The mud made the journey crystal-clear.
As a 68-year-old, I might have been considered crazy for even attempting this. With the prompting of my personal trainer and my daughter’s boyfriend, I signed up for a Spartan Race, a five-mile slog through mud, pools of dirty water, treacherous forest trails and numerous obstacles that included climbing six-feet-tall walls and twice doing a military crawl under barbed wire, once through a mud-soaked water puddle.
Allow me to backtrack. I am a fitness and motivation coach for older adults, those who really want to get off the couch and get moving to safeguard their longevity and their health in their later years. I am also a bit of a fitness nerd, embarking on a journey of more than a decade of healthy exercise and diet after a sudden heart attack at age 57.
I have run numerous marathons and half-marathons in my 60s. I recently completed a Hyrox fitness challenge at State Farm Stadium in Phoenix that involved a series of difficult obstacles, including pushing a 130-pound sled and carrying 60-pound kettle bells around a track.
But the Spartan Race was different. It was especially designed for Gen Z’s and the millennial generation that are ripped and ready to conquer a boot-camp style course. I was one of 11 participants over the age of 60 out of 730 people in my heat. Many of them had doffed their shirts and had muscles the size of small islands. I am in great shape for my age, but I weigh about 145 pounds soaking wet and my wiry muscles are not what you call in gladiator condition.
But I had one advantage: This mattered passionately to me. I love the concept of resilience, especially as I age. I am a seeker of validation, that I still have meaning to myself through both physical and emotional connection. I want to cartwheel over the man-made barriers that tell us we are too old, too frail, too weak to do anything we want.
Part of this comes from my own transformative event. In November 2025, I was laid off from my long-time position at a media company as part of a corporate-wide downsizing. It came unexpectedly. One day, I had finished managing a successful conference. The next day, my work email was shut down, and I was told that I no longer worked at the organization and would be given a mild severance package. No goodbyes, no one reaching out to me, no thanks for all your work, just a simple kiss-off.
After a period of anger and bitterness, I began to work on myself. I wanted to matter to me again and dash the feeling that my more than two decades of working for one company was wasted and could be tossed in the garbage as meaningless debris.
I just read a book called “Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose” by bestselling author Jennifer Breheny Wallace. It talks of how difficult it is to stay purposeful, to shed the feeling that what you do has no solid impact on anyone else. Especially when we retire — which happened forcefully to me — we may feel empty and unwanted, that we have wasted time that we can never recover.
Luckily for me, I was already in great shape, working out for an hour at least five days a week. It was my passion, one that I decided to pursue full-time to earn back my equilibrium, my self-esteem and my perspective on life. I wanted to matter again, even if it meant some physical sacrifices and a lot of internal pep talks.
Now, I am busier than before. I have created a new business serving older adults, at www.newchapterstrength.com, and have worked through a website and group coaching from a consultant helping me set up a successful online coaching business. I just finished my Certified Personal Trainer course from the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM). It has taken more than 50 hours of work each week since February.
The Spartan Race was another step to self-awareness, offering the opportunity to level up even more and embrace my passion. Wallace calls it The Power of We Matter. She advocates for a lifestyle of helping others, of building our outside connections, of living in the world again. She writes that
What I’ve learned through the hundreds of conversations I’ve had over these past six years is that, deep down, under all the loneliness, anxiety and polarization — under all things pulling us apart — we are all searching for the same thing.
We want to know that who we are and what we do make a difference in this world.
We want to know that our lives — our very existence — matters.
It is as simple as that. For me, it is about giving back to others by helping them develop their own habits and routines that will bridge the gap between inactivity and an active lifestyle that brings them better health and happiness. It is about my own sense of validation that I can matter to myself too.
So, in May 2026, I laced on an old pair of sneakers (later tossed in the dumpster) and drove an hour to a remote forest preserve that is connected to a local military camp. I shimmied to the starting line, under a bridge with barbed wire snagging at my T-shirt and over a four-foot wall to the starting pen. And we were off. What I didn’t expect was that immediately after the starting pennant, we waded waist deep in water, attempting to jog to the opposite side. I was already dripping wet as I started my walk-run through the jungle.
It had rained the day before. The sloppy, wet dirt and my ultra-soaked shoes meant slips and near-tumbles into the quicksand-wet mud below my feet. I tasted mud in my mouth, felt it in my ears and nostrils. I jogged when I could where ground was dry, but that was difficult due to sharp hills and the impingements of roots and prickly branches. I could envision a sprained ankle or twisted knee in my immediate future, but I carried on.
Within every half-mile, there were obstacles. I managed to swing over high monkey bars, climb a 30-foot-high rope bridge and scoot across it, carry a small, 60-pound sandbag up and down a trail hill about a half-mile long, throw a spear toward a target and do 60 burpees when I missed, wade through water up to my neck by pulling a rope to a landing, and leap a fire pit at the very end. Five miles of fun.
Finishing had its own reward. I was filthy but unbowed. Not that it really meant anything, but I finished in the top 30th percentile overall against all those more than 30 years younger than me. It was exhilarating, a confirmation that I am not too old to find the confidence to compete with myself and others, to be engaged and part of the greater world. It provided a way back from a sudden loss of identity after losing my job and a major part of my life. Wallace writes that
When the roles and routines that once gave us our identity shift, our sense of mattering begins to slip away. And with that loss of role comes a deeper question: Will I ever matter this way again? To carry of sense of mattering through these shifts, we need practices that help us stay anchored in our lives, especially when everything else feels unsteady.
That has kept me purposeful, driven, waking up with a feeling that I still have much to accomplish and give back to others. For others facing transitions in life or just concerned that they don’t have the energy that they had previously, that can mean different things: Taking up a hobby such as cooking or gardening and sharing that with a larger community; volunteering at a local organization needing help, such as a food bank; writing prose or poetry that reflects your inner truths; or just doing what makes you happy and vital.
Just find your own purpose. Do what matters to you and let the rest take care of itself.
Joe Pryweller is a longtime fitness advocate who has finished close to 20 half marathons, a full marathon and a Hyrox competition in his 60s and has worked with others on their fitness journeys. He also survived a heart attack in 2015 and has used that experience to motivate himself and others to reach fitness goals. He is also a Certified Personal Trainer through the National Academy of Sports Medicine and is setting up a motivational and exercise coaching business called New Chapter Strength that will be accepting clients in summer 2026. Joe also is a professional journalist who writes articles on fitness-related topics.
You can email Joe at New Chapter Strength LLC.