Mud Run. (or at least, mud jog)

One night awhile back Nicole texted me (we very rarely actually talk on the phone...thank goodness for texting!!) and asked me if I was interested in doing a mud run with her. Basically, it's a race (in this case, on a motocross track) through giant mud puddles and other obstacles designed to get you really really messy...and also to test your balance with giant balance beams, your upper body strength with walls to climb over, your fear of height with giant spider webs...stuff like that. It looked super fun to me so I told her I was in-but I didn't really want to pay $69 to get muddy. I mean, let's be honest, I can just take a hose out into my backyard (which is pretty much all dirt) and accomplish the same thing. Then I noticed that, if you volunteered to help out at the race, you got to RUN IT FOR FREE. This was good. So we signed up to help out with registration, and I put my running shoes on the next day.

before the run...

        Now, I ran cross country in high school for 3 years as well as running off and on ever since then-so I know how to train for a race. BUT. I hadn't done any distance running since Blaise was born..so I was pretty out of shape! I have exercised as consistently as I can; but somehow I simply have.no.time. so....let's just say this race was motivating :) We had about 3 weeks to get ready for the race-and I did the best I could to get ready in such a short time. Then, super early the last Saturday in February, I got up, put on my ok-to-get-muddy running clothes, and headed out. After a stop at Starbucks, of course. The track was waaaay out there, much farther than I thought it would be, so it was actually light by the time I pulled up next to Nicole and we got out....into the cold. Yes, it was cold!! We'd had freezing (literally!) weather the past week; and even slushy hail the Wednesday before (which freaked most of the Phoenix people out-so fun to watch the kids at AWANAS that night! NUTS.). It was about 37 when I hurried over to Nicole's car, and as we pulled on the awesome neon knee socks she'd snagged for us, I was amazed once again at how quickly I've acclimated..or just forgotten that I don't love being cold! Because, actually, I don't think I will EVER get used to 115.
     We spent the morning handing out t-shirts to the women who were running the race, laughing at the (sometimes awesome, sometimes not) costumes the various teams were wearing, and chatting. Nicole said later it was kinda like spending the morning at a (very cold) coffee shop, because we'd been fortunate enough to get put handing out shirts instead of registering people or something else.Adam, Jason, and the kids pulled up about 10 minutes to eleven; and at eleven we joined the last wave of the day on the track. And it.was.fun.

 (Chloe, Jade, Pax, Blythe, and Byron..don't they look excited to watch us run??)

I'm not sure where Jason or Peyton are...but they were there!

And messy....we also felt kinda good because, although neither of us is in what we'd call great shape, we were passing girls who were younger and seemingly fitter than us :) It was super fun to go by our families and see the kids wave and cheer, "Go, Mama!! YAY!!!" as we ran up a big hill...and I'm pretty sure their favorite part was when we went down the huge, messy, black-tarped slipn'slide that ended in a giant mud puddle. Our husbands told us we had to take it at a run, or we'd never make it down...so we did. And we flew down. And we had the (absolutely beautiful) bruises to prove it :)
It's so fun to have a friend to do this kind of thing with again! By the end, you couldn't tell our socks were anything other than mud colored. And we used a hose to clean off as best we could, but I'm not sure how much good it really did. After we'd scraped as much muck off as possible and changed clothes (which the fantastic hubs brought me-I totally forgot!) we all went to lunch together (at Taco Bell, of course) and then back to our respective houses, where I promptly took a shower. And a nap. We're absolutely planning on doing the race again next year with whomever we can round up around here; so if any of you out-of-area ladies want to come to Phoenix in February....let's do it!! Although I would suggest not planning on going to a ball or any place, really, where your knees or elbows will show for the next couple of weeks. Really, spectacular bruises like I've never had before-and for a girl that bruises like a peach, that's sayin' something!