Pete Williams - Obstacle Fit: Your Complete Training Program to Run Fast, Conquer Challenges, and Discover Your Inner Spartan, Mudder, or Warrior

Do you want to climb walls, shiver under barbwire, shimmy through culverts, negotiate monkey bars and ropes, plunge into Dumpsters of ice water, and run miles through dirt, mud, and water all the while testing your mental and physical stamina with a body youve chiseled into the best shape of its life?

If so, youre an aspiring obstacle racer. And youre not alone.

As recently as 2008, if you wanted to compete in some sort of mud run with a few obstacles, you were limited mostly to Muddy Buddy, a relatively low-key affair involving two-person teams and a leapfrog format in which you alternated between running and biking, dealing with a few modest challenges along a six-mile course before wading through a 25-yard mud pit and crossing the finish line.

That was then. These days, you can find an obstacle race within driving distance most every weekend of the year, especially if you live in Florida or California. Circuits such as Warrior Dash, Rugged Warrior, and Down & Dirty have joined Muddy Buddy among entry-level national series, while dozens of local and regional events have sprung up.

Then theres Tough Mudder and Spartan Race, daunting endurance events each referred to as The New Ironman. The Goruck Challenge, an all-night affair where participants must wear weighted backpacks, has taken things to another level.

Chances are you have friends who have plastered a Tough Mudder finishers badge as a Facebook profile photo, along with dozens of muddy images including a mandatory shot of them wearing orange Tough Mudder finishers headbands. Maybe one of your bolder acquaintances has finished a Spartan Race and vowed to sign up for the Spartan Death Race, the annual no-set-time affair in Vermont thats arguably the toughest endurance event outside of the Tour de France or serving in an actual military. Or perhaps theyve endured a Goruck Challenge, which is run by Green Beret veterans, and signed up for Goruck Selection, designed to mimic the Special Forces Qualification Course.

Death Race and Goruck Selection aside, most of these events provide wet, muddy courses of 3 to 12 miles with between 12 and 30 obstacles, requiring anywhere from 30 minutes to 3-plus hours. Youll usually handle ropes, rocks, sandbags, and logs; climb walls, bars, and hills; and deal with everything from fire, ice, and electroshock along the way.

How did we reach this point so quickly, where a run-of-the-mill marathon or triathlon no longer seems like enough? And why didnt you or I come up with the idea Will Dean did at Harvard Business School way back in 2009, when his professors scoffed at the idea of Tough Mudder?

Charge people $100-plus for the privilege of getting beaten up in a swamp, pasture or along the side of a mountain?

Like that would ever work.

In 2012, Deans company will top $70 million in revenue, mostly from entry fees but also from a growing number of sponsors. Spartan Race and Warrior Dash likely wont be far behind. No wonder dozens literally dozens of event promoters are scrambling for a piece of the action around the country.

What about the struggling economy?

Actually, that has a lot to do with it. Weekend warriors have embraced endurance sports to work off frustration and stress, create a sense of accomplishment now that a job or career has vaporized, or just to have some much-needed muddy fun. As Dean likes to say about Tough Mudder, Its a real-life Fight Club.

Obstacle races provide that fix without the black eyes. Nothing against distance running, but pounding the pavement gets old. Triathlon requires knowing how to swim, hours of monotonous training, lots of expensive, high-maintenance equipment, and provides a generally predictable race-day experience.

Obstacle races arrived at the intersection of every popular fitness trend, including core training, trail running, boot camps, P90X, and CrossFit. Obstacle races combine elements of a popular decade-old television show (Survivor) and a popular new one (Wipeout).

Some suggest obstacle races are a metaphor for life as people run from one new challenge to another, forcing themselves to get uncomfortable rather than falling into a rut or routine.

Who knows? Maybe its more about spending an hour or three pushing your limits and rolling around in mud with close friends.

Heres my theory, one I hatched late in the summer of 2011 while training with a group of fellow Tough Mudder trainees in Tampa, Florida, outside on late Saturday mornings when temperatures approached 95 degrees:

Its so much more fun.

Oh, it can hurt. Its no fun lugging weights and pushing sleds across a hot asphalt parking lot, to say nothing of running half-mile or one-mile loops in between sets. Bear crawls while being pelted in the face by a sprinkler system are no fun. And you lose track of the many ways to swing, climb, carry, or otherwise manipulate heavy ropes and tires.

Those 75-minute sessions were brutal. But they sure beat another weight circuit or treadmill session in the gym, another base distance run, or a life-and-limb-threatening bike ride on the road and not just for entertainment value. Theres no doubt that training for strength, power, and endurance is the most effective way to make you the most badass athlete imaginable and get you in the best shape of your life.

It makes sense. You probably know runners and triathletes who are incredibly lean but lack strength and power. You might also know gym rats, fitness models, and bodybuilders who would be hard pressed to run a mile in under 10 minutes.

An obstacle racer has the best of both worlds: strength/power and endurance. Not surprisingly, these folks tend to have the best bodies. (Ill even show you in this book why you should train this way even if youre confining yourself to running and triathlon).

Rarely do you see someone laughing or even smiling in a road race or triathlon. Its an individual test of endurance. At an obstacle race, youre having a blast, often with friends. Even the most hardcore obstacle race competitors and in this book well train you to dominate any course still go out and have the time of their lives.

In Obstacle Fit, well show you how.

I began my career more than two decades ago as a journalist and recreational athlete, spending eight years covering Major League Baseball for