Fifteen years ago, I stepped into what I now call my Say Yes To Me Era. Not because I had a blueprint for reinvention. Not because I suddenly figured life out.

Because I knew I was never going back to the darkness. The heaviness. The numbness. The version of me that felt small… and stayed there.

For too long, my ideas had died quietly. Adventures postponed. Joy negotiated. Risk avoided.

I was done shrinking.

If life had been a season of “no,” then I was ready to answer with “yes.” So when my little sister heard about a muddy 5K obstacle race coming to Washington — Survivor Mud Run 2011 — and asked if I wanted in…

I didn’t hesitate. Over ten years ago, I didn’t struggle with weight. I only struggled with obstacles.

Warrior Dash 2011

I was still riding the high from Survivor Mud Run when I made the brilliant decision of talking about it at work. Costco Travel. Ya know? Cubicles. Headsets. Booking itineraries. And me, mid-shift, telling war stories about mud and walls like I had just stormed Normandy even though it was just Survivor Mud Run.

That’s when my co-worker, Josh R., leaned back in his chair and gave me that look.

Josh was a bro’s bro. Tall. V-shaped from gym gains. Flashy smile. Hat backwards.
Relentlessly positive. Mostly “bro this,” “bro that.”

He listened to my recap, nodded slowly, and then said the words that changed the trajectory:

“Los… you’re a winner. You’re a champ. Bro, you’ve gotta do Warrior Dash with me.”

WARRIOR DASH.

It sounded bigger. Meaner. Less mud run, more battle cry. A day or two later, our four-person cubicle pod transformed into the unofficial War Room for Warrior Dash.

Not that it needed that level of production — but we treated it like a campaign.

Every monitor had the Warrior Dash website up. We studied obstacles like game film. Rope climbs. Wall scaling. Mud crawls. The final challenge like a boss was a fire jump.

We weren’t just signing up. We were preparing. The Corporate Gym was 1.5 miles from Costco Travel — a quiet perk of being Costco employees. And suddenly that gym wasn’t just a convenience.

It was our training ground. Lunch breaks became lifting sessions. After-work became conditioning. We weren’t just working out. We were becoming warriors.

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The Challenge Accepted Saga

A Washington State Obstacle Era (2011–2015)

2011 — The Awakening

• June 18, 2011 — Survivor Mud Run — Carnation, WA
• July 22, 2011 — Warrior Dash — North Bend, WA

2012 — FULL SEND

• June 30, 2012 — 5K Foam Fest — Issaquah, WA
• July 21, 2012 — Warrior Dash — North Bend, WA
• September 15, 2012 — Hell Run — Carnation, WA
• November 10, 2012 — Pineapple Classic — North Bend, WA

2013 — Level Up

• July 21, 2013 — Warrior Dash — North Bend, WA
• August 10, 2013 — Color Me Radd — Redmond, WA
• September 24, 2013 — Hell Run — Carnation, WA

2014 — Keep Digging

• April 6, 2014 — The Slime Run — Carnation, WA

2015 — Challenge Completed

• July 26, 2015 — Rugged Maniac — Olympia, WA
• October 17, 2015 — Spartan Super — Snohomish, WA

Twelve races. Four years.

At roughly $100 per race — entry fees, parking, gas, training, gear — that’s about $1,200 invested. That’s a conservative guesstimate.

But the return wasn’t financial.

It was identity. It was therapy without a couch. It was momentum when I needed it most. It was sweat equity in becoming someone stronger than the version I had been.

I Can Be Super Again

The other day — meaning sometime in the last month, because time moves differently now — I noticed the date on my Spartan Super shirt.

2015

“Over ten years ago,” I mentally mused.

That was peak physical condition. I remember how it felt. The engine. The stamina. The quiet confidence that came from knowing my body would respond when I asked it to do something hard.

And I caught myself wondering:

• Can I claw my way back there?
• Like I clawed through the mud in Carnation.
• Like I climbed walls in North Bend.
• Like I kept digging through Olympia.

I’ve made some progress recently. Not nothing. But the soft edges around my hips and waist remind me that I’m not there yet.

And that’s when the real question surfaced:

Can I be super again?

But here’s the truth I had to sit with. Super wasn’t a body fat percentage. It wasn’t a medal. It wasn’t even that finish line in Snohomish.

Super was a decision.

A decision to train. A decision to commit. A decision to show up even when it was inconvenient. The mud never made me super. The decision did.

And that decision is still available.

Closing

I thought the obstacle course was something I signed up for in Carnation back in 2011. Mud, walls, medals, fire jumps. But that wasn’t the real course. The real obstacle was learning how to choose myself again. Twelve races. Four years. One identity reclaimed. I don’t need to recreate 39-year-old Los to prove anything. I already proved it. The man who signed up, trained hard, showed up, and finished — he’s still here. The obstacles just look different now …

And when they show up? I already know the answer.

Challenge accepted.