31 of July of 2008, 5.30am I am standing on the edge of Castle Road in Nottingham, waiting for the rest of the team to arrive and board the minibus we hired to take us to Wolverhampton. The sun is bright and the air is crisp and we are all experiencing a certain amount of trepidation. We are on our way to participate in Nettle Warrior, the summer version of the infamous Tough Guy obstacle race. Those were the days before the boom of Mud Races that has swept the country and indeed the plane in the past couple of years. We did not know what we were getting ourselves into, we had only heard the stories that previous participants shared with a knowing smile. Why were we doing this!? The idea had popped in my head a few months earlier. It would be a good way of giving our clients a target that was challenging and fun and it was also a way for me to put myself on the line. Although at that point I had been working in fitness for a couple of years I never been tested. I felt the need to prove that I could complete such a challenge. Well, we all did complete it and the exhilaration from it lasted for months after. Many re-entered the same event year on year and plenty of that original group went on and tried different and more challenging things: cycling across America, Iron Man triathlons...personally I believe I would not entered the world of competitive kettlebell sport without that first Tough Guy run. Why am I sharing this story with you? Because of the important lesson of that day: we all need a challenge, we all need to be tested. I would go as far as saying that we all secretly desire it, even those who believe they are perhaps scared of such things. It has become the norm for my clients to enter events and challenges, not because I make them do it, simply because it has become part of Kettlebell Nottinghams culture to do so. We dont train just for the sake of training or exercise simply for aesthetic purposes. We do these things to see what we can achieve. What a challenge actually is will be entirely an individual matter. It could be entering Race for Life, running the Robin Hood Marathon or climbing Everest. No-one but yourself should be the judge of what a challenge is to you. The important thing is that it motivates you to train and improve. It can help re-ignite enthusiasm for exercise, it can help achieve other goals (the amount of times Ive seen people achieve their long sought weight loss goals by shifting the emphasis from just trying to burn fat to preparing for an event is astonishing...) and it can inspire to achieve bigger and better goals in the future. Its in our nature to seek tests and self improvement. Embrace this and see how far you can reach. Laurence
Posted on: Fri, 23 May 2014 19:00:00 +0000
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