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The Leash Your Fitness Trail Dogs kicked up some more dust on the trails at two challenging endurance races recently: Spartan – a high intensity race with 20 obstacles over 5 miles with everything from mud pits to barbed wire – and Ragnar – a 24 hour relay race in the challenging hills surrounding Vail Lake.
First, on September 27th, a team of 10 brave Trail Dogs took on the Spartan race.
This was a brand new challenge for most, and the girls were pumped to try something different! The team trained for 2+ months to conquer physical challenges like rope climbing, traversing and climbing walls, army crawling under barbed wire, and carrying or pulling heavy loads like sand bags and buckets filled with rocks – just to name a few!
This race even challenged the team to submerge themselves completely in muddy water! And the punishment for skipping or failing an obstacle? – 30 BURPEES! The training involved lots of burpees to prepare the team, but they were only necessary a few times since we trained so hard and worked together as a team!
We are so proud of everyone who took on this race and pushed themselves to their physical and mental limits! Many of our team members have lost over 40 lbs and could hardly run when they started training with us. They have come so far, like Jessica who stepped outside of her comfort zone and faced her fear of heights! She practiced with us in the rock climbing gym and then conquered the walls at the race!
Cheryl has also come a long way from living a sedentary lifestyle to finding her “pack” and realizing how much she is capable of achieving. She doesn’t even mind getting dirty with us!
We congratulate all of our Spartans! AROO! We are beyond proud of how far they have come!
Only a few days later, on October 2nd through 3rd, the Ragnar Trail team of 8 took on the trail running endurance event at Vail Lake. A few of the same gals from the Spartan team even joined us!
This is the 4th Leash Your Fitness team, and we keep getting better with experience! The team was able to finish in 25 hours. Weekly training on trails in great weather, heat and darkness made for an awesome event we won’t soon forget! Not sure what was more fun, the event or the training runs!
For 25 hours straight one of the 8 Trail Dogs was always running!! The event started at 10am on October 2nd – it was hot, but everyone pushed themselves to finish the loop they were on in great time.
The three trails varied in distance – 6 miles, 4.5 miles, and 3.9 miles – and in difficulty, with some being more flat and others more hilly. The Trail Dogs were up for anything, even running in the middle of the night and at daybreak!
There were some veterans and some new team members this year. One of the runners, Jen, has come so far in her training! We love that she has stuck with trail running and stayed so determined and motivated – she never gives up! Jen suffered from leg cramps during the race but instead of giving up, she wanted to run her last lap so we sent two runners out with her to make sure she was ok. That is the definition of TEAM WORK!
Danielle has also been an amazing transformation – within 1 year she went from not being able to run a mile to being one of the fastest runners on the team!
It just goes to show that if you stick with it and find the right group of supportive teammates, you can do ANYTHING! Even though the races were not dog friendly, we brought our pups along the best way we could and even ran through the finish line with them!
We have an incredible team, and had the support of Diane, Holly, and Dawn’s niece Laura who was our volunteer extraordinaire! Thank you for being a part of the team!
We hope you join us for the next Trail Dogs adventure! Don’t let these races intimidate you – we guarantee that most of these girls didn’t think they would be taking on challenges like this for themselves, but they did it! And they loved it and had a great time together!
If you like training with a supportive and fun group, and pushing yourself – the Trail Dogs is the team for you! Best of all, our training partners have 4 paws! Want to check out more PHOTOS from the races? Checkout our Leash Your Fitness Facebook page.
We do 5k’s, 10k’s, half marathons and fun races. Start small and before you know it, you will be part of our #crazyclub! The training is half the fun!!
We can’t wait to see what we come up with for our next challenge. Stay tuned, and better yet – JOIN US! SIGN UP for a class or a 5K or RACE with us soon and join our #crazyclub!!
