling through rocks and muddy water with the electric chords hanging down hitting my back. Every shock that hit me burnt through my whole body and my body would involuntarily go limp! Here’s the thing, if you stay there, you’re just going to keep getting electric shocks! So it’s best to push through the pain and go HARD!! Crawl through and give it your all!!!
In these particular obstacles that I personally found a bit more challenging than the other more purely physical challenges, I have to say what got me to push through were the voices of my team mates!! ‘COME ON EMMA YOU CAN DO IT!!! YOU WERE BUILT FOR IT!!! YEAH YOU CAN DO IT!’ Seriously, the power of a cheer squad!! If it weren’t for my team mates there, I think I would have given some of those obstacles a miss.
The POWER OF TEAM hey? I think this is so true in LIFE! Yep, often we may be tempted just to go it on our own. Hey it’s easier, you can take your own car, get there when you want, you don’t have to get the bus with the TEAM etc etc, but once you’re in the race YOU WANT YOUR TEAM!! You want them egging you on, telling you, ‘you can do it!’
I LOVED my Tough Mudder team and I LOVE MY TEAM IN LIFE. I make a conscious effort to surround myself with team players, ones that will cheer me on , will reach down their hand and pull me out of the mud pit, voices that will lift me up encourage me and tell me I can do it when I’m feeling weak. Those are the team members you want to travel through life with.
I also want to be the best team member I can. At every obstacle I found myself cheering others on, willing them with my all to make that jump! cross that barricade!, crawl through that mud! How does your team look in your world? Take an inventory do you have someone saying ‘you can do it!’ or someone laughing at you and taking a pic on their iPhone while you’re knocked down getting electrocuted? Are you an encourager? Are you the type of person you would want on your team! Something to think about.
Out of the 17 members on my team, only one was knocked unconscious. Pretty good stats. Want to be on my team?
Em x