Dirty 6 Recap

I know you are all dying for an in depth play-by-play of the mud run last weekend, so I will not deprive you any longer. Let's begin with a 'before' picture of me. Let it be known that somehow I didn't know a single person who would do this with me. Lots of people claimed they thought it would be fun and wanted to do it, but alas I trekked on alone.If you want to see a map of the course, I posted it here. Starting out, a short distance into the run we met our first obstacle which was the Xterra cargo netting (orange plastic cargo netting stretched between two Nissan Xterras). There were 3 or 4 nets to go over or under or between. This was closely followed by the Water Wall. It was craaazy!!! Beforehand, I couldn't really picture what the Water Wall would be like so I couldn't have expected it to be what it was. They had 2 water trucks parked parallel about 15-20 feet apart with their water sprays on pointed into each other. Can you picture it? Getting close to it I thought it would be misty but not too terrible. Wrong! It was an insane amount of water! I got soaked head to toe right off the bat. Here is a little something I noticed quite a lot on this run:

Water obstacle+running shoes=heavy feet+dirt trail=extra heavy feet

Next obstacle: Inflatable town. This one was kind of a joke. Only so many people could go in at a time, so I had to wait in line. Part of me was thinking it was sort of nice to take a little breather, but starting and stopping is not the most efficient way to run 6 miles. Not for me anyway. Well, after about 3 minutes in line, the inflatable town deflated and we all had to run on without going through it. Major waste of 3 minutes, but whatever.

Run along a mile or so, getting really thirsty, wishing there were more water stands, really wishing they were giving out gel energy bursts or something! I was not smart and had not eaten enough that morning. Finally come to another obstacle. Sheraton River Crossing which was running through a decent size stream on the property of the Sheraton resort out there. I high-kneed it across that baby in no time. Then experienced this again:

Water obstacle+running shoes=heavy feet+dirt trail=extra heavy feet

Surprise, surprise. Run a bit more and come to another Inflatable Town. I don't remember it saying "Adrenaline Rush" on it, but this was exactly what the thing was like.
Here's something you might not realize about these inflatable things. When they are full of adults, it is really hard to maneuver around without falling all over each other. First of all, I had to wait in line for a while before going in, and after getting inside it was really slow moving. In case you can't really see, you crawl in through a hole, then go over or under some bar type things, crawl through another hole out into a small spot with four pillars, then through another hole, climb up a wall, then slide down and out. It was fun, but super slow.

Run, run, run some more, then come to a giant slip 'n slide. I will confess, I didn't slide through. Like most of the other runners, I ran through. I did see one guy try to slide through, but he got caught half way through. I had already sacrificed precious minutes of my time to standing in line, so I was not about to lose more time trying to slide. Of course this let out into a pool of water, so guess what happened...

Water obstacle+running shoes=heavy feet+dirt trail=extra heavy feet

On the way to the next challenge there was a part of the trail that became deep, coarse gravel. Probably for a quarter of a mile. It wasn't listed as one of the obstacles, but I think it should have been. That was not easy.

Next up, Mountain Climb. Nothing really spectacular to say about this one. It wasn't much of a mountain, but it was still slightly challenging since by this point I had run 4 miles or so.

Go a mile more, another slip 'n slide. Keep going. Getting closer to the big finale. The MUD PIT!!
They didn't tell you that you had to crawl though this! And they also failed to mention that there was gravel at the bottom. I will be the first to admit that I took it pretty wimpy. I was really dragging by the end of this run, so unlike some of the other runners, I was not seen diving into the mud or going in like a cannon ball.

One thing that kind of bugged me about the description of this event was that they said it was a "6 mile, 9 obstacle run, and oh yeah, group showers!" They tried to make it sound all naughty and I have to admit that it made me think twice about doing it. But I can tell you all about the group showers without blushing. After the finish line they had two rows of beach style showers so you could rinse mud off your clothes and shoes. Nothing naughty about it.

Spencer and the kids met me at the finish. Madeleine doesn't have a history of being happy at these events, as I mentioned in this post. They were waiting pit-side to get video of me in the mud pit (my performance is too wimpy to share, sorry) and she got splashed so she was crying.
This was me in line for the showers, so happy to have finished and have my cute family waiting for me.

One last thing I have to share. You know you always get a shirt out of these races and this one is a good one. I have a love/hate relationship with my new shirt. It's a black tank top, nice and long, perfect for working out in. But this is the picture on it.
Need I say more?

Aspirations

Lately, Ian has been telling us one of his reasons to look forward to growing up.

"When I get big, I am going to drink Red Bull."

We're so proud.

Easter 2009

On Easter morning, we walked down the street to a reception center that hosted a community Easter Egg Hunt. There weren't too many kids, but they had planned for plenty. They let the little kids start and find five eggs, then the older kids had a few minutes to find five eggs. I think the plan was to let them all go for however many they could find after everyone had five, but we left before that. Spencer needed to get ready for choir practice and I didn't really mind that the kids got away without tons of candy. They wanted to find way more than five eggs though, so after church I put some more eggs out the in the backyard for them to find.

These two sort of tried to give me some nice smiles, but every picture was pretty silly. Ian was shouting "cheese!" in most of them, so you can imagine how nice his smile turned out in those shots. And in case you are wondering, I don't think Madeleine could be happier with her new dress. She has put it on (dirty or not) almost every day since Easter.

On a different subject, I got my stroller/trailer not long after I posted about it, but there was a problem with the front tire. It's angled slightly left so I haven't been able to use it yet. I emailed the company and they are sending the part I need, but now it is getting hot so I don't know if I'll get as much use out of it right away as I had hoped to.

And I have been training pretty faithfully for the Dirty 6 and I am getting really excited and a little nervous for it. I am looking forward to seeing exactly what the obstacles are and I hope I can handle them all without too much difficulty. I'll let you know how it goes!

Nests and Eggs

Are these not the cutest things ever?!?! I went onto my favorite website for recipes, RecipeZaar, looking for steak tacos and this was on their homepage. I thought they were just so adorable and simple that I had to make them. If you are someone that my mom or I visit teach then you are very lucky since you will be getting some of these little guys. If not, you will have to make your own. Here's the recipe. I have to confess that I haven't tasted them yet. This recommendation is based solely on appearance.
And here's a picture from Monday night's FHE dyeing Easter eggs. The kids had so much fun. I soon realized that a dozen hard boiled eggs was not nearly enough compared to how fast they worked and how many they wanted to dye. A couple of them broke during the process which is why there is an egg cut in half and salt and pepper on the table. Madeleine really likes the hard boiled eggs and the whole experience is even better since they are decorated.

Hope you are all getting ready for a fun Easter at your house!

Story Box

If your kids watch as much Noggin as mine, you know exactly what I am talking about. If not, you are missing out on Pinky Dinky Doo. A darling, pink-haired girl who is really good at making up stories in her story box, and every story ROCKS! All to teach kids vocabulary. And keep them entertained while their parents shower or clean or cook, etc.

Today our landlords replaced our dishwasher that was having some problems and it came in a wonderfully large box, perfect for transforming into our own Story Box. The kids haven't quite gotten that the point is to go inside and make up stories. So far they have used it to go into, get in each other's way, scream about who's stepping/sitting on who, or climb onto and jump off. I think they'll get the hang of it soon.