by Jonathan How Being a Geek Has Made Me a Better Jock

This past weekend I took part in the Southern California stop of the Super Spartan Race, an 8+ mile, mountainous run filled with nearly 30 obstacles designed to test you both physically and mentally. I’ve been taking part in obstacle racing, including Spartan races (my personal favorites), for almost 4 years now and while I’m far from an elite or ultra runner, I find them to be a great way to keep myself motivated throughout the year, as I touched on with some of you in the Health Thread of the Geekscape forums. I don’t think that I’m betraying my geek nature as the founder of this site and community in saying that I’ve developed a love of exercise. In fact, I’ve realized that it’s shown me just how incredibly deep rooted a geek I truly am.

First some background for those that don’t know me. I try to exercise daily, whether it’s a long run, lifting weights, cycling, circuit training or playing basketball. As social as I am with Geekscape, filmmaking, teaching and just being my jocular self in general, I often find that the only time I’m left to my own thoughts is when I’m out on the trail or in a gym, thinking through my writing or the next show. I call this “breaking rocks”, when you push past the different mental blocks that your busy life builds up inside your head. Sometimes I break a story idea or a piece of dialogue. Other times I think about a new shot or bit for the next live broadcast. But without the time to myself and the stress relief that it brings, I can start going a bit crazy. Just ask my roommates at Comic Con every year. Some of my fondest Con memories are waking up early and running around downtown and along the water or going to the hotel gym before another big day on the floor. Without these moments of peace, the stress of another Comic Con day can really wear me out.

I didn’t get to appreciating exercise on purpose (and I didn’t get there quickly). I got there on accident. In 1998, in a game of basketball, I tore the ACL in my right knee along with the meniscus that helps keep my joint in place. I can remember pretty vividly feeling the sudden pop and having my knee slide apart. What followed was a painful surgery and depressing, year long recovery. Even worse, over that year I didn’t do an honest job of rehabbing, so I tore it again in 2003, before moving to California. Again, I had surgery to repair it, this time doing a better job of rehabbing. I thought that was it. My knee was back to 100%. But over the next five years, I only exercised sporadically, and as I got older I felt my knee stiffening. Some days, my knee felt more like a sandbag than an actual joint.

Finally, in 2008, I joined the local Y when Laura and I moved to Culver City. If it hadn’t been for their videogame-like weight room, in which every weight station was electronically recorded, scored and graphed (and for which you could achieve XBox like achievements for hitting goals), I don’t know if exercise would have stuck. But it did, and each week I looked for my name on the gym’s posted leader boards to see who was putting in the most work. Inside of me, I could feel the same kind of competitive drive well up in me that I did when looking at an online leaderboard in a videogame. Honestly, even when I ran track in school I hadn’t felt this competitive… like I was 12 years old again and my father was driving me to the Nintendo Chamionship regionals in Dallas. Suddenly, there was this little fire in me, pushing me to get a little better, a little faster, bit by bit.

Still, going to a gym each day, with its four walls, can be hard. So I entered a neighborhood 5k off the couch. I had to walk a fourth of it. I couldn’t imagine myself running the whole thing… but I knew I had to find out if I could. Over time, this led to my first 10k and then my first half-marathon (with a full marathon in my future no doubt). Quickly I discovered that my calendar was turning into my own personal achievements list and a piece of every paycheck was going towards future races or basketball leagues. More importantly, my right knee started feeling stronger and more normal than it had since before my very first knee injury.

And that’s also about the time that my inner jock found harmony with my inner geek. My mind started to view races like I used to view speed runs and time trials in Sonic the Hedgehog or Mario Kart. I would approach every outing determined to improve my times. I would look at corners the same way I would in F-Zero or cop chases in Grand Theft Auto. I would chase other runners or pace myself behind them like I was drafting off of them in a Need For Speed game, waiting for an opening to pass.

Today, to keep myself entertained on long runs, I find myself attributing names to my surroundings. Obviously, the forested canyons around Los Angeles become the Kokiri Forest of Hyrule. The forests give way to the rocky paths of Gerudo Desert and the hills become the volcanic climb up Death Mountain (home of the Gorons… duh). I recently told a runner friend that I’d been naming portions of my trail runs after geography in the Zelda games and he looked at me like I was from another planet. But I’m not. I’m just a geek… and we have our own way of viewing the world.

