Prodigal Brothers

I love my boys. Every day I am more proud of the men they have become. The husbands. The fathers. The sons. The friends. But first and foremost I am proud of the brothers they are. Never were there more devoted and loving brothers.

Not long after this evening chat by the fire, Jake and Cal competed in a Spartan race together in California. Jake shared these thought after the race. And so I add them here as an illustration to the power of brotherhood.

I was relatively (understatement) unprepared for this race. I knew 20 of the 25 obstacles and how to complete them (or, in the case of the vertical rope climb and the multi rig, that I would probably fail those). I knew my cardio was no good, but I was prepared to alternate between lightly jogging and walking once my lungs gave out.

I was preparing for the elevation in whatever way I thought I knew. I drank more than a gallon of water a day in the week leading up, and the night prior I hydrated all throughout the night. That morning, in nervous anticipation and in an attempt to not be bloated and full, I ate one apple and drank half of a little protein drink. Then we got in the car and climbed 7000’ to the summit of Big Bear’s slopes. As we approached the starting line, as you do at every Spartan, we vaulted over a 5’ wall and crawled beneath barbed wire. That first vault alone left me puzzled and concerned at my short breath. Over the loudspeaker, the line announcer said “prepare to climb to 8000’, with over 3500’ of total elevation gain throughout this course.” I looked ahead at what would be the first mile straight uphill with no respite, and despite the warning, was hopeful that this would be the hardest part - one long uphill, followed by some obstacles, then back down the mountain to complete the remaining obstacles that we could see at our level at the “base camp” area.

I was very, very wrong. What followed was a grueling course designed to break both body and mind, for with each summit painfully crested, the next climb would reveal itself. The first mile bought us to 8000’ (by my meter reading, 8012’), with a couple of vaulting obstacles along the way. At the top, a few snow banks were still thawing, which the course instructors used as an opportunity to test our broken legs and breaking resolve. We were there to hoist 60lb sand bags and haul them up over the snow banks and back. After this first climb, we descended. Spirits were lifted! We dropped about 500 feet, rounded a corner of trees with a view of the black diamonds we were climbing all the way to the town and lake below, and to my dismay, came to face another vertical climb straight back up.

This process of ascending to 8000’ and descending another 500-1000’, only to turn back up the mountain repeated itself over the next 5 miles, with a small spattering of obstacles throughout. I quickly realized in my anxious haste to get to the race that we’d left our electrolyte chews in the car. The water on my back was depleted by mile 3 and refilled again at the nearest water station, but what I was not prepared for was my body’s inability to move oxygen through my blood at this high altitude. As it turns out, it wasn’t my cardio that was failing me, but my legs. The sheer climbs caused my body to desperately seek hydration and energy, and without anything to provide that on my person, the large muscle groups in my legs paid the price. It began to feel as though my muscles were separating from my bones just above my knees. My quadriceps were screaming for relief that just would not come. Sometime between mile 3 and 4, I began to panic. My legs started to fail, which forced me to collapse every 20-40 yards on the uphill ascents. I desperately wondered how I could get *something* in my body. I saw a discarded electrolyte packet that might’ve had a trace of juice remaining and fought to not pick it up and try to extract it. A tossed Gatorade bottle filled with yellow liquid caused me to contemplate rolling the dice.

With each obstacle, my mental reserves allowed me a single attempt; one burst of explosive energy, fully reliant on upper body strength to offset my nonfunctional legs. Around the 4th mile, I very seriously considered requesting medical to take me off the mountain and out of the race. I was sure that my knees were sustaining serious damage due trying to compensate for my seizing thighs. There was nothing at all redeeming in these moments. Every part of me was screaming, begging, heaving. The thought of being relieved from the hell that was that mountain was tempered only by the surety that I wouldn’t forgive myself for quitting and leaving without the medal that I came for. It would all have been a waste, not just the commitments monetarily and temporally, but thinking back on the previous hours and miles of torment, surely *that* could not be for nothing.

Somehow, I resolved to simply continue, however slow a pace, until I completed or collapsed (collapsing felt the honorable way out). I believe it was just shy of 5 hours once I cleared the 7th mile and made my final descent into the base camp, where the final 10-15 obstacles awaited. Each obstacle was one that I’d cleared on my last race, but several would prove too much for my failing body.

Even with the end in sight, my heart was heavy. I was disappointed in how poorly I’d done, wholly in pain and unable to do more than shuffle along, frustrated with myself and the course and even the Lord, who deserved no blame but nevertheless received some from a weak, pathetic man who felt much like an abandoned boy.

It was then, coming off an A-frame climb when I saw Calvin running to me. I hadn’t seen Cal since he disappeared from view at the beginning of the race, completing the entire thing in 2 hours with a time that put him in the top 30 of the professional times for that day’s national qualifiers. Relief and a feeling I haven’t been able to place flooded my broken, dehydrated body.

My baby brother, who was going through his own fires of refinement, and who had been waiting now 3 hours for me, rushed toward me at full speed, medal around his neck and the biggest smile on his face. He took my bag from me and walked alongside me for the final half mile or so, cheering even my walking.

It was a prodigal moment. I, in the place of the son who went out into the world unprepared, and Cal, in the place of a brother who, on seeing me far away off, ran as fast as he could to retrieve me, no judgment in his heart at my own folly, but rather a love that could not restrain him from rushing to my aid.

The final obstacle before the finish line was a 50lb bucket carry downhill some 30 yards, and then back uphill the same way. I grimaced picking up my bucket and praying my legs would hold. Calvin picked up a bucket of his own and confidently shouted, “We’ve got this!”

Halfway back up, my legs failed. I collapsed and dropped my bucket. The cramping was so severe that my legs started to lock. Somehow, I straightened up and limped the bucket the remaining way, Calvin by my side the whole way with his own bucket. On completing the obstacle, I collapsed again. I sat there, unsure if I would be able to get upright to walk down to the finish line. In a moment of dark humor, I chuckled to myself that I would fail not 100 feet from the finish line. I tried several times to massage out the cramps and stop the seizing so I could stand. It was several minutes of failed attempts. And still there was Cal, crouched next to me, waiting until I could stand.

Finally, I got vertical, stumbled across the finish line, retrieved my medal. The pathetic attempt, had it been recorded, certainly would have gone viral.

There could not have been a more sharp dichotomy in contrast between the races of two brothers that day. The one, the oldest, unprepared, suffered a pitiful attempt and finished ahead of only a few hundred people, most likely the elderly and dying. The other, the youngest, well-equipped due to his unwavering efforts to better himself long before the race began and finished ahead of almost every other racer that day.

Both received the same medal. Both are Spartans by rite of crossing that finish line. But, the former could not have finished without the latter; the latter who was not there to remove his burden, but to bear it with him. I am proud to be tethered to so strong a brother.