Off of the Couch and into the Mud!

A few months back I wrote a post about how I sign up for races as incentive to keep moving.  I need to be prepared when the time comes so I stay motivated to get out and run a few times each week.  Back in November, my friend Melanie and I decided to do the Warrior Dash (which was on Saturday).  This race is described as a "5k from hell" on their website.  There are 13 obstacles that range from crawling through mud under barbed wire to pulling yourself over a 15 ft wall with a rope to jumping over fire.  Temporary mental impairment? Midlife crisis? Who knows what it was that made me think this was a great idea.  I mean, it wasn't a bad idea, but I should have done a little more event specific training (besides running up that mile long hill while on vacation a couple of weeks ago).  Now would probably be a good time to thank the nice woman and fellow Warrior for saving me on that one stupid wall by pulling me over, one leg at a time.  Thank you.  Other than that, I think I did pretty good.

This is Melanie and I before the race.  Moments before this picture was taken there was thunder, lightening and a torrential downpour.  We had access to this fabulous VIP tent because we raised over $650.00 for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.  Having access to that tent (and private showers afterward) made the whole experience much less....painful? Is that the word I'm looking for?  I don't know but I can't imagine not having all of those little perks that we received.

Here we are all lined up and ready to go.  The rain started up again (as did the thunder and lightening) and we were freezing waiting for this thing to start.  Trust me, it only took about 4 minutes of trying to run up that mountain until we were sweating our butts off.  The rain continued for about the first half hour that we were on the course (this 5k took an hour and a half to finish!) then the most amazing thing happened.  We were on a trail running through the woods and just coming to our first obstacle.  A mud pit that upon entry was just over ankle deep.  Then I took another step and I was in up to my waist!  After that we were a little jammed up as people entered a tunnel (think big drainage pipe).  As I was waiting to enter I heard another rumble of thunder and looked at one of the staffers to see if they tell people to go back if it's lightening.  He did not.  I got into this tunnel that was probably 12 feet long maybe (I stink at judging these things) and right as we're approaching the end I see sun shining on the grass!  No kidding, we got out and it was perfectly sunny without a cloud in the sky.  Alllllrighty then.  That was weird.

So after a whole mess of rigmarole (I have no pictures of that stuff because o'll Nels was only able to see us at the start and at the finish) we enter the final mud pit (1hour and 30 min after starting).  This is a good time to thank Melanie for her patience and waiting for me here and there along the way (have you seen the guns on that girl? What the...).  Thank you.

Shockingly enough, my only battle wounds were from this type of activity.  All that crawling on my bony knees in the rocky mud left me a tad scraped and bruised.  Could have been much worse (if that nice girl hadn't helped me over the wall I might not be here to write this post, I'd be in a hospital bed in the Catskills). 

Here's Melanie looking spunky at the finish.

And myself, emerging from the mud for the final time.

Ah yes, a couple of Muddy Mama's.  That was our team name for fundraising.  I think it suits us.

They even collected our muddy shoes to recycle into new shoes for people who need them.  Those Warriors really know how to lend a hand.

And when all was said and done we had our free Miller Lite (best damn beer I ever had) and got to get all cleaned up with the shower we earned.  Now would be the perfect time to thank everyone who donated on our behalf!  You can now see the why I was so insistent on getting that shower.  So the moral of the story is, get up off the couch, try something new, have some fun doing it and live to tell about it.  Cheers!