Saturday, July 14, 2012

Rugged Maniac

This was hands down, the toughest thing I have done to date! Give me a Half anytime! I was suppoed to go with my friend, but she wasn't feeling good, so off I went by myself. The check in was pretty easy, got my tee, my number and my shoe tag. Checked my bag, which took a little longer, and headed off to my heat. I didn't have to wait long, and made friends with a group of girls and their moms who were so nice! You couldn't see much of the course except the last obstacle and the *fire* WOOT!
We were off! We started off running on a race track, very slanty and uncomfortable! Then we moved on to a twisty turny hilly dirt track with sprinklers shooting at you and making it a little muddy. There was also a calf high mud pit to run through that made my feet very very heavy! Then we were in the forest, with some over/under logs across the path, and some short 4 foot-ish walls to get over, a couple A Frame walls to climb and a tire jungle. Tires on the ground and tires hanging all around.

I am not sure, looking back, about the exact order of all the obstacles, but this is an approximate idea, lol. These are official pics, not necessarily from our race. I will have pics in a week or two!
There was a muddy hill, and at the top we had to climb a wall, and then you slid down. It was crazy funny, I ended up hitting a guy, and one of my new friends then hit both of us. There was a lovely muddy puddle at the bottom!

The only obstacle I had crazy trouble with was the bounding one. There were six pillars, small medium tall medium small, and they were too far apart for my stubby legs. One of my new friends held my hand and talked me over them (she completely skipped it lol) but the last one I totally missed. Oh well!
There were two sets of mud pits with barbed wire over you. It was crazy muddy and unavoidable, sometimes watery mud and sometimes thick nasty mud. Followed by an over/under type water pit, water was waist high, with floating poles. I just slid over them two at a  time, the water felt great, but getting out was tough. Luckily, there were ropes!


There were also some crawling tunnels. You slid down one, maybe 8 feet long, into some lovely muddy water and then you had to climb up the next one, using rope. No footholds, water half filled the opening. YUM! Mud and barbed wire at the top. Hooray!
There was a group of 4 walls. The first wall was 8-10' high, and I needed a boost to get over. One of my new friends boosted me over (she was skipping it) and then it was a really high upright palette wall. Then another wall, where someone from one of my high school friend's group boosted me over. I had just met up with them at the barbed wire crawl. Then another palette wall. WOW! Was I ever tired now!
Next was another mud crawl, this time under cargo net. Some random dude behind me started telling me I could do it, no worries, just keep going. I apologized, thinking I was slowing him down, and he said no worries, he was just cheering me on. So sweet!!
We came upon a fence tunnel after that. No big deal, right? It was very low, and I ended up crawling at some point. It was very rough on the back! There was lots of tamped down high grass that ended up covering my legs when i got out.


After that we ran through some grass and track, and came to the tunnels. Sounds simple, right? Wrong. It was like crawling through a really long coffin. Lots of people were freaking out, but it wasn't too bad. It was very rocky, and very dark, and I got up halfway through and sort of stooped through it, lol. Sweet sunshine on the other end, and the finish line is in sight!
We ran on some more track, and  jumped over 2 rows of fire. It wasn't super high flame, but it was HOT and I could feel it both times. It made me feel like She-Ra!
Final obstacle: a palette wall, with a cargo net you had to half roll down, and half climb. Then you climb down a palette wall and you are done!
EXHAUSTING!


I bypassed the line for "showers" and used my 3 gallons of water to hose off in the parking lot. I ninja-dressed in my car, not easy to do, let me tell you. Gross where the mud ends up, let me tell you! An actual shower at home, a quickie because I was late for a Sweet 16 Party.  I am pretty sure there is still mud in my hair, lol.
Crazy good time, and i cannot wait til MudManX in 2 weeks, which I believe is 5 miles, not 5K. Actual pics to come, I hope. They had photographers there, but no guarantee how the pics will come out! Stay tuned...




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