Going Hog Wild!

Welp! I did it! I ran in the Dirty Dash this year. 

I did the 5K last Saturday, and it was a blast!

 

Here we are before all white and pure. 

Nate told me that he was chalking up in this picture. I think it is an interesting picture though. The boys all have smiles on their faces and look at Sarah and I there in the middle. We don't look too excited. We totally were though!

 

Here is Nate right after his superman drive right at the beginning!

It started with some hay bails and some tubes to crawl through. The water that they sprayed at you was FREEZING!

 

When Sarah and I got to the walls the boys were way up ahead, and the wall was as tall as we were so we didn't get over all of them. I managed to get over one myself and I tried this one cause I was stepping on something kinda solid, but a little unsteady and couldn't get over. I did boost Sarah over this one so we both went over one. 

 

Here we stopped for a photo op, my Father was out at random points on the course taking pictures! That is how we got all these AWESOME ones!

At this point we went off into the wild blue yonder. It included a stretch of tires to run through,  and the bog. The bog was interesting.... and smelly, and had a huge (at least 12 lbs), dead fish laying there in the mud at the turning point! 

 

Sarah and I running.....alright I have to admit this is a sham....we saw the camera so we started running we stopped right after he took the picture. We did run at some points of the course though.

At this point we had met back up with the boys who waited for us. We found out that Nate had lost his shoe at the same wooden fence that I was standing on that hard, unstable, shoe size thing in the mud. He also lost a contact. So he ran most of the thing crooked, but he still manages to have a smile every picture!

 

Here is an example. Nate getting trampled, with a smile on his face, at the end of the slip-in-slide!

More slip-in-slide action. I think that Jordan looks buff and a little like a gladiator or something in this pic.

 

Ryan running down. I am on the slide behind the photographer on the ground. I had been running until Ryan body checked me and I summer-salted down a ways while he popped back into his lane like nothing happened. 

 

Ok I am back up.

 

LOVE Ryan's face in this one!!!!

Sarah and I prepping for the jump into the final mud pit.

I thought Sarah was going all in, but that little stinker kept her head above water....well the more appropriate term would be MUD. I however fully submerged into whatever it was.

 

Then I army crawled through the rest of the thing. Not so much cause I wanted as much mud as I could handle. Mostly cause my legs stopped working. Ryan and Sarah had to pull me out of that thing. A bunch of people at worked asked me what I was doing for the weekend, and I told them that I was going to die in a pit of mud. Turns out I almost did!

 

Now it is time for some showing off from the boys! They all did flips into the water.

 

Nate smiling again. He is like a little kid in a candy shop.

THE FINISH LINE!!!! You know I started running in Feb so I could do this race. They had done it last year and it looked like SO much fun, and I didn't want to miss it again. It seems like a crazy thing to start running for (I mean look at us) but I really needed a kick in the butt, and whatever gets you motivated...right? Anyway this walk over the finish line was pretty cool for me because my goal was accomplished!

 

Nate, Ryan, and Jordan all rolled over the finish line. Very cool! I wish I had gone behind them cause I would have joined in.

Kaylee and Brenna would not give any of us a hug. They hid behind Grandma's legs! That is as close as Kaylee would get. 

The AFTER picture. Nate looks like he has make-up on, Sarah looks like a slightly muddy princess with her bright shiny apple, Ryan looks like Ryan, I have a sweet 'soul patch', and Jordan has a smashing unibrow. 

After that we headed off to our well deserved, and worth every penny, $3 hot showers. BONUS! Then we took Jordan home and my Aunt Christy, the amazing person she is, had this AWESOME spread waiting for us. BONUS!

As for another, more different kind of BONUS! I said earlier, I started running so that I could run this race. Welp for a goal that started out as me not wanting to embarrass myself. So far not only have improved my health, and started better habits with all this running. I have lost, as of today, 23 lbs!!! Thanks to the motivation of the Dirty Dash (this includes my brothers, cause they made it look like so much fun), and more especially, Thanks to Sarah! Who is my own personal motivator. I couldn't have done it without her. 

Well there is about as much MUD as anyone can handle, so I won't show you anymore....until next year.