Which brings me to this past weekend’s Super Spartan and the joy that is obstacle course running. The community that surrounds these events is fun and supportive. After 3 years, I see as many new faces as old ones. The races can range from the challenging (the Super Spartan, Spartan Beast or Tough Mudder) to the easy ( I suggest The Warrior Dash or zombie themed Run for Your Lives if you want to test the waters). And of course the obstacles break up the run and keep things interesting. For people who have a tough time sticking to distance running or a routine gym workout, they offer a pretty great, and very social, experience, with plenty of competitors and start times ranging from elite to “just giving it a shot to see if I like it”.

This isn’t to say that the variety or frequency of obstacles put me in any less of geek mindset. If anything, they carried me through the race. Here’s a recollection of some of Saturday’s obstacles and my mindset towards each. Keep in mind that the race was set on an enormous mountainous ranch resort in Temecula that surrounded a lake. Obviously, I called this place Lon Lon Ranch and Lake Hylia. But I digress.

The first thing to do in ANY obstacle race involving water is probably the most overlooked: tighten the draw string on your shorts. Tighten them good. Then double tie it. I can’t count how many people I see at each race using one hand to pull themselves from the freezing water and another to keep their pants on. Two years ago I felt a slip coming out of a creek and it lost me whatever lead I had. I don’t have a geek reference for this one… but if you don’t want the world finding out that you’re wearing Superman undies, tie ’em up (luckily, my secret is still safe)!

Make sure those shorts are on TIGHT!

Also, be warned. With Spartan Races, if you fail to complete any obstacles, you have to do 30 burpees. That’s a chest pushup in the mud followed by a jumping jack. I hate burpees, but I know that they’re mostly unavoidable in the Spartan Race. In the three years of doing them, three obstacles have claimed me for 30 burpees every time: the monkey bars, the traversal wall and the javelin throw. I mentally prepared myself for 90 burps and no more. Let’s see if that turned out to be the case…

Immediately after the horn signaling the start, Obstacle 1 was a series of walls that you had to go over and under. Not a lot of trouble here. For sure, this is nothing like the dreaded jet-ski level on Battle Toads. But it was followed by a nice steady climb up the first of many big hills. This is level one stuff. As less fit runners turn into the Walking Dead, you can make some distance here.

Obstacles 2 and 3 were higher walls. Simple Mario Bros. style jumps can get you over and through these without slowing you down. Pick up some speed running down a hill and Obstacle 4 is waiting for you: the Monkey Bars. I hate Monkey Bars. My hands are too soft. I knew I was going to get the burpees, but I summoned up my inner Donkey Kong and went for it. It didn’t work. Four bars in and I dropped and headed to the burpee field. Before I could curse myself, something caught my eye. In front of me and on another row of bars was a group of US soldiers from the heat before me crowded around one of their friends. They were helping him across. The soldier was missing both legs and one of his arms and they were competing together as a group. I was inspired and took to the burpees as some of the zombies I’d ditched started making their way down the hill behind me.

One of the things I love about these races, if not my favorite, is running alongside our US servicemen and women. Speaking for myself, it’s one of the few times that I get to interact with them and share in the same experience. The other, in all honesty, is when they drop by the Geekscape booth at Comic Con or WonderCon and we talk comics or Sci Fi. I thought about this as I finished up my burpees (calling each out loud!) and raced down the hill.

Obstacle 5 was a series of 3 waist high mud-pits and mid hills. Hell yeah. I channeled one of my favorite Batman villains, Clayface, and went at it. The mud makes you HEAVY and at some points is chest deep but it beats being caught by “The Batman”!

Obstacle 6 involved putting a heavy rubber band around your ankles and hopping a loop over hay bales in the mud. Easy. Then another mile up and through the hills. The sun had started to warm the ground by this point and I was feeling good. Thank goodness for training out in the Gerudo Desert! This was mile 2.

At the base of the hills was Obstacle 7, a giant tire drag. These tires were between 400 and 600 pounds and you had to drag it to the end of a rope and then yank it back with the rope. I just went at it with my legs and got out of there in about 20 seconds. Maybe the easiest weight obstacle… but the worst was next up.

My friend (and comic book writer) Tom Pinchuk had warned me about “the sand bucket carry”, Obstacle 8. Basically, you fill a 5 gallon bucket with sand and carry it, without handles, up and over a steep and muddy hill. If any sand spills out, 30 burpees. I bear hugged the thing and just went as far as I could. Rested a bit then kept going. I had to put the thing down about four or five times over that hill. It was the hardest weight obstacle by far… so you know I thought of the Spidey villain The Sandman. This one was tough, but there was a reward of some more hills afterwards to shake my arms out.

