{"id":5230,"date":"2014-09-24T15:38:11","date_gmt":"2014-09-24T22:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spiken.wpengine.com\/news\/ex-marine-takes-on-endurance-challenges\/"},"modified":"2016-10-23T12:55:26","modified_gmt":"2016-10-23T19:55:26","slug":"ex-marine-takes-on-endurance-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/sports\/ex-marine-takes-on-endurance-challenges\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Marine takes on endurance challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"

While people often compete in Tough Mudder runs or Spartan Races to test themselves after rigorous training, not nearly as many compete to prove to themselves after a serious injury.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

That was how John Callaway, a Kent resident and former Marine, got into endurance racing while recovering from a medical discharge. He will compete in his third Tough Mudder on Saturday at the Palmer Coking Coal Company in Black Diamond.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

He started running, he says, to prove to himself that he was still capable as an athlete in spite of back injuries sustained while serving as a marine infantryman in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

“I fell off a couple roofs, it really started to take some problems to my back,” he says. “I didn’t feel much on my first deployment. We were all so tired and hurting.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Callaway, 25, noticed the pain again during marine squad leader training in 2010, where he was carrying upwards of 120 pounds on ruck marches.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

“Injuries started to stack up after I got out of that course,” said Callaway, but it didn’t stop him from starting a second deployment. “I went through some bad stuff but thought I was healed.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

It wasn’t until his second tour in 2010 that he started to encounter problems with his back and leg. After being evacuated to several hospitals in the theater, he found himself in Landstuhl Hospital in Germany.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

It was a tough mental task for the soldier to accept that he might not return to his buddies in the field, especially after having seen other comrades return with worse injuries such as amputations or catastrophic burns.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

“I felt horrible for leaving,” he said. “I felt like I had left everybody behind. I had new marines that were there with me that had never been there. It was so hard for me to leave and go back home when I knew I had a deployment before.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Battling injuries<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

But his diagnosis proved that no matter how healthy a person might look on the surface, there can always be lingering problems beneath the skin.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Callaway was diagnosed with a pinched lumbar in his back, which constricted key nerves running to his leg and cut off sensation and feeling. A combination of prior injuries compounded by the heavy weight of rucksacks and weapons (the M240 machine gun weighs between 23 and 27 pounds alone) led to immobilizing pain on the deployment.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Several lumbar spine and sacroiliac joint injections failed to improve his back, and the Marine Corps discharged him medically in September 2012.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

While healing at Landstuhl, Callaway first made contact with the Wounded Warrior Project (WWP). Through WWP, Callaway got a $200 clothing stipend (he was lifted out of the Helmand province in Afghanistan with the clothes on his back) as well as resources for recreation and recuperation.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Among those resources were sponsorships to any Tough Mudder run. It was to be several years and a move to Reno, Nevada before Callaway took advantage of the opportunity.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

After his medical discharge, Callaway discovered the run in an WWP email and decided that training for such a run would be a good way to get over both post deployment depression and to prove to himself that he could be an athlete. He says that 2012 was a rough year, with a lot of drinking and unwanted weight gain, and that he wanted a change.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

To prepare for the run, he started running trails and lifting to get back in shape.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

“I didn’t take it too seriously,” he said, “but enough to have fun with it and be somewhat in shape.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

He finished his first Tough Mudder in August 2013 on a team in slightly under three hours, but decided that one wasn’t enough. He registered for a Spartan Race in Sacramento, Calif., shortly after the Tough Mudder and then again in Malibu, Calif.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

On his second Tough Mudder race earlier this month, he placed fifth in his division. Outside of Tough Mudders, Callaway has also started running Spartan Races, and qualified for the inaugural Obstacle Course Racing World Championships in Cincinnati, Ohio.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

His workout has changed significantly since he started preparing in May 2013. Today he finishes rope climbs, hill runs, lifting, and swimming to prepare his body for the obstacles. He’s in good enough shape, minus a recent ankle injury, that he’s considered training for the American Ninja Warrior Challenge.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

What keeps him working these brutal workouts?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

“I don’t want to end up like I did after my injury,” he says. “I put on 40 pounds, I couldn’t fit into my clothes, I couldn’t fit into my old uniforms. I lost that physical aspect of my life, and going backwards to that again would really hurt my mental status like it did then.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

He hopes that his training, combined with the support of WWP, will give others the strength to get back in a gym in spite of an injury.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

“I really want to show people that just because you’re injured or have had those problems in the past, that you can’t get competitive with these races or run one of these races.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

=====<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/em>\"\"<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While people often compete in Tough Mudder runs or Spartan Races to test themselves after rigorous training, not nearly as many compete to prove to themselves after a serious injury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":213,"featured_media":5231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-5230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5230"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5230"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=5230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}