I can't!

Let's blame adrenaline for the funny facial expressions here...

Tough Mudder is proclaimed to be one of the toughest courses you can take on. It's 20km of obstacles, mud and in the case of the Sydney leg, a whole lot of hills that come out of nowhere. It truly is a physical force to be reckoned with. Facing up to the start line, my body was shaky because it knew what was coming, but there was a bigger battle going on - and that was the battle going on in my mind.

A bunch of friends have asked me why I'd sign up for Tough Mudder, and sometimes I'd tell them a story about how my friend Matt agreed to get a mohawk if I did (and he currently has a mohawk, so that isn't a lie at all), but with those who I felt comfortable enough with, I told them the real reason. I told them that it's because I don't think I can.

The reason I agreed to take on Tough Mudder was because everytime I looked at the course, I felt a surge of shame that told me that I could never finish it, that I was stupid to even look at something so hard and consider stepping foot onto the course. And so, I signed up.

I signed up because I was sick of the crippling words, "I can't." There is only so much of that phrase that one can take. I'd reached my limit. If you talked to me in the months, and especially the week, leading up to Tough Mudder, you'd know that I didn't let go of the language of "I can't." when I signed up. It stayed with me, right up until the end of the course.

It stayed with me as we scrambled up and over 3m high walls, but it did get a bit quieter.
It stayed with me as we jumped into ice cold water, but the cold drowned it out for a while.
It stayed with me as we crawled under electric wires, and the electricity reminded me that I could.
It stayed with me, the whole course. Getting quieter, and quieter, as the day went on.

Then, at the end, there was a orange headband on my head, and a shiny blanket around my shoulders to keep me warm. The months and weeks and days leading up to that day became irrelevant suddenly, because all the times and the people and the moments when "I can't!" was louder than I could bear, became a lie.

I did.
I did.
And I want to do it again.

See, you and I have things that we think we can't do, because that's how its always been. We can't run. We can't jump. We can't finish a 5km, we can't do city2surf, we can't do Warrior Dash, and man, oh man, we CANNOT do Tough Mudder.
Except, we can.

You can.

Stop listening when your mind tells you that you can't. Chances are, you can.