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| My trophy wall |
As someone who previously avoided having to participate in sporting events, particularly team sports, I have never won any trophies so I have never had the need for a "trophy wall". Since running my first Obstacle Course Race that seems to have changed. Rather than collecting traditional trophies with little figures of people playing sport on them, (to date I have not even coming close to a podium finish to earn something similar) I have started collecting race bibs and photographs of myself running the courses, as taken by my loving wife and various professional on course photographers.
After sticking the race bib and photos from my first event on the wall I have developed an appreciation for why others might keep their "Participant" trophies or ribbons displayed in a prominent location within their home. Having my photos and the muddy race bibs that accompany them on display has a way of taking me right back to the mud and painful hills or sandbag carry pictured. Re-living the memories from past events helps remind me why I get up so early to train. They motivate me, and like an album full of family vacation photos, remind me of the fun I had out there in all that mud.
2012 has been a wonderful introduction for me to the sport of Obstacle Course Racing and the community that surrounds it. I am incredibly excited to see what 2013 will bring to the Australian Obstacle Course Racing calendar. The confirmed line up of events on the Victorian calendar so far includes Australia’s introduction to the Spartan race series (www.spartanrace.com.au) in March and some new local events like the Beach Bash series (www.beachbash.com.au). With this many new events on the docket I might have to move my trophy wall out of the lounge room and onto something a little bigger just to keep up.
If you haven’t already heard I will be helping McDonald Media Group (www.mcdonaldmedia.net.au) produce the world’s first magazine dedicated to OCR – “Obstacle Course Racing Magazine” (www.obstacleracing.com.au) and help them run an Obstacle Course Racing League in Australia (www.ocrl.com.au) so make sure to visit the respective websites and get involved, then go out and get muddy!
