Dirty Dash, Baby!

I promise, that really is me behind all that mud.  What a blast!  Another new race experience.  The Dirty Dash completely lived up to it's name.  Except that it's pretty tough to dash anywhere with your feet weighing in with an extra ten pounds of mud!

Team Piggytails went from a team of 5 down to a team of 3 at the last minute.  A couple of our girls had some things come up and were unable to join us for the fun.  So Lisa, Callie and I took in enough mud for 5!  I didn't get our team shirts done in time, which I was a little disappointed but the pigtails and straw hats made do.  And besides, most team costumes were unrecognizable by the end!  Someone asked the race organizers, 'How soon into the run would we hit mud?'  They answered, '10 feet'.

This was the first big climb, of many I might add, into the mud.  Straight up.  We got going on the trail at Soldier Hollow and soon realized there would be nothing easy about this race!  The course followed a trail that cross country skiers use during the winter months and I still can't figure out how they ski up some of those hills! 

About a half mile in we were met by a snow machine.  Yeah, a snow machine.  Ever had snow blown in your face, like riding on a snowmobile during a blowing wet snowstorm?  It's cold.  : )

The first real obstacle were haybales.  They were placed on a slight down hill section so you could hop over them with the running start....

for the most part...

Look at those cat-like skills...

Got over those feelin like a champ, most of the mud had dried from the first hill climb.  Next up, tunnels. No big whoop.

Then came the energy suckers...  The army walls.  I was able to manuever over the first one on my own.  But the next three the mud got deeper and deeper.  The mud was like suction cups to your feet.  There was no just hopping over!

Here's Lisa getting over like a pro!  Don't worry we had the muck to break our fall.

Come on Callie, keep running.  You gotta get over that wall somehow!

That wall was nothin'.  Well maybe a little somethin'.  I got over though and still posed for the picutre! : )

A stray shoe.  Someone went on to run the race with only one shoe.  I'm sure one of many casualties that day.  Crazy...

As we proceeded on the course, we really appreciated the beautiful day.  It was a perfect fall day, the temps were around 80 and fall colors all around.

This is looking down from the high point of the course, viewing the start & finish area.  There were a grip of people here today!  Perfect day for people watching.  Most of the teams were dressed to the nines.  So fun.  I think one of my favorites were the brides - all dressed in white wedding gowns.  Not so white at the finish line however.

On through the course, next obstacle was a section of tires, set up army style.  Made it through those and headed out to the dreaded swamp...

Runners are headed out to Deer Creek Reservoir.  I would have rather jumped in than run through the swamp...

I called this guy Mountain Man Joe.  He took it upon himself the head of making sure everyone got extremely muddy.  He's not offering a helping hand across the ditch - more like a roll in the creek.  Watch out for that guy!

There's Lisa making it across pretty easily.  Text book creek jumping.

I wish I would've got a close up picture of the bazillion little flies through the swamp.  This swamp was the foulest smelling place ever.  Dead fish guts and who knows what else.  We got through this section as fast as we could.  Speaking of fast, I failed to mention we got to the half-way point at about 60 minutes (remember this is a 10 K).  Don't be jealous of the speed people.  ; )

As we headed uphill once again it was off to the next obstacle to get a little freshened up...

Oh yeah, that's a giant inflatable slip n slide with a nice giant mud pit to land in.  And let me tell you even with a beautiful 80 degree day - that water was muy frio.

And to the final obstacle...the grand finale...the place to wallow like the pigs that we are...

The giant mud pit/bath/sinking quicksand/puddle of fun.  The requirement was to crawl under the rows of flags which were basically burried in the mud.  We did the best we could.

We were all laughing so hard that we couldn't have gotten up even if we wanted to.  People were belly flopping in here.  So great!

Definitely got my mud's worth today!  Can't even tell you how fun.  I believe our finish time was around 2 hours.  My first mud run PR!  Gonna have to give it a go again next year for sure - but I don't think I want to beat my time - it's way too fun to just race through!

Side note - to any of you attempting a mud run - remember to remove jewelry pre-race.  My wedding ring is in serious need of some deep cleaning.  Ooops.  At least it's not at the bottom of the mud pit!

Wallow on my muddy friends!