Archive for September, 2010

• Dashing on the Dirty…

  Date: 2010.09.27 | Category: races | Response: 2

  Saturday afternoon was spent running with four friends in what has to be one of the funnest races around, The Dirty Dash. Our team was “The Dirty Thugs”. Our attire – long baggy shorts, tank tops, bandannas and a couple of squirt guns finished it off quite nicely.

  

  2010 - Dirty Dash - The Dirty Thugs

  The first mile or more was uphill switch backs and started with an incline hill run in mud. Mass chaos ensued when the race started. Slipping, shoving, pushing, falling and throwing mud just to get to the top. I don’t think many participants made it to the top of the muddy slope without getting dirty.

  

  2010 - Dirty Dash - Start

  The herd of laughing, smiling people trotted along the dusty switch backs up to the top for a hairpin turn back down the trail with large hay bail obstacles. One by one we made our way down climbing, hopping, hurdling over each hay bail as they came along, giggling the whole way. There were long pipes to crawl through, others climbed over them. Still with giggles and smiles on our faces. We wound our way up and down the switch backs which led us to the hardest obstacles in the race, coined “the Pig Pen”. We had to climb over flat walls surrounded in mud, while family and friends threw water balloons at us. Let’s just say the walls would have been difficult enough without the mud. The mud just made it that much more fun. Hop, climb, slip, fall, repeat through several of these wall obstacles, until we reached the top of an open hill. At the bottom of the slippery muddy slope, one last wall obstacle remained. But why not add a little more fun to it? I did a belly slide from the top all the way down to the wall. Have I mentioned yet? So much fun? =)

  We finished out the remainder of the downhill and wrapped around Solider Hollow towards the swampy edge of Deer Creek Reservoir. Here we were faced with a long run through very thick, black stinky mud. It ended up being a lot of crawling and a big mud wrestling pit with not much running. Everyone that came out of there, that was not too prissy, (by the way it is called the Dirty Dash) was covered from head to toe.

  We were in the home stretch now, but we had two more obstacles to go. A hill run back up the hill we had just slid and ran down, only to be rewarded with a huge air-filled slide being soaked with fire hoses.

  

  2010 - Dirty Dash Slide

  We got advice from race volunteers for the best way to make it all the way down. The five us lined up and on the word, “go”, we all darted down toward the slide leaping together into the superman body slide all the way down and popping out into another hill of slippery mud. Laughter filled the air. We had a short jaunt down the hill to our final obstacle near the finish line. This was a 2-3 feet deep pool of muddy water. My approach? Belly-flop, of course.

  

  2010 - Dirty Dash - Belly Flop

  

  2010 - Dirty Dash - Belly Flop Aftermath

  

  2010 - Dirty Dash - Belly Flop Aftermath too

  I don’t think I have participated in a race where so many of the participants had a smile on their faces and were laughing and joking the entire way. Lets not forget that this was a 10k race, which equals 6.2 miles. 6.2 miles full of mud, dirt, obstacles, laughter and fun. Definitely a race to be repeated again. Just be prepared for the very cold, hog wash showers afterward for a quick clean up.

  

  2010 - Dirty Dash - Finish

  

  2010 - Dirty Dash - Finish - The Dirty Thugs

  

  2010 - Dirty Dash - Wanna hug?

  

  2010 - Dirty Dash - Finish Say Cheese

  

  2010 - Dirty Dash - Finish I'm Dirty

  

  2010 - Dirty Dash - Finish I'm Dirty and Smiling

• On hiatus…

  Date: 2010.09.13 | Category: training | Response: 2

  Many people have asked how the marathon went. My reply: “It was a very interesting day. Good, but interesting and you can read all about it on my site.” Sort of a shameless plug to drive people and traffic to my site, to learn what it is all about. Usually their next question is, “Have you ran since or are you going to do it again?” Well, those that follow me know, the running has been non-existent since the marathon. And do it again, well, perhaps. Is this the marathon bug that everyone talks about that has done a marathon before?

  That is right, I have been on a running hiatus since the marathon. Mostly because I wanted to let my knee recuperate a bit and let the blisters heal, so no running for me. No running until today, that is. I put the running shoes back on the other day for a walk around the neighborhood and realized it had been a while. Something must have triggered when I laced up the shoes, because guess who woke up early this morning to get in a run. 1 mile on the treadmill, run and done, it felt great. The sweat and breathing was a little heavier, but I am trying to not push it too hard. I am going to do 1 mile at a time, to keep the training/running going. Here’s to the next mile and preparation for my next 10k – The Dirty Dash with obstacles and mud – should be a lot of fun.