Picking up from last time –
I like to believe I’m logical and smart, but there are choices I made during the Super that would lead you to believe those words are not true modifiers of me.
For one thing, I really wasted time in some areas, which made me way more stressed in others. The biggest glaring example of this was at the area of water where we were supposed to balance on logs to walk over the water to the other side.
I actually did this one wrong both times I saw it – in the Beast and in the Super.
During the Beast, I decided to sit down on the log, and crawl from one side to another instead of just walking. I know you’re technically allowed to get across in whatever way makes sense, and that sometimes obstacles are about brains more than about strength or balance/agility. But sometimes they are about balance and agility!
I think I have good balance. And I believe in my ability to balance. But I also don’t know how to swim. And I was also slightly nervous that the logs were close enough together that if I were to fall off, I could hit my head and break my neck and be paralyzed. (I thought the chance of that happening was incredibly, wildly small… But you know. Still.)
More so than that almost entirely irrational fear, I was afraid of something much more real. The volunteer who was running that section warned us all that lots of people were losing shoes in the water.
Since I can’t swim, if I lost my show in the water, it was all over for me. (I mean, not all over, obviously. It’s not over ’til it’s over.) If I’d lost a shoe, I would’ve just gone on shoe-less. I hadn’t brought extra shoes (which actually may have been smart, though it would’ve been pretty wasteful since after every mud run thus far, I’ve gotten rid of the shoes I used).
Even though I didn’t have shoes with me, I could’ve technically bought some at the merchandise table between races – if there was available time. But I was always counting on not having any extra time. And I didn’t want to do something like half the Beast (or who even knew, really, at that point, how many miles I had left?) without a shoe – in the mud. That sounded pretty terrible.
So, I totally took the wussy way out, and just crawled across the log.
Well, the second time (when I came through on the super) I made an even worse decision!
And we’ll get to that next time.