SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- There are bricks on Becky Proietti's bedroom floor. Her husband, Jeff, left them there.

Regular races weren't enough for Jeff Proietti. He was drawn to the ones that seemed impossible -- obstacle races on ski mountains and GoRuck challenges, where everyone wears backpacks filled with bricks.

The bricks on the bedroom floor were for the GoRuck. Jeff was forever taping them together and taking them apart, trying to find the best way to carry them.

The bricks used to annoy Becky. But Jeff's been dead now for five months and Becky can't move them from their spot against the bedroom wall. The bricks have become an everyday memorial to the guy who loved a challenge the way kids love Christmas.

On Oct. 11, the day after Jeff's 36th birthday, Becky will move the bricks. She will carry her husband's weights in a backpack on her first GoRuck light challenge. It will be six hours of military-style tasks and tests. Becky will do sprints and inchworm pushups while carrying those bricks on her back through Syracuse.

It also will be her chance to finish the thing her husband left undone. Jeff Proietti died May 18 in a freak accident at the tail-end of a GoRuck challenge in Syracuse.

The last family dinner

The GoRuck challenges start at night. It's harder that way. They're led by current and former military personnel with backgrounds in special operations. Participants don't know the routes and tasks ahead of time, adding to the psychological challenge. The leaders break people down and build them back up. The team becomes so tight that it's not uncommon for an injured person to get carried to the end so everyone can finish together.

Jeff Proietti sat down for a family dinner at his Camillus home before he went out on his last GoRuck.

"He was like a kid," Becky said. "I'll never forget that day."

There was no fear or tension for Jeff before GoRucks or obstacle races. The anticipation made him giddy, she said.

After dinner, Jeff left for the GoRuck challenge, which started in Clinton Square in downtown Syracuse. That was his last goodbye.

The GoRuck team was running on State Fair Boulevard in Geddes. The path ended and the group ran with traffic instead of against it. The sun was up and the end of the challenge was in sight. Jeff had injured his ankle over night, but he informed the group's leader, called the "cadre," not to worry. Jeff told him he'd figured out a good limp.

Jeff stayed at the end of the line, watching for traffic as the others ran ahead. As he did, a car swerved off the road and then back on, hitting Jeff. He flew more than 20 feet through the air, according to accounts of people there.

The GoRuck team cut off Jeff's pack and shirt and pumped his chest while they waited for the ambulance. But his pulse never returned.

The car's driver, Jody Stock, was issued traffic tickets. The Onondaga County District Attorney's office investigated and found Jeff's death was accidental.

At 6:45 that morning, Becky Proietti became a single mother of an infant and a toddler. Jeff's teen daughter, Alexis, also lives with them.

Now, the kids force time and Becky forward.

Five months later, Travis, the baby, has started to crawl. He loves his brother's Matchbox cars. He looks like his daddy.

Luca, 3, is mastering going to the bathroom on his own. Alexis plays soccer on the JV team at West Genesee.

"I just try to focus on getting through each day. Step by step," Becky said. She's also started back at her job at as a physical therapist.

9:30 a.m.

On weekdays, Becky has a standing appointment at 9:30 a.m. She goes to CrossFit Syracuse.

CrossFit was Jeff's thing. He pushed Becky to do it after Travis was born. The two, who met at a soccer game, married in 2009.

"He told me I'd love it and I did," said Becky, 37, standing in the gym. "It keeps me sane."

The class doesn't have the militaristic yelling that some CrossFit gyms do. The owner and trainer, Dan Goldberg, is quiet and encouraging. Jeff, who managed the wellness center at Carrier, was beloved at Goldberg's CrossFit gym. Jeff and Becky have that same openness that makes them easy to talk to and trust, Goldberg said.

"He was just himself," Goldberg said, watching Becky as she walked outside with a 35-pound weight. She does that instead of sprinting with the class. Becky's knees were ruined by years of high school and collegiate soccer.

She ran some races before having kids, but it's been hard to find the time since then. The GoRuck will not be easy for her. Athletic tape outlined her left calf muscle, which she'd injured earlier. But she'll have help: Jeff's brother and sister and Becky's three brothers will all be with her.

In the gym, Becky jumped up, then flattened herself down on the floor, then up again, more than 100 times. Her face showed no sign of pain.

"I just think, 'Get it done,'" Becky said. "Sometimes, when I want to quit, I still think of Jeff."

Then, there is no quitting. In that same gym, Jeff hung from the ropes and flattened himself on the floor. He loved the things that seemed too hard.

At the family's modest blue ranch house in Camillus, Jeff used to do one big project a year. Last year's was a playhouse. It's sturdier than the kind from a kit. The door closes and the window opens, like a real house. The slide is tall and bumpy.

Becky asked Luca who built the house. "Daddy," he replied. Then he climbed up the ladder.

Luca wasn't sure he wanted to go down the slide. It had been wet and he was worried it might be too fast. Then he slid down.

At the bottom, the fear was gone, replaced with a proud smile.

"I did it," he declared. Then the boy in Superman sneakers ran off in search of his next obstacle.

Contact Marnie Eisenstadt anytime: email | twitter | 315-470-2246.