Which brings us to Obstacle 9 – the infamous mud crawl under barbed wire. This is a pretty long field and the barbwire is low. It has ripped open more than a few of my shirts in the past few years. And of course, it’s covered in mud with a giant fire hose dumping freezing water on it. You can tell the new runners because they always try and go commando, spider-crawling into the field Call of Duty style. That’s not the best way to do it. You’ve got to tuck your arms in, lay on your side, and barrel roll like crazy. That’s right! Do a Barrel Roll Star Fox style! Get everyone around you to do it and you’ll clear it in no time… unless it’s uphill as it is in the Malibu wave of the Spartan Sprint. Then everyone’s miserable.

Possibly some of the best advice you can get in life.

After yanking yourself up and over another 8 foot wall (which was starting to take its toll) Obstacle 10 was the traverse wall, a sectioned wall you have to walk laterally against without touching the ground, using only narrow hand and foot holds to stay up. Last month, I had gotten 2/3rds through when I slipped and took the burpees. This time, I pictured Spider-Man scaling sideways along a wall and took it one step at a time. It took a minute or two but no burps! Mile 4 was done.

The second half starts with carrying a heavy sandbag up and over a hill. Obstacle 11. This is where the field starts to divide itself and the unprepared start to fall off. I just threw the awkwardly heavy thing over my shoulder and thought ‘at least it’s not a sand bucket’. I might have even yelled it out loud to some of the racers around me. I dumped the bag at the end of the hill then raced back up the mountain. Maybe “raced” isn’t the word. This is where I started getting tired. And this incline was the longest yet.

Obstacle 12 were 2 more 8 foot wall climbs. There aren’t any footholds on these walls. Either you run up, lunge and pull yourself over or you get someone to hoist you. At this point, I started needing the hoist, or as I like to call it: “the non-mutant Fastball Special”. I helped someone over each wall and hoped someone would help me in return. Thanks for the lifts whoever gave them to me!

At the base of the hill was Obstacle 13, a giant tire flip. The men’s tires were the 500 or 600 pound variety and when I first went to lift it the tire didn’t budge. At all. I thought it was burpees for sure. I quickly removed my gloves and gave it another shot, putting my legs fully into it and Hulking out a bit. The tire moved, then I got under it and it went over. Then I had to get on the other end and flip it back. Ugh. Done.

Obstacle 14 was a concrete block pull on a giant chain. It was heavy but I thought of the Thor villain The Absorbing Man the entire time. Not so hard. Number 15 was a net climb. Very easy at this point, followed by Obstacle 16, carrying a concrete block across a small field, doing 5 burpees, then carrying it back. Not so bad. Number 17 was another net climb. It was easy.

But then came the climb up Mount Doom, the longest and steepest climb on the course by far. At some points I had to use my hands to help scramble up. I honestly thought about Frodo and Sam at the end of Return of the King climbing through Mordor. This one took a good while. It ran you through the end of Mile 7 and a few of the people around me were just spent. There were more than a few complaints, including one guy who finally yelled out “how is this a race!?!” The kid next to me was a 19 year old Marine who’d spent time in Afghanistan. He said the race was one of the tougher things he’d had to do. I asked him how it compared to Afghanistan. “That place is fucked. This is fucked, but nothing’s going to blow me up here.” That actually gave me some comfort. I was in pain… but I knew I wasn’t going to get blown up. Really, the entire climb had my inner-geek thinking about the five million montage shots in the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit of a band of people climbing a mountain side. It was that brutal. But at least I wasn’t going to get blown up.

At the top of the next (and higher) mountain ridge was Obstacle 18, another pair of 8 foot walls. I grabbed someone nearby and we helped each over, Frodo and Sam style. One of us might have even lost a finger. Then I busted my but down the hill. I was in mile 8 and I could hear the finish line festivities. Too bad the Spartan Race staff had saved almost a third of the obstacles for the end…

Obstacle 19 was a field of balance poles sticking out of the ground. You had to cross on them without falling or face the burpees. Immediately, I thought of the final fight scene on the burning balance poles in Iron Monkey. This was easy. I could do this. I also had been playing Ni no Kuni for a week and there’s a sequence in the castle town of Ding Dong Dell where the main character Oliver crosses over a pond on balance poles. I set my feet and rocked them without looking back.

