A half-dozen members of the No Boundaries team competed in the San Diego Half Marathon this weekend, and every single team member set a personal record. It was a strong showing of effort, grit, and commitment to the accountability of competition. But more remarkable than any PR times was the fact that most of the participants did very little “traditional” running training. Speaking for myself, I ran a total of three times over the last three months (the longest run was a 5k) and walked away from the half marathon with a 16 minute PR. I know that other participants had equally minimal running-specific training and made equally impressive improvements, all based on their regular participation in our GPP (general physical preparedness) program.

The point here is not that you ought to prepare for a race by not running. On the contrary, I know for a fact that I would have performed better had I dedicated more time and effort to some sport-specific training, and I actually went into this race disappointed in my level of preparation. Rather, the point is to question convention.

Traditional training wisdom would tell you that in order to prepare for a run, you need to run regularly, and that in order to prepare for a long run, you definitely need to run long distances. Our collective education and experience has shown this to not necessarily be true. The No Boundaries team’s performance this weekend is a reminder and an invitation to question, to ask why, to test theories and push boundaries and engage in critical thinking about what is common vs. what is best. Sometimes rules need to be broken. After all, we are in this to do it better.

- PS

3/12/18

• For time:

• 100 alternating pistols

• 100 hollow rocks