De Sena Joe - Spartan Fit!

Copyright 2016 by Joe De Sena and Spartan Race, Inc.

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

www.hmhco.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-0-544-43960-3

Cover design by Brian Moore

e ISBN 978-0-544-37049-4

v1.0616

THIS BOOK PRESENTS THE IDEAS OF ITS AUTHOR. YOU SHOULD CONSULT WITH A PROFESSIONAL HEALTH CARE PROVIDER BEFORE COMMENCING ANY DIET OR EXERCISE PLAN. THE AUTHOR AND THE PUBLISHER DISCLAIM LIABILITY FOR ANY ADVERSE EFFECTS RESULTING DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY FROM INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN.

Dictionary entries spartan and Spartan are adapted and reproduced by permission from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition . Copyright 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

To ancient Spartans,

for modern Spartans

spa r tan adj.

1.Rigorously self-disciplined.

2.Simple, frugal, or austere.

3.Marked by brevity of speech; laconic.

4.Courageous in the face of pain, danger, or adversity.

Spa r tan n.

1.A citizen of Sparta.

2.One of Spartan character.

3.One who has completed a Spartan Race.

Prologue:
Blindfolded and Bound

J ay Jackson was blindfolded. His hands were tied behind his back, his feet lashed together. A washcloth was shoved down his throat, a pillowcase cinched around his mouth to keep the gag in place. And a gun was pointed at his head.

An hour and a half earlier Jay had been drifting to sleep in his beduntil a man opened his bedroom door, flipped on the light, and pulled out a gun.

Roll over, the man ordered.

What are you doing?

ROLL. OVER.

The man tied up Jays hands and feet with thin satin ropes he pulled from his pockets, plus shoelaces, neckties, and dress shirts taken from Jays closet. Then he blindfolded him. The gag would come laterafter more than an hour of bizarre conversation covering everything from mundane details of Jays life (details that the man already knew) to a high-stakes interrogation of whether Jay might be able to identify him to the police. It became disturbingly clear that the man hadnt come for money and he wasnt in a hurry to leave.

Then, the gag.

Then it was quiet.

Its hard to overstate the feelings of disorientation and anxiety from being unable to see. Humans are visual animals; we depend on sight more than any other sense to navigate the world. Everyone has stumbled to the bathroom in pitch blacknessits hard to gauge distance, direction, and body position; its easy to stub a toe, trip, and fall. The simplest movement becomes a complex maneuver.

Being blindfolded makes one thing easier: seeing your life flash before your eyes.

Jay thought back to his childhood when his father would make him and his older brother wrestle on the mat in their basementwhile blindfolded. Using only touch, muscle memory, and the minds eye, they maneuvered for an advantage with a disadvantage, trying to pin the other to the floor.

Wrestling blindfolded was their fathers crazy idea.

If you practice in tougher conditions, the match will seem easy, he said.

Then he reminded them (for what seemed like the thousandth time) about Doug Blubaugh, 1960 Olympic gold medalist in wrestling, whose eyesight was so bad that he was said to be legally blind when he took off his Coke-bottle glasses before every match.

Learn to anticipate your opponent even when you cant see him, their father coached.

Easier said than done. Jays brother got position, hooked Jays arm, flipped him on his back, and pinned him. Jay would eventually develop into the better wrestler, but at that point his older brother was stronger and more experienced.

Fight back, their father encouraged. Keep fighting back.

Their father made them practice until exhaustion (or until their mother interceded). But thats what happens when your dad is also the high school gym teacher: weekend wrestling practice in the basement, occasionally blindfolded.

All the other kids at school thought Jays dad was way too intensea stern, no-excuses, work-your-ass-off, actions-speak-louder-than-words type of guy. He emphasized hard work but didnt really enforce it with external disciplineJay was never grounded, for exampleso much as he encouraged and cultivated internal discipline. He was also a Green Beret, a fact that didnt really surprise Jayexcept that he didnt learn it until the eighth grade, when a classmate told him. Jay went home and asked his dad if it was true. Yeah, he said with characteristic nonchalance. A Green Beret didnt need to tell anyone.

Disciplined, tough, laconic, modestthat was Paul Jackson. And maybe a little crazy, especially in a safe, soft, affluent suburban world where his strict discipline seemed antiquated at best, punitive at worst. A man fit for tougher times. A man who taught his children to view every obstacle as an opportunity. A man crazy enough to train his sons to wrestle blindfolded.

But right now, none of that training would matter if Jay couldnt get his hands freethey were still tied up with shirts, ties, shoelaces, and ropes. His feet were tied too, he was gagged and blindfolded, and there was a man with a gun in the room. It would be an escape that Houdini never made.

Jay knew he could die. But rather than panic or give up, he heard his fathers voice. He chose to make this a challenge, just another obstacle to overcome. Almost a game.

Quietly and imperceptibly, Jay was able to loosen the shirts and tiesthicker and easier to undo than the shoelaces and ropesbut he had to stop short, because his hands were exposed to view and he couldnt just break them apart.

Jay needed a way to cover his hands. So he pretended to shiver. To Jays astonishment, the man took the bait and put a blanket over himcovering Jays hands from sight. Then the man suggested turning off the bedroom light. Most people would have been terrifiedwas the man about to pull the trigger? But Jay, thinking back to wrestling blindfolded as a kid, knew it would give him an advantage. He emphatically nodded. Now, not only were his hands out of sight, but his captor was also in the dark.

Then, in a terrifying act of intimacy, the man lay down on the bed next to Jay. Jay could hear him breathing.

But Jay stayed focused on the next step: untying his hands. The next step was all that mattered. Every little bit was a little bit closer to survival. Thankfully, while being tied up he had the instinct and presence of mind to force his hands slightly apart, which left a little space between his right and left palmsroom to wriggle. If his hands had been flush, he never would have been able to free them.

Jay had learned this maneuver from the unlikeliest of places: college hazing. He had been the only freshman on the varsity wrestling team, and the upperclassmen got a laugh out of tying him up and tossing him on the pool table. Never in a million years did Jay imagine that one day he might have to thank them for doing that. But it made him stronger.

It took six or seven minutes to free his hands. Then Jay slowly, quietly brought his hands in front of him. He would probably have only one chance to grab the man, restrain him, and take away the gun. But Jays feet were still tied, he was still gagged and blindfolded, and he couldnt see exactly where the man was. But he could still hear where he was.

So Jay mumbled something.

What? the man said, inadvertently giving away his approximate location.