Suburban Intro to Homesteading

Why do I run? I run to suffer. For thousands of years humans evolved because running was a necessity. Running was the way of life whether to gather food, defend the village, or just to travel. But these days, none of these essential reasons to run are applicable. Our food is gathered into shopping carts, we have police to protect us from small disputes, and a military to protect from larger ones. But even the United States' enormous military force is only comprised of 1.9 million Americans (0.4 percent of the population). So, very little of our population needs to run. Except that we do need to run. We need to suffer. This idea sounds scary and sadistic at first, I know that. But bear with me. As we let more and more technology and creature comforts seep into our lives we see sharp increases in obesity and chronic stress. Our society has a 50 percent divorce rate, while heart disease and diabetes are crippling a huge portion of our population. Our bodies ...

First of all, I know this is supposed to be a Homesteading blog, but I am lucky enough to have a lot of hobbies and interests. Racing is two of them. Both Half Marathons, and in this posts focus, Obstacle Course Racing. I'm up at 5:20 in the morning starting this. If already been up for an hour because I went to bed earlier than usual and am now stuck in dark quiet solitude staring at my phone. This post has been milling around in my head for some time and I've finally decided to talk about it. Well, I ran out of time really. Because in exactly 4 hours I'll be lined up with tons of friends and family getting ready to head out and conquor the Savage Race course. We will run up and down Ohio's version of a Ski resort multiple times, launch ourselves through tons of harrowing obstacles, join in true warrior communion around the water stations together, turn around and offer a mud dripping hand to help a friend rise and conquer a wall, or ditch, or some other obstacle. Ma...