From softball to a Spartan champion

It might have started by accident, but make no mistake, Alyssa Hawley always knew.

Yeah, maybe the idea of running wasn’t the No. 1 thing on the former North Idaho College softball player’s list of things, but the competitor in her won’t let her fail.

Hawley, 27, recently won the Emerald City Open, the first race of the Spartan U.S. Championships on April 22 in Snohomish, Wash., finishing in 1 hour, 36 minutes and 40 seconds.

How she found out about the Spartan Race, well that’s kind of interesting.

“I actually found out about it on a Groupon,” Hawley said. “I was living in New York and wanted to have a goal to strive for.”

Hawley entered a Spartan Stadium Race, which is 3.1 miles long with more than 18 obstacles a runner has to get through before finishing.

“I got the chance to tour and run around Citi Field,” Hawley said. “I really just found the event by accident.”

Spartan races are obstacle course races, with different lengths and challenges for each level.

“They’re spread out randomly throughout the course,” Hawley said. “On some, you’ll have to jump over a wall, crawl under barbed wire. They’re different each race. With the more advanced races, you really don’t know what the obstacles are until you get there. With the Beast races (the toughest of the Spartan Races) they’ll really take you and hold it anywhere.”

They're challenging, both mentally and physically, and Hawley added it’s something she enjoys.

“It tests every aspect of being a human,” Hawley said. “It tests you mentally and physically, and I just love that you really don’t know what you’re going to get from each race. The reason that they created it is that you can run a marathon, and if you run it a lot, you know exactly where the checkpoints and water stations are. I love going into it not knowing what’s going to happen next. It’s different each time you race. It’s a different experience each time.”

With her win in Seattle, Hawley leads in points with four other U.S. Championship races coming leading into the World Championships in Lake Tahoe in late September.

“It was so huge and unexpected,” Hawley said. “I grew a little through the past year. I wasn’t OK with finishing seventh... Each race, I kept getting better and better and ended last season on a high note.”

During training, Hawley had a nagging injury that wasn’t healing to the point where she thought she could be competitive in Seattle.

“It was a super-long offseason,” Hawley said. “Going into the race, I really didn’t know what to expect. I’m still so new to this that I wasn’t sure how I’d respond. It was so cool to see that I trusted what I was doing. To win, it was unreal.”

Hawley was an outfielder at NIC in 2009 and 2010, eventually transferring to Stony Brook University to finish her education.

“I remember we had to do long runs, and I’d be dreading it,” Hawley said. “The longest I’d ran was 60 feet to the bases, and I was a sprinter. I was thinking I’d be dreading it, but it’s kind of funny how it turned out.”

After suffering injuries in events at Portland and Washdougal, Wash., in 2016, Hawley nearly walked away.

“I did a park race last year, and it rocked my world,” Hawley said. “I kind of wanted to give up and quit, but I came back. Other times, I got hurt three different times and hurt all during the offseason. It was hard — and doing it on my own, it could have been so easy to say 'I’m done' and lose my focus. I had a hip injury that was nagging me, and I thought that maybe I’m not meant to do this. It was a rollercoaster ride for sure.”

Hawley will compete in a few races outside the U.S. Championships to remain in race shape, but will mainly focus on the series.

“Last year, I raced a ton and basicially stick to the MVP races now,” Hawley said. “I’ll do the local races in Boise (June 24) and the Montana one (May 6 in Bigfork), but will mainly focus on the championship series and try to win that.”