Haitham Fakhouri never considered himself in top physical shape. So the 43-year-old general manager of Rusnak Audi in Pasadena surprised himself earlier this month by participating in a 5K race.

But this was no ordinary 5K. This was the Spartan Race, which bills itself as the most challenging obstacle course/“mud race” in the nation, complete with ponds to trudge through and hills to climb carrying 50-pound sandbags. It was held at a ranch in Malibu over a wet and cold weekend.

“This is one crazy race,” Fakhouri said.

The Rusnak sales team members first participated in the race last year at the coaxing of one salesman who was into marathons and thought this would be a challenge. This year, the team grew to 13 members, including Fakhouri. Little did the newcomers know.

“I don’t think any of us were prepared for how cold the water was that we had to swim through,” Fakhouri said. “As time went on, I couldn’t feel my hands and legs because they were so numb.”

At first, he wasn’t sure he could finish.

“I found that the only way I could keep going was not to think about the entire race or how cold it was but just to focus on the obstacle at hand and push through it,” he said.

But that wasn’t easy. At one point, a fellow salesman stalled out in the middle of a pond on the race course.

“I was coming behind and man, that water stank and was unendurable. I wanted to keep moving. But there he was, seemingly stuck in the middle,” Fakhouri said. “So I yelled at him to keep moving. That’s when some of our fans and other team members burst out laughing at how quickly I was trying to get out of the water.”

In the end, everyone on the team finished.

“Our best finisher came in at one hour, 19 minutes. Me? I finished in just under two hours,” he said.

The best time in the race was 37 minutes.

Would he do it again?

“Absolutely,” he said. “In fact, we’re participating in a 10K Spartan Race next month in Temecula. The course is bigger and I’m sure the obstacles will be bigger.”

Designs on Blogging

When he’s not busy pitching his clients to media outlets, Jack Skelley is honing his writing as a contributing editor for magazines such as Angeleno and Riviera.

But now, the owner of public relations firm JSPR in Los Angeles will be pitching stories for his new Huffington Post blog, Urbanology, which will focus on urban design and development.

“It was kind of a fortuitous thing,” said Skelley, 57. “I was given the opportunity from a friend of the publication and it’s just the kind of topic I’m very passionate about so I accepted.”

The blog launched last month. Skelley said it’s an evolution from his time as executive editor more than 15 years ago.

“It evolved from my days as an editor at L.A. Downtown News, where I was able to cover cultural issues, urban design issues,” he said. “That’s really where I developed a love for this kind of subject matter.”