Down and Dirty

Mud Run Success! Yesterday the Fudge Dragons skillfully completed the National MS Society Mud Run at Harrah's Casino. As you can see from the before and after picture comparison, it was quite a muddy event!

Before
After (well, okay - technically during...waiting in line to do the ropes behind us) The event was as advertised - a 10K with lots of boot camp style obstacles in between. (Hence, our choice of team uniform. People definitely thought we were serious competitors!) Needless to say, our white shirts didn't stay white for long. One of the first obstacles was literally sliding head first into a shallow trough of mud. After that there were several climbing, crawling, and jumping obstacles...all of which involved lots of mud. I've never been that dirty in my life!

Entering in the non-competitive division, our goal was simply to complete all of the obstacles, but once we got an early lead in our 10am heat with the 1+ mile run at the beginning, we all naturally started getting competitive. Nothing is official yet, but we think we were the first whole team from our heat to cross the finish line! (Now we're just waiting to see how our official time compared to others.)

While I have pictures to reminisce about the experience, I also have lots of small aches and pains. My arms and legs look like someone got the best of me in a fight...bruises, scratches, and blisters galore. But it was all worth it for two hours of muddy fun and supporting a great cause. What truly made it awesome was the fact that I got to share the experience with the other Fudge Dragons: my two brothers, future sister-in-law, and boyfriend. And a special thanks to my mom (and Happy Mother's Day!) for being there to capture the memories on camera.

For those paying attention, you'll notice that I have not crossed off #4 from my list. While this certainly was an adventure and a race, it was not in the same spirit of what I originally set out to do, which was more running, kayaking, and orienteering type adventure. Therefore I'll be actively looking at dates for a future adventure race in 2011. (Current forerunner is the Castlewood 8 in December.)

And a quick side note - today is my birthday! Let the official one year countdown for the Operation 30 list begin!