jigg loves any sports and activities that challenges him to the physical extreme – snowboarding, football, boxing, etc. etc.   While I’m all for him staying active and not getting fat, I also worry about him engaging him in the more “dangerous” sports.  So every time he engages himself any of these sports, I’m clucking over him like a mother hen.

Recently, jigg got into entering himself into obstacle races.  Back in early fall this year, he and a dozen or so of his friends signed up for Warrior Dash, a 5 km race of (according to its website)  ”mud crawling, fire leaping, and extreme run from hell.”  jigg have been active all summer so he barely trained for it.  I didn’t accompany to the race to cheer him on because it was a boy’s day out type of thing, so I just told him to be careful, come back in one piece, and have fun.  About 15 hours later, he came home with a swollen ankle, a limp that lasted two days, and a bag full of muddy clothes.

After that experience, jigg decided to sign up for another obstacle race that will take place, Tough Mudder, a THIRTEEN mile obstacle that was originally designed by the British Special Forces.  One of the challenges of the race will be swimming across a lake…did I mention that this event will take place the week after Thanksgiving when the temperature is probably around 30 degrees?

At first, jigg told me a bunch of his brothers were interested in doing this event with him but all eventually backed out except for one.  I told jigg he was crazy for wanting to do this, that he’s fast approaching 30 and not 18.  Essentially I didn’t want him to do it.  When I couldn’t dissuade him, I told him to not push himself too hard and take his time if he needed to.  He then laughed and told me I’m the worst person to go to for encouragement.

I thought about all the things I tried to discourage him from doing: boxing, full contact football, snowboarding, his dream to climb Mt. Everest, etc.  So I guess he does has a point.  But how I can I not?!  jigg already has a bad knee, wrists, and shoulders.  Every time he enters a boxing match, he comes back with bumps and bruises.  For his annual Thanksgiving football games, he almost blinded his eye playing football one year and broke his fingers in another year.

I’m not sure where the line ends from being a protective to an unsupportive wife.  On one side, I feel like I should be proud of my husband for being manly and fearless.  On the other, I feel I should be a voice of reason when I feel he’s being reckless…even if I do tend to err on the overly cautious side.