Hectic. That one word can describe how the last couple of weeks have been. In the span of about three weeks we have created something awesome. Remember when I said we were starting our own little boot camp program to get people into shape? Well it grew. We continued to grow and we started to develop a good following. The way we would structure our workout would be four days of training and on Fridays we would end it with an obstacle course and tug of war challenge. It was fun and challenging. We decided that we should create an event that consisted of running a 5k and put our obstacle course in it to make it even harder. And so the Rio Grande Valley Hog Dash was born. How could three people make something that turned out to be a grand success? I think we just made it at the right time. People are begging for something different. They see these races like tough mudder, spartan race and dirty dash and dream of competing in them. There is nothing in the valley close to what we did. We added the fun and excitement of mud running to our obstacle course bringing that level of race to our area. The rio grande valley does not have a culture based around being active. We want to bring that, to make people notice that living a healthy lifestyle can be fun. It does not have to be that boring jog at the track, those endless hours spent hearing horrible music at the gym looking at your body in the mirror. These races give you something to look forward to, they make you want to train because the ultimate goal is to compete and to do good. Our first race brought in over 300 participants. By far the biggest first race draw in the valley. How did this happen? I owe it all to my persistence in Facebook advertising. Word spread over the internet. The buzz was created and I kept throwing lumber into the flame.
We had media representation, everyone was a photographer, spectators and local celebrities. Look at the picture above... That's plain awesome. Normal Joe's were hurling themselves face first into the mud. There was no avoiding the mud, some tried to crouch through but to no avail. Looking at all those smiles, hearing the grunts and laughter of the masses combined was truly amazing.
The course was tough. Something people were not expecting because I never revealed a map or actually said what was going to be on it. Not knowing what is next is what we wanted to do. We wanted everyone to have a great time not expecting to come up to a 9 ft wall, not knowing how to get over a muddy steep pyramid or that running through soggy wet mud and suck your shoes right off your feet! People loved it! It turned out to be one of the best events in the valley. I don't think anyone has ever had this much fun at any event in this area like this. This was the first one we had ever done, so I won't say that it went as smoothly as we wanted but we gained an infinite amount of knowledge on what we can do next year to make it even better!
It has been hard work but it is worth it in the end. We gave something new to our community, that's all we wanted to do. I want to make a difference in peoples lives and I know I will continue to do that in my personal life and with my businesses. In this journey I will make a difference and I'm a so happy that Cindy Sergio and I have changed our valley in some way. It's a good start, now let's see where this leads us. I have always believed that you can make things happen, it's not hard, you just have to take that leap and work towards that goal. It's what you do to get to that goal that is the hard part but it has to get done and that is what makes you better.
The best part of it was that we raised money to give school supplies to the needy children in our community. Isn't that awesome? Yes...
