Kelly MacLean is 27 years old and the mother of one (very active and almost) four-year-old boy. She has been a preschool teacher and has worked with children 0-6 years old for about seven years. Prior to that she worked with disabled adults. Kelly is also going on her 9th year/second enlistment in US Army Reserves as a 38B (civil affairs specialist).
Kelly’s first Spartan race was the Super distance in Diablo Grande this past summer. Kelly says it was (and it wasn’t) a “fluke” that she even got to race that day. She didn’t have the money to pay the entrance fee but Willie Dengler would not take no for an answer, and BRAVO Co and Willie got her there to race with the team that day. I had the good fortune of running alongside this badass athlete that entire day.
Kelly says after running the Super she’s completely hooked on Obstacle Course Racing and she’s planning on completing the Trifecta (completing a Sprint, Super and Beast distance in 1 calendar year) this year with the Tahoe Beast in October and the Sacramento Sprint distance in November. Kelly is also planning to sign her kiddo up for his first kids race at the Sac Sprint and they will have a big weekend there together.
As if the Tahoe Beast won’t be challenge enough, Kelly will be running it on the Sunday with a BRAVO Co. team after they finish the Mogadishu Mile GoRuck (http://www.goruck.com) back to back weekend, which consists of a Tough event (overnight 15-20 miles) and a Light event (4-6 miles). Overall she’ll be looking at 35+ miles over the course of the entire weekend.
Kelly will keep signing up for more Spartan events because Spartan races are a new challenge and territory she hadn’t come across before. The Super at Diablo Grande was her first OCR which she describes as different in overall application to GoRuck events. The obstacles in the Spartan challenged her and gave her the desire to train to complete the ones she needed help on or the hanging obstacles she fell off of. Like any challenge, race, or event she signs up and keeps doing them to continue to challenge her body and mind in new ways and overcome physical or mental obstacles she hadn’t been able to before. Not to mention, she says, at every single event or race she meets the most amazing people that desire to run alongside you to reach the exact same end goal– challenge body and mind. She’s also been able to continue races and events with people she’s met and grown bonds with over the past few months and the bonds that are forged at these events are almost addicting and everlasting. According to Kelly “post event depression is for reals a thing.”
Kelly believes the life applications for any sort of physical fitness events are endless. “Building mental resiliency to find strength and balance in all aspects of life is the overall goal to continue training and signing up for physical fitness and endurance events. Physical fitness is one of the most important aspects to continue lifelong longevity and finding a healthy body, mind, and soul is how we stay on this earth long enough to care for the ones we love.”
To break it down more, Kelly shares this testimony, in her own words:
“When the turn of this new year hit I was severely depressed. I had finished my Bachelors program with a teaching degree with honors in December, I was living on my own with my son and his father (my boyfriend), we were a happy family and I was newly graduated so everything should have been great, right? Wrong. My job situation was really unstable, my relationship with my son’s father had been unstable since the very beginning, I was living the busy life of a working mom of a young preschooler, a full time student finishing with 15 units my last semester, smoking for stress, drinking to sleep, eating shitty, inconsistently working out, and my relationship with my boyfriend was nonexistent. Needless to say I fell into a worm-hole by the time I exited my 8th year of college and my 5th semester straight doing upper division coursework. I was burnt out, tired in all aspects of life, and really unhappy with where my life was at.
So, I volunteered for a three week TDY mission at Schofield Barracks on the Oahu island where we ran through a field exercise for a series of 10-11 days to utilize our individual job skill sets in a field environment in the Pacific region. It was really rewarding and the first time I had stepped out of my comfort zone and volunteered for something this long with my army reserve unit, and be away that far and that long from my son. I’ve put all my Army stuff on the back burner for so long (an entire 8-year enlistment) to push through school and basic life stuff, it’s taking me a second enlistment to really pursue all the goals I had when I first joined the military.
I went on this mission with Karl Schirrmacher, who has been a part of our unit and company for a while but I’ve never had the chance to work one on one with him much. He ends up being my NCOIC (basically my boss, kinda my dad on a very small 4-man team) for the duration of 3 weeks which meant we got to work really closely. He’s the one the introduced me to GoRuck and had us all lifting, working out, and sweating our asses off the entire week before we entered the field. He’s been a great mentor and the first GoRuck event I did in Santa Cruz with him and his girlfriend Holly was the most challenging event I have done still so far. For one, I was not in the shape that I am in now since I’ve actually started ‘some’ training, but just the entire duration of that event put my mind through so much that I came out of it knowing that I could push myself to do anything if I put my mind to it.
That was in March. My boyfriend and I split up on Mother’s Day in May. Since then my life has been all sorts of hit or miss with stability. I’m still fighting endless amounts of destructive habits. I’ve packed up an apartment (by myself) and moved back to my parents to save money and gather some footing.
My son has truly been the most resilient out of all of us. Every day he smiles at me and tells me that he loves me it makes me feel like I’m doing something right. If he has a smile on then why the fuck wouldn’t I?
So this year I declared it the year of change and thank God that I found fitness in that journey. It’s really about overcoming obstacles, in LIFE. I’m working on overcoming SO many life obstacles, so pushing my way through a Spartan race and overcoming physical obstacles, and staying up all night rucking endless miles while carrying heavy shit with an amazing team of crazy weirdos, it all makes me feel like I can get over these endless amount of hurdles I’m hitting in life lately.
I want to stand up proud, years down the road and be thankful to myself that I persevered for son, for my family. Overall, Spartan, and other events — they are my escape from my messy life and they are also my test of my mind and body. Having a strong mind and body means I can be strong for myself and then I can be strong for others.
Kelly’s advice to anyone considering a Spartan? Even if you have never done any sort of OCR or race, event, whatever before, Just Do It! Keep putting one foot in front of the other and just do you. Challenge and push yourself but know your body’s limits and respect them. A little training pre-race doesn’t hurt, the Spartan website has plenty of resources.
Kelly recommends doing your first race with friends or a group of familiar faces so you feel comfortable and have help going through obstacles. She says to remember that you don’t need to go fast! This year she’ll be completing the Trifecta with teams and she’s not going to worry about times. “It’s mostly about having fun, getting familiar with the different types of races, and doing it alongside friends.”
Kelly MacLean, you are a Spartan.
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