Yup. That’s exactly how I remember it going down Sunday.

Now for some Aquaman or Sub-Mariner channeling: the 100 meter swim across incredibly cold water for Obstacle 20. There was actually a crowd gathered at this one, most of them shying away from the cold water. Some racers were opting for the safety of life preservers. Either they couldn’t swim or they were that tired. I was just tired of still being in the race! I looked at a racer stuck on the dock with trepidation and said “you and me, brother. 1-2-3.” I jumped. And behind me, he knew that if he didn’t follow, he’d fail our unspoken and non-volunteer Man Code. I heard him splash and as I swam like crazy to warm myself up I saw him pedaling behind me. The water was freezing and I climbed out of the water feeling like Captain America being unfrozen after years spent floating in the Arctic.

Obstacle 21 were more mud hills and pits, followed by a shorter crawl under barbed wire into a water pit (Obstacle 22). I could see the finish line now. I hit the ground after the last pit and barrel rolled, baby, barrel rolled! I got up dizzy as heck and yanked myself on a rope over a muddy inclined wall (Obstacle 23).

Obstacle 24 is a Herculean Hoist and it can be a beast if you don’t set your feet, and by this point in the race, with so many racers, there was nothing to set your feet against but mud and more mud. With the Herculean Hoist, you have to pull a concrete block to the top of a rope using a pulley. At this point in the run, it was arguable whether I still weighed more than the block but I set my legs as best I could and pulled. My left quad cramped and the block fell a bit. I couldn’t let it hit the ground or it was a visit to Burpee Town! I stuck myself, shook my leg out and kept hoisting. My legs were starting to slide towards the block and for a brief moment I had a mental image of getting pulled directly under the block as it fell on me. My panic actually helped and I got it the last bit to the top… but I was pretty much done… just in time for dreaded Obstacle 25: the javelin throw.

This is where something crazy happened. In my three years of doing Spartan Races, I’d never successfully thrown the javelin and stuck it into the hay bail target 10 yards away. I’d tried different techniques, failing each time, and this time I had the wind coming off the lake, my wobbly arms and my watery legs working against me. I even told the volunteer who handed me the javelin “in three years, I’ve never stuck this damn thing”. He gave me a look that accurately said “don’t worry… most people don’t get it” (and they don’t, as the field of burpee’ing racers behind me could attest). But I wanted my medal, so I waited for the wind to die a little, set my hand a little behind the middle of the spear, positioned my feet and chucked it. “THUNK!” I’ve rarely heard a more glorious sound in my life (and I’ve never heard that sound in three years for sure). The javelin stuck. Wonder Woman and the rest of the Amazons would have been proud! On to the next (and last challenging) hurdle: a two story rope climb out of waist level mud.

Obstacle 26 was tough, especially at this point in the race. Anywhere in the first half of the course and I’d be confident that I’d have fared better. First off, just pulling yourself up and out of the mud with whatever upper body strength you have left was a challenge. Then setting your muddy and dripping feet in the knots every two feet to fix your climb was a concentration challenge. I yanked and scampered up that rope as hard as I could… and got about 2 arms-lengths short of the cattle bell at the top of the rope before my feet gave and my drenched and soaking wet body began to slip back down. Damn. I slid all the way back down the rope and into the mud and took the 30 burpees on the other side. That was the last of my strength.

The final two hurdles (27 and 28) are just a formality: a jump over a row of flames (which I call “drying off”) and getting beat on by a few Spartans with some giant American Gladiator-style pugil sticks before the finish line. I shoved past them, got my medal and called it a day. I was spent.

But damn if I hadn’t had a great time on a cool, sunny day in January. After cleaning myself up as best I could without a proper shower and after changing my clothes, I gathered my things and started the long walk back up the road to my car. Outside the race grounds, a Girl Scout and her father were selling cookies. What a genius move. They were selling them so fast that they barely had time to make change. I scored the last box of Samoas and got in my car to drive home.

It was night by the time I got back to Los Angeles and Laura had made dinner. I showered, ate dinner and put my new Spartan medal next to the others in my office. After I answered some e-mails, I played some Ni no Kuni on the PS3, explained to my wife why Zelda isn’t an RPG while walking our dogs and bagged and boarded some comics.

Then I went over to my desk, took out my wallet and signed up for two more races. I may have spent most of the day acting like a complete jock, but it didn’t mean that I stopped being a geek when I crossed the starting line. If anything, it’s something that can always help keep you in the race.