"I'm really good at suffering.”

The Obstacle Course Race Superstar | Runner's World: "A self-described jack-of-all-trades athlete, Amelia Boone (the August 2015 Runner's World cover subject) came onto the obstacle course race (OCR) scene almost by accident when a coworker talked her into a Tough Mudder in 2011. In December that same year, she signed up for the World's Toughest Mudder, a 24-hour race, and placed second among women. She went on to win that race in 2012 and 2014 and was named The Spartan World Champion in 2013

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OCRs got me hooked on running trails and mountains," she says. "I'm good at climbing and running steep inclines, and powering through altitude changes." Now a Reebok Spartan elite athlete, the Chicago-based corporate attorney, 31, recently added ultrarunning to her repertoire. "Before I started doing obstacle races, I ran to keep in shape," Boone says, "but it wasn’t something I was passionate about. But after my first Tough Mudder, I realized my endurance was strong enough to run long distances.""

Weekend Warriors: Obstacle-Course Racing's Unlikely Star: "Boone now has a schedule that starts at 4 a.m. each day with a run and a strength workout. She still does a lot of traditional CrossFit exercises, but skips heavy weights in favor of bodyweight moves. Though she's mostly stopped her illicit spear-throwing, she admits she's still terrifying the residents of downtown Chicago on some mornings with all-out sprints around the block and drills where she drags a weight behind her on the sidewalk. She's at work by 7:30 a.m. and, when she's there, she focuses solely on work. Those same co-workers who did the first Tough Mudder with her have seen her on TV and magazine covers, but they don't talk about it much. It's just something she does. "You do your work and you have this strange hobby on weekends outside of work," she says. It's only when she has to go into a meeting with people who don't already know her, covered with bruises and scars, that it comes up. She's out of the office 10 to 12 hours later, sometimes fits in a small evening workout, and then heads to bed to do it again. Her success in the sport goes well beyond her physical capabilities, though. She has the capacity to suffer, and to take things long past when it'd probably be smart to quit. Combine that with the ability to focus - to dedicate herself completely to the task at hand without thinking about anything beyond - and it creates the perfect combination for obstacle-course racing. That makes her sound extremely intense, which she is, and boring -- which she's not. She's also funny and laid-back and taking this all in with the attitude of someone who's on a crazy ride that might be over soon. She's not going to give up her love of ketchup and Pop-Tarts and wine, but she did cry when she had to skip the 2014 Spartan world championships to get knee surgery instead."