Fast forward several years later and I have completed in nearly 60 obstacle course races. After several mediocre years with many mediocre placings due to poor training, I became frustrated with the lack of personalized coaching in Obstacle Course Racing. I took inspiration from other popular training philosophies and mixed it with aspects found in military type training as well as mental toughness training. I realized that the barriers we encounter in training and in competition are often physical, but mostly mental as well. I discovered that in order to realize our potential we must be able to push through the barriers of perceived effort (pain) and ask ourselves: how bad do I want this? The result of these changes: in the matter of one racing season I went from finishing in the top 80's overall to finishing top 20 at the Spartan Race Canadian Championship and earning my first Spartan Coin qualifying me for the Spartan World Championships. I also earned my first running victory at a local road race (a win I credit not to physical, but mental training). After only one year of implementing these changes I went from finishing 80th overall to breaking the top 15 at the same exact race venues and finishing 2nd (18-24) in the North American OCR Championships 15km. Since then I have gone on to stand atop several Elite podiums in OCR (a pretty big transformation since my days of finishing 80th!).