My Spartan Delta has been sitting in the background of my life for six years, quietly collecting shame that I didn’t realize I was carrying around perfectionism and unfinished goals.
Ten years ago, I ran my first Spartan Race Trifecta (three race distances in one year), and it was one of the best years of my life. I was turning 23, driven, healthy again, and obsessed with proving what my body and I could do.
I decided I’d do it three years in a row and earn the Spartan Delta, which meant nine races total over those three years – the ultimate badge of endurance and stubbornness for someone who had just recovered from the depths of a celiac disease diagnosis that changed my life and brought me down to 87lbs at 5’8”. I made it through two years of the Delta plan, but in year three, my plans fell apart, and I never ran the Beast that I needed to lock everything in.
I didn’t just stop running Spartan Races; I stopped forgiving myself for not finishing the way I planned and let perfectionism become something to hide behind for 6 years.
The Years I Spent Blaming the Wrong Things
I didn’t stop running races because my plan wasn’t perfect. I stopped because I was drained. I was under-eating, under-training, stuck in a job I didn’t like, in a relationship that didn’t support me, living in a dark condo that made me feel smaller every day, AND I was living with undiagnosed ADHD and autism. Yikes.
Like a lot of things I look back on now – Spartan Races and the way I made them my entire personality reeked of ADHD. Of course, running the races and completing the required training plan is like crack for the ADHD brain – wins, regular movement, feeling just a little bit better, faster, and stronger than average? It’s like dopamine Disneyland, y’all. I didn’t know it, but I was essentially self-medicating through training, and it worked for a while.
So when my little self-medicating tactics stopped working, my life started slipping. I stopped eating enough, my sleep quality tanked, my relationship felt even shittier, unfinished assignments at school and bills started stacking up, and my training came to a screeching halt. And I didn’t say a word because I was scared and embarrassed. I’d built a pretty strong social media following at the time that was basically all about Spartan Races, and I was really scared that if that wasn’t what I shared anymore, people wouldn’t care about me.
Perfectionism stepped in and handed me an easy, familiar story: try harder. The problem is there is no such thing as “try harder” with ADHD, but because I didn’t know that’s what was really the problem at the time, I blamed myself. Perfectionism let me obsess over the ideal conditions instead of admitting I wasn’t emotionally or physically equipped to train.
Once I finally got diagnosed with both ADHD and autism, and in many ways completely uprooted my life over the past two years, I get it now. Of course, I couldn’t keep training at the level I expected from myself. I wasn’t lacking drive for the past few years. I was in survival mode and I didn’t know how to see that, let alone get the support I needed.
The Social Media Pressure Cooker
I’ve also realized how much being a Spartan Brand Ambassador and having a social media presence almost solely based on running races made everything ten times harder back then. I didn’t have good boundaries around comparing myself to others, and this became another area where my perfectionism kept me miserable.
Everyone around me seemed so strong and capable and amazing; they’re the kind of athletes who run ultramarathons for fun, who return to racing from broken femurs, who talked openly about macros and 15-mile trail runs like they were as natural as waking up and having to pee. And remember: this is before the internet was talking about ADHD like it does now. There wasn’t a language for “I’m struggling because my brain literally can’t do this anymore.”
I didn’t know what was going on with me, which meant I didn’t know how to pivot my social media presence or say, “Hey, something feels wrong.” I was terrified to admit I was struggling because in the obstacle course world, struggling felt like weakness unless it was for a medal or personal record. So I stayed quiet and told myself my problems weren’t “real” compared to my idols’ problems – they were pushing through brutal injuries or recovering from actual eating disorders. Who was I to say I was struggling because I couldn’t remember to eat or sleep or pay my bills or follow through on tasks or keep my life organized?
I failed to understand that my physical and emotional struggles were just as valid and, honestly, probably more relatable than my successes. Which is ironic, considering I started running Spartan races in the first place to feel healthy again after being diagnosed with celiac disease.
Replacing Not Perfect = Not Good Enough with Start. Finish. Start Again
When I first started running Spartan Races, it wasn’t about medals or bragging rights. It was about getting my health back; I’d lost almost 40 pounds from celiac disease, and I just wanted to feel capable again. The next year, though, something shifted, and it stopped being about joy and started being about achievement and felt like something I had to prove instead of something I just loved doing. I am a recovering over-achieving eldest daughter after all, that’s basically the entire point of this post, but make it athletic.
If I’ve learned anything, it’s that nobody else knows the insane standards I hold myself to except me. To most people, even starting something like this, even running ONE Spartan Race, is already an achievement. I’m the only one who ever decided it wasn’t enough, which is great because I’m also the only one who has to accept that done is better than perfect. I ran the 2025 Spartan Sprint in Arizona to double check I still liked running like this – turns out it’s some of the most fun I have in life, I really like trail running and climbing things.
I just ran the 2026 Sprint here in Arizona, and it was an awesome weekend of seeing how far I’ve come with the perfectionism that once kept me off the course.
First off, the medals. I am not ashamed to admit that part of the reason I do these is for the medals, and that I’ve dreamed of completing my Spartan Delta pyramid for a decade now. It was another lesson in perfectionism to walk in this year and find out I’ve procrastinated on this goal for so long that the entire medal system changed. My pants would be on fire if I lied to you and said seeing that change didn’t make me want to have a tiny tantrum and say fuck it, why bother, my pyramid dreams are ruined! But that would be my perfectionism talking – it’d be easier to say ew my dreams and not run than to shake it off and buy into the new, arguably easier to display, medal system.
Then I got on the course, and focused on having fun and finishing, and let wanting to beat last years’ time be a secondary, even tertiary goal. I felt like I was flying, y’all, and I must’ve been because by focusing on fun and completion instead of perfection and competition, I shaved almost 10 full minutes off of my finish time from last year.
This is my Spartan Delta year, pyramid or not.
You have to be physically capable to complete a Spartan Race, but I think it’s just as important to be mentally equipped to do hard things. I’m happy in my life again. I’m supported by myself, my amazing friends, and my family. I eat real meals. I sleep better in my singlehood in my apartment I love. I understand my brain and its limits. I can actually tell the difference between needing rest and avoiding something. I have real structure now, not the all-or-nothing white-knuckling I used to mistake for discipline, to really get me to the finish line.
I used to think the unfinished Spartan Delta made me less consistent, less impressive, less dedicated, but now I see it more like a movie I pressed pause on because I needed to. I want to finish my Delta because it’s something I’ve always wanted, not because I’m trying to prove anything to myself or anyone else. There’s no perfect timing. There’s no perfect plan. There’s just me, finally in a place where I have enough stability and grace to take care of myself while doing something challenging that is also something I truly enjoy. I’ve got one medal done for the year and two left, which will bring me to thirteen total races – the perfect number for something imperfectly finished.
If you’re even kind of thinking about running a Spartan Race this year – do it. If you want to make your own Trifecta a litte less expensive, I’ve got you! Use code TAYLORN20 to save 20% off at checkout on most 2026 races, and I would love to hear how you do! Visit Spartan.com to veiw the schedule for the year.
