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I was at my second Spartan Sprint at Ft. Bragg in 2016. Just as the year prior, and at most Spartan races, the teams from Operation Enduring Warrior were there. I always see them and they inspire me at every event. It amazes me to see them struggling and fighting through one of these tough races and all the people helping them along the way setting an example for everyone to see about sacrifice and honor. Truly inspiring. However there is a moment that happened to me today that will forever change how I see things and it’s really timely for me personally too.

There is a specific obstacle that has a fairly high wall and on top of it sits an even higher set of what ultimately forms a huge ladder, maybe going about 20 to 25 feet up high. It has two sides forming an “A” frame deal. As I approached this obstacle with my two race teammates we ran past a decent sized crew of the OEW folks. As I jogged by I saw that the person in the center had no legs, he was walking upright but had prosthetics and crutches. He was also dressed out in battle dress, just not a ruck or gas mask like the others. I thought to myself, man, that’s awesome, but continued on. This was roughly 2 miles into the race and I was starting to feel some fatigue and race pain, not good…

As each of my teammates jumped up and got to going over the obstacle and just before I went up on it myself, this crew of OEW people came up behind me. They started to attack it by hoisting up the guy with no legs, just on my heels. As I went over the top and was coming down the other side I was just about face to face with this gentleman and I noticed as I was looking into his eyes that he was completely blind and ALSO missing a hand. His team was communicating with him loudly and clearly while moving rather quickly over the obstacle together. I jumped off and just watched them work it together and my teammates came back to me and stood beside me and we just watched them together. We watched as one of his crew ran around the obstacle and jumped up to help him over from our side, then I noticed that this man climbing up was missing a leg and had a prosthetic as well.

This is when my chest tightened up and tears rolled down my face…

What moved me so much today was that in that instance when I saw this man was blind it changed my notion of LIMITS. This man’s idea of what his personal limits are go far, far, far beyond what my view of my own personal limits are. Here is this man that was likely blown up in a combat situation, a few thousand miles form his home and family, now missing both his legs, his eyesight and his hand (and god knows what else…) and is out here pushing and bravely going through this challenging and scary course. I simply could not contain my emotions as all this hit me.

As my own definition of what LIMITS are to me changed right before my eyes…