Down 'n' Dirty

Imagine this: you're covered in mud and you get to slide down a 150-foot slip 'n' slide (longest in the world, if you're wondering), then you get to crawl through a mud pit--not caring if you're dirty. Sounds like fun, right? Sounds like your fondest childhood dream, right? Yeah, I thought so, too. Except then you had to run 10k in between those things. Throw in some wood walls and a swamp of atrociously smelly mud and you've got the Dirty Dash. Oh, and it's about 50 degrees. Sounding fun yet?

It actually was pretty fun. Except for the cold part and the running part. One thing is for sure: even though I was the slowest one and they probably wished they could've left me behind, my friends are what made this race fun! I already posted about this, but here's a refresher of what the course looked like, in case you don't go back and re-read my blog every day:

Translation: Big Pig Climb= giant hill covered in mud. Steep hill. Yikes. And that secret obstacle? Yeah, that was a swamp. Of black mud. It looked like really wet soil, and it was so deep that while running through it I actually sunk down to my knee once. Goo.

Here are Aubrey and Cary stretching out before the big race. It was really cold that morning before the sun had the chance to come out and warm things up. We didn't want our muscles to be cold, too. They're pretty intense. I'm pretty sure Carla's back there deciding whether or not she should take her layers off yet. She decided to wait.

DeeAura, Angela, and Aubrey wore their race shirts to the race. Umm....what dorks. Just kidding. But they were pretty proud of it.

This is them again. But let me tell you why Angela is my hero: In an effort to make people carpool, Soldier Hollow (where the race was held) gave out 5 free ski passes to all cars that had at least 5 people in them. Ours had 6. So that means one person would have to go without. When we were pulling up, however, we noticed that a car ahead of us only had 4 passes. =No passes. So we dared Angela to run up to the car and get in with them. It was a joke. Then she actually did it. She got out and jogged up to their car like she was just out warming up before the race. Then she knocked on their window, volunteered to ride with them so they'd get ski passes, and they let her in! So everyone got a free ski pass. Easily the coolest part of the day. Angela, you rock.

Here we are before, nice and clean.

Here we are after: nice and dirty.

It got warmer but it still was pretty cold. And the slip 'n' slide and mud pit at the end were filled with VERY cold water. So we were freezing. Big time. And then they had showers rigged up to clean up in. That's right--also cold water. I was cold for the next hour and a half. And I was tired for the rest of the day. But I made it!