For years I spent hours in the gym. 5 days a week, hundreds of repetitions, and miles to nowhere. Then I found obstacle course racing (OCR) and with that a purpose for all of those miles and sets. Each event was a little farther sometimes multiple events in a weekend or a day. Now several years later I find myself making my second attempt at an extreme endurance event in the form of the SISU IRON. Team SISU (derived from the Finnish term Sisu, meaning stoic determination, bravery and resilience) is the brainchild of Matt Trinca and Daren De Heras, formed to train people to prepare for extreme endurance events and soon after developed their own version of an endurance event called the SISI IRON.
The IRON is a 30+ hour event that takes place at the base of the San Gabriel mountains in Monrovia at a Boy Scout Camp called, Camp Trask. The Iron is a test of endurance and will. For 30+ hours athletes complete individual and team tasks including 12 to 15 mile hikes, withstanding the cold murky water of ‘frog pond’, difficult memorization tasks, math problems, archery, wood splitting, 15 mile run for time and a grueling PT session.
