A Spartan’s Resolve

The Spartan Race had been sitting on my backburner for a while. While it wasn’t as big as some of my previous challenges, when I saw it was coming to Chengdu, I jumped at the chance to sign both Lionel and myself up.

Even though Lionel has low visual acuity, I’ve never given up on him becoming an athlete. One of my summer goals was to teach him how to climb the monkey bars. At first, this posed a serious problem. Not only did Lionel have zero interest in learning the monkey bars, but I quickly realized I couldn’t even do them without moderate discomfort from my shoulders down to my fingers. Had I misremembered childhood? Regardless, monkey bars were one of those obstacles we both knew we’d have to conquer for the Spartan Race.

Once Lionel watched a Spartan Race video and officially signed up, something clicked and his determination skyrocketed.

One of the great things about America is the abundance of parks and playgrounds. About four or five times a week, I’d take Lionel to a different park with some kind of climbing structure. Eventually, we found a playground with low-hanging monkey bars so Lionel could practice without the fear of a long drop. Once he made it across for the first time, it was over, he declared monkey bars the most fun piece of playground equipment on Earth. By the end of the summer, he was swinging across them forwards, backwards, and sideways.

When Lionel returned to China, he began training for the running portion of the race. Each day at lunch, he’d run somewhere between five and eight laps around the soccer field at his slow, methodical pace. Then something unbelievable happened, the race location was announced, and it was going to be held right next to our school. This meant we could go check out the terrain and get a sneak peek at the 25 obstacles he would face. Even better, once word spread that Lionel was competing, seven of his classmates signed up. It was officially going to be a Grade 2 Spartan Party.

Race Day – Dad

I ran in the 10K, 28-obstacle heat in the morning, and Lionel was set to race in the kids’ 7–9 division in the afternoon. I’d walked about half the course a few days earlier, so I knew what was coming, but I underestimated just how much the obstacles would drain my energy.

Still, I was proud of my performance 1 hour and 48 minutes. Exhausted but exhilarated, I turned my focus to Lionel’s race.

One of the best things about Spartan Races is the variety of challenges: tugging, lugging, climbing, lifting, and crawling. Being on the younger side of his age division, Lionel struggled a bit with the heavy lifting, but he completed every single obstacle on his own strength.

Around the halfway point, I could see the fatigue setting in. Still, he pushed forward, pausing only to grab water. When he reached the rope climb, a tough obstacle even for adults, he couldn’t make it to the top. But instead of skipping ahead, Lionel insisted on doing the full 15-burpee penalty. No other kid was doing this. Lionel did it anyway.

Three-quarters through the course, he caught up to his classmate Atlas, and the two of them ran the rest together. Atlas, who’s used to helping Lionel at school with his low vision, guided him through the uneven terrain and the balance beam.

The final stretch featured the obstacle Lionel had been looking forward to all summer: the mud mountains. He and Atlas climbed up and slid down with huge smiles plastered on their faces. The last obstacle was a giant A-frame climb before they crossed the finish line side by side.