Sound Bites & Snap Shots

The Dirty Girl Mud Run was the impetus for my trip to Phoenix.  I have run for distance, I have run in the rain and I have run through color but I have never run through mud.  Until today.

The sun was out but it was not warm.  Chrissy’s sister, Jen, did an amazing job keeping up with us as our photographer.  See how clean we are? 

Our heat started at 9 am.  We eagerly waited in the corral to be set free.

Finally, we got the go ahead.  The first thing we had to do was run through a pit of water about shin deep just to get our feet wet.

The race included twelve obstacles over the 5K distance.  The first was the Barn Burner.  Picture climbing up a giant inflatable ramp and then bouncing your way down.  Chrissy warned me that the best plan of attack was to gun it and she was right.  We let a few groups go and then ran full speed ahead.  My favorite part was bouncing on my bottom until I reached the ground. 

The next obstacle was called You Go Girl. It was just what I expected out of a challenge course where the goal is to run through a pattern of tires.  These were pink and inflatable.

I was excited to Get a Grip.  I climbed up a rope wall and sounded the bell several times before reversing directions back to the ground. 

After a short jog, we reached the bungee maze called Amaze Yourself.  It didn’t seem too hard at first although I discovered that navigating through a life-size version of cat’s cradle while trying to tell a story can result in an epic wedgie.

In Get Over Yourself, we climbed an 8 foot wall to go up and over. 

The obstacles were separated by short distances.  See Chrissy’s hair bouncing?

By this point, I was wondering if we were ever going to get dirty.  I paid for mud! I got mud when we hit Down & Dirty.  On our bellies, we crawled across a 40 foot pit with a net over our backs.  My goal was to keep my mouth closed so I didn’t swallow anything and move quickly.  That water was cold!

Finally, I was dirty!

There was more where that came from when we hit PMS (Pretty Muddy Stuff).  This was a dumpster with muddy water waist high that we had to wade through.

Chrissy danced her way across and I did the freestyle stroke.

My most favorite obstacle was Dirty Dancing. 

I can’t believe I enjoyed it so much! I felt like a kid, full of unadulterated joy.

Before we were done, we had to conquer the Utopian Tubes.  Unlike an earlier wet obstacle, this was a pit with a tarp over the top.  This was the most difficult challenge for me because I don’t like tight spaces.  I did a fast army crawl from start to finish.

Our last hurrah was sprinting through the H2MOG.

I got more than my money’s worth out of this experience and this comes from a girl who does not like to get dirty. 

We took our dirty selves back to the car to clean up before lunch with Tallie, Lily, and Chrissy and Jen’s mom, Karen.

Here is our photographer extraordinaire, Jen. 

After lunch, we went to a yarn store.  Imagine that!

A few skeins fell into my bag and Chrissy bought supplies for knitting for herself and Tallie. 

We headed home for real showers, dropped Tallie off at her first ever sleepover and had a quiet dinner with Lily.  It couldn’t have been a better race day.