This weekend I’m getting together with two of my best
friends. I’ve talked about Meg before, and I love Shelby just as much. We live
halfway across the country from each other, so we don’t get to see one another
as often as we’d like. Therefore we planned this girls’ weekend a few months
ago.
And by “girls’ weekend” I’m talking about: shocking
ourselves with 10,000 volt wires, scrambling over 8 foot walls, leaping through
fire, crawling under barbed wire, and scurrying our way through underground
tunnels.
Forget the spa. This girls’ weekend we’re competing
in a Tough Mudder obstacle challenge. In case you don't know what that is, I'll give you a taste:
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| My muddy buddies |
We love it.
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| Me getting over an 8ft wall |
Extreme races like this teach you things about
yourself: how strong you are, how much you can accomplish. But sometimes it
teaches you things about yourself you don’t want to know.
For example: my friend Meg (who is about 5’3 and has
around 0% body fat) is always cold. When my house is a nice balmy 78 degrees,
she’s wrapping herself in a blanket. At our first Tough Mudder in 2011, we came
up to an obstacle that was called the “Chernobyl Jacuzzi.” It was vat filled
with really gross slime-looking liquid with stuff floating around in it.
Bless our little hearts.
We jumped into the vat, totally unaware of what we
were getting into. Literally.
That stuff floating around, it was ICE. The whole
thing was filled with ice. Filled. With. Ice. And then some sick, sadistic SOB put a board in the
middle of it with barbed-wire across the top, so you’re forced to dip your head
under the water. They’ve since renamed the obstacle “The Arctic Enema.”
Fitting. It was the coldest thing I’ve ever felt in my life.
You can imagine how poor little Meggie, who’s cold
when it’s 78 degrees, felt about that sort of iciness. Her body was in such
shock from the cold that by the time she had gotten under the midway wall and
to the other side of the vat, she couldn’t make her muscles move enough to get her
out. She was stuck in there, freezing.
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| Chernobyl Jacuzzi - yeah, that's ice. |
And where was I? As soon as my body touched that icy
water, I zoomed through it, under the wall and had used my super-long legs to
jump out the other side in a matter of seconds. For a fleeting moment I had a
thought…
I should help Megan. She doesn’t do well with cold…
But my body did not care what my brain was saying.
It was getting us out of that ice as soon as possible. Too bad, best friend.
Hope you make it.
The hard lesson I learned about myself that day: I
will sacrifice you to save me.
That’s a very ugly truth and I would’ve argued it
impossible right up to the moment that I left my best friend freezing in a pool
of slime-colored ice. While I watched from the side, unable to make myself do
anything to help her.
Fortunately, there were a couple of big ol’ guys at
the end of the vat. They plucked Meg out of the icy death and we both lived to
run the rest of the race. My part in abandoning her happened so fast, she didn’t
even realize it had happened at all. Even if she had, she would’ve forgiven me in a
heartbeat. That’s just the type of person she is.
This weekend I have a chance at a do-over. I have
promised not to leave Megan and Shelby behind in the ice. This time I know I will do better. I hope.
Maybe next year we’ll just go to the spa.
Nah.
