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Warrior Dash Surprise!

September 27, 2011 –

Well this weekend is one for the books. It was one of those rare times that will forever be embedded in my memory. This all started way back during the Asylum Challenge in April. Around 100 of us joined the challenge and a Facebook Group was born. If you remember, ShaunT judged the challenge and called teamRIPPED the winner! (See HERE.)

The bond we created was so strong through that experience that we secretly devised a plan to visit our coach Wayne Wyatt’s hometown of Tulsa, OK. Ths past weekend was picked (and I forget who suggested it) because a Warrior Dash race was occurring at that time.

So here we are 4 months later and the planning all paid off. Wayne wrote a great blog today on his experience and I thought what better way to share the experience than from the one who made it all happen. I have pasted that in below!

I do want to give my perspective on the Warrior Dash. This race was a ton of fun. This particular course was 3.23 miles. It is impossible to gauge what time to shoot for. For a regular 5K, I would say <27 minutes. But with almost a dozen obstacles, who knows!! I have not actually run since I finished my triathlon last month. And that training was for long, even-paced endurance racing. As I found out, this type of race is TOTALLY different. Not only is most of your running on a trail through a forest where you are making sure you dont trip on tree roots, but you are expending huge amounts of energy through the obstacles. We also had the pleasure of having to race up very steep rocky hills.

Probably the hardest (and longest) obstacle was one entitled “road rage’ where you had to climb over cars and go through long sets of tires. I rather enjoyed the “deadweight drifter” where you were in very deep (and nasty) water and had to climb over logs. Near the end, the obstacle got closer together and you finished off with a mud pit crawl and a leap over some burning logs.

This is not your normal race and although I didn’t wear an HRM, I know my HR was way up there. So how did I do?

Overall

– 38:49.30 (11:05 / Mile)

– Finished 1074 out of  7576

Men (35-39)

Finished – 107 / 616

Wayne, Jeff Lennon, and myself finished the last mile or so together. We came within within 5 seconds of each other and really pushed each other near the end.

I want to close with some comments about Wayne. He is my coach which makes him all of our coach. I made Wayne my coach because his life was similar to mine. It seemed like we would be like-minded people. He is my age, has 5 kids, has a strong faith, and had a day job as an orthodontist and was doing this to give back. Well, it turns out I was not the only one to want Wayne to be my coach. He not only had the most dramatic 90 day transformation ever, he is also the #1 coach out of >60,000. He is an incredible person who motivates those around him. He uses tough love when need be and has the respect of his entire team. He epitomizes a person who gives with all they have and expects nothing in return. It is for these type of people that success will naturally flow to them. People made significant sacrifices to make this weekend happen, but is was important to everyone to give back to our coach.

As you think about your life and the attitude and aura that surround you, are one that attracts the positive? We determine our success. We determine what forces we attract. Wayne proves that great things happen to those who do the right things with no expectation of anything in return.

I have shared some of my favorite pics below before Wayne’s article. The first pic is of Wayne coming through the door. it really hadn’t set in yet.



FROM COACH WAYNE at teamRIPPED.com

Hey teamRIPPED!!

Normally I call my Tuesday update the “Coach W Checking In!!”, but not this week!  This week I’ve just got to share with you the most AMAZING weekend I have had in forever!  So this is “Coach W’s SURPRISE!!”

I thought my weekend would consist of going to dinner with my wife and a couple we are friends with (Brian and Ashley Nopper — Brian is an Asylum Legend and in the upcoming Asylum infomercial, and we also happen to live within minutes of each other).  We got to the restaurant and Brian says he ran into a couple friends and figured we could all eat together.  I thought that was strange, as I wanted to visit with him and not some random friends of his.  I thought, “Oh well, this will still be fun”.

As we walk to the back of the restaurant, I see a couple people through the window wearing teamRIPPED shirts and start to think, “Oh no, Brian put our waiters up to this.  Our waiters are going to be wearing teamRIPPED shirts while serving us tonight.  How embarrassing this will be!”.  Then I walk through the doorway into the back room of the restaurant to realize it’s not a couple waiters.  It’s TWENTY of our Asylum Legends, all wearing teamRIPPED shirts, there to surprise me!  And I was SHOCKED!

These people came from as far west as California, as far east as New Hampshire, as far south as Houston, and as far north as Edmonton Alberta Canada — and everywhere in between!

I momentarily tried to think if it was my birthday?? — NO!  Is there a beachbody meeting going on in the area?? — NO!  So what in the heck are these people doing here?

That’s when the pieces started to fall into place.  I was set up!  My wife had me thinking I was going to do the Warrior Dash with her, but in reality I was going to do it with the teamRIPPED Asylum Legends!  These folks had become such a tight knit group during our Asylum challenge back in May that they had been planning a way to get all of us together ever since the challenge ended!  Over three months of secret planning with perfect execution!  They even presented me with a custom made shadow box (thanks David Jeffries) decked out in Asylum trim with a teamRIPPED shirt including all of the Legends’ signatures on it (see it in the pic below).  It’s now the focal point of my workout room!  Talk about inspiration to Bring It and Dig Deep — I just have to look at that and I’ve got the extra energy I need to keep going!  If you never saw our team Asylum Legends video and the individual videos of our Legends, click here to watch!

We had a total blast this weekend.  My cheeks are still sore from smiling and laughing so hard over this past weekend.  Even though we had all never met, you’d think we had been friends for life.  We all did the Warrior Dash together, representing teamRIPPED with pride!  In true teamRIPPED fashion — as if the mud run wasn’t enough for us — we then went and played some B-Ball for a few hours.  Then we watched a UFC fight, visited and enjoyed each others’ company into the evening.  Here’s just a small sample of the pics from our day =

Before the Warrior Dash:

After the Warrior Dash:

Basketball:

I was — and still am — overwhelmed at the spirit of TEAM that we have.  It is such a blessing to know all of you (both those I have now met, as well as all of you that I still haven’t).  How crazy it must have been for all of these Legends to tell their friends and family they were going to Tulsa Oklahoma to meet a bunch of people they met over the internet LOL!  But you’d think we had been friends forever the way we all just hit it off and connected.  It really serves as a defining moment in my coaching career.  I got to see first hand the passion these people have, and see how they are doing for others the same thing I did for them.  It’s AWESOME!

And I can’t wait until the next reunion!  I also can’t wait until the next challenge and the unleashing of the teamRIPPED P90X2 Legends!  The rest don’t stand a chance against us!!!

7 Responses to “Warrior Dash Surprise!”

  1. Indo says:

    Great article, Mike!

    And you are absolutely right about Wayne

  2. Jeff says:

    Another great article Mike!

  3. Carl J. says:

    AWESOME X A BILLION!!!!

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