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Sunday, April 15, 2012

"As far as that tire, I've carried purses heavier than that."

It all started with an email.  Thursday night, I got an email from Kris saying "Would you be interested in this?" with a link to the Big Nasty Mud Run to be held two days later.

Heck yeah, I'd be interested in that!

I'm usually one that waits to the last minute to sign up for 5ks and 10ks.  With the marathon coming up, I've had to be more of a planner and figure out from now until October 28th what races I will be doing and how exactly that will fit into my training schedule.  This weekend was going to be my last "non-planned" weekend before I got into the thick of training and playing it safe.  So after a few back and forth emails, we were signed up and ready to go!

I've never run an event with FCA Endurance Savannah.  Most of their events that I know of are in Pooler, which is a suburb of Savannah that we don't go out to much unless we're going to the airport.... or for packet pick-up for the mud run.  Their pick-up was at the movie theater and was easily found.  I was in and out within 3 minutes tops.  They gave me great information on what to wear and expect the next day and I was on my way.

I wasn't expecting much in my bag of goodies, it was their inaugural mud race and like I said earlier, I didn't know much about the organization.  I was pleasantly surprised!

There were quite a few things inside my bag that I'll probably end up using.  Usually I just end up throwing most of it away, or I don't get enough to even take a picture.

Saturday morning came and we met up with Kris to carpool over.  We took some before pictures and got into position for the start.  For the first time in my many races, I was nervous at the start.  I had no idea what to expect except for the huge mud pit that I knew was about 100 yards into the race.

Before the race begins!

After the first mud pit.  I'm celebrating keeping my shoes on!

 Luckily, once we got through the first pit (where I seriously almost lost my shoe, but refused to be that girl), we settled into a great pace and took each obstacle as they came.  Kris and I share the same competitive drive that got us up and over a 40ft wall, army crawling under caution tape through freezing and rocky water, and carrying a tire around a track with relative ease and tons of laughter! 

Kris making it through the last part of the course. She kept her hair dry and her lip gloss intact!

...I did not.

Tackling the A-Frame wall.  I made it to the top and somehow lost my footing and fell down.  Next time, A-Frame wall, next time.

The last mud pit. I was so tired by this point and kept falling every 5 steps.

Finally out of the last obstacle and ready to finish. 

We ran it in and finished strong!

The after picture. Still smiling!

Overall, this race was incredibly organized and A LOT of fun.  The one thing I could complain about was the clean up process after.  There were 6 shower stalls for over 1,000 people to rinse off.  We were in the middle of nowhere so I didn't really expect a lot, and in the scheme of things, the wait wasn't horrible.  I heard they had a huge spray nozzle in another part of the park that was using water from the mud pits to help people rinse off, but using dirty water didn't sound like my idea of clean.

The ride home was fun, the title quote was said by Kris while we were telling our tales of might to Hubs, who drove and captured our journey through picture and video (Thanks Hubs!).  

The morning after, I'm feeling pretty sore.  4.5 miles is usually no big deal but add in 17 obstacles and the fact that I used a lot of upper body muscles that I usually don't when I run... I'll have to incorporate some strengthening into my training over the next few months and my core could use some definite work.  

This week begins serious training. I have my running journal all filled out with expected workouts through October and Hubs ready to be my coach.  Any time I'm feeling like training kinda sucks though, I'm definitely going to think about this run: how much fun I had and how I pushed myself.

1 comment:

  1. Wow!! Great post. I don't know that I would have done this on two days notice. So proud of you. Impressed that Kris did it, too.

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