2012 Recap

Running-wise, 2012 wasn't exactly the year I'd hoped for.  I spent quite a bit of time in physical therapy and various doctor's offices, ran a couple of really bad races, and got my first (and second) DNS.  But I accomplished a few things, too.  I finished fourteen races: four 5Ks, one 5 miler, two 10Ks, three half marathons, one full marathon, two 200 mile team relays, one obstacle course mud run.  I ran 882 miles, cycled 154 miles, and swam 6 miles (at least according to daily mile).  I bought a bike, signed up for a swim class, and met a bunch of amazing runners.

Just for fun, let's see how I did against a few of my 2012 goals:

Run a sub-4:45 marathon: Not quite.  But I did run one more and set a new PR by over 17 minutes.  This one is staying on the list.

Run a sub-2:00 half marathon: Epic fail.  The half was not my race this year.  Ran a solid race at Disney in February, finishing in 2:11:04 during the hardest stretch of marathon training, but had two miserable 2:30+ finishes over the summer in some very hot conditions.  Two hours may have been a bit ambitious, but I'll keep working on it.

Compete in a long-distance relay: WIN!  I actually did two of these: Reach the Beach MA in May and Reach the Beach NH in September, and both were amazing experiences.  So proud of my Pretty (Speedy) in Pink girls for our second place finish in our rookie year!

Compete in a sprint triathlon: Nope.  But I did buy a road bike and take a triathlon swim class, so I'm working on it.

Strength train at least two times a week: Nope.  But I did go to a bunch of physical therapy strength sessions!

Cardio cross train at least once a week: Once a week, no.  But I did mix things up a bit with some real cycling and swimming workouts.

Listen to my body: Getting there.  I still did too much injured running, but I also made the extremely difficult decision to sit out this year's Chicago Marathon.

Maintain a social life: WIN!  I won't elaborate on this one :)

Get my masters degree: FAIL.  Still have those incomplete papers to write ...

Make consistent progress on my dissertation: I don't know about consistent, but I did finally defend a prospectus, so we'll count it.

Back tomorrow with my goals for 2013!

Holiday 5K Recaps

Finished off the year with three holiday 5Ks -- the North Shore Turkey Trot on Nov 22, the Cambridge Winter Classic on Dec 9. and the Somerville Jingle Bell Run on Dec 16.  Given my lack of running this fall, all three went much better than expected.

             Turkey Trot     Winter Classic     Jingle Bell
Mile 1:              8:36                    8:53              9:05
Mile 2:              9:26                    9:11              9:18
Mile 3:              9:51                    9:09              9:14
Total:              29:15                  28:32            28:55

Note: splits from my GPS watch, total times are official

North Shore Turkey Trot:
Given my lack of training this fall, my only goal for this one was to run a sub-30 and not make myself feel awful for the rest of Thanksgiving.  Katie was trying to beat her 28:27 PR from the Pumpkins in the Park 5K a few weeks earlier, but said she was going to start off a little slower and pick up the pace, so I decided to start with her and hang on as long as I could.  Apparently we have different ideas of "a little slower than 9:10 pace" because we started out running somewhere in the 8:00-8:15 range and I let her drop me around the 1 mile mark, which I reached in well under 9 minutes.  Things fell apart from there (with some help from a not-exactly-flat course), but I still finished in a pretty reasonable 29:15.

SWAG

Ready to rock and roll

Killer B's back in action

Post-race goodie bag

Mini apple pie = best Thanksgiving breakfast ever

Cambridge Winter Classic:
No photos from this one.  Oops. Still a fun morning and one of my better race performances of the year.  I woke up to a headache, off stomach, and dead legs (from Saturday's tough swim workout), but I stuck with it for an almost evenly paced race, which was also my fastest 5K since September of last year.  And followed it up with an awesome brunch at Tavern in Central Square.

Somerville Jingle Bell Run:
Despite spending most of the previous night's dinner party blaming the hosts what I was sure would be my slowest 5K ever thanks to their massive quantities of delicious food and beverages, this run was surprisingly pleasant.  Jogged a two mile warmup from the Kennedy School (where I had to drop off graded final exams, of course) to Davis Square, ran a pretty even, not too slow 5K, and then jogged a mile back to Porter Square where I warmed up with some Starbucks caramel apple cider and did a little Christmas shopping at Marathon Spots in Porter Square (including a new running vest for myself, which came in handy for the rest of the walk home).  All-in-all not a bad Sunday morning!

My green shirt was totally lame compared to the festive costumes people came up with

A Setback

I've been putting off writing this for a long, long time, but I've finally come to terms with some bad news -- I'm injured, AGAIN, and I'm not running the Chicago Marathon this year.

Back at the end of August, after my awesome 18 mile training run, I developed a sharp, pinching pain in my right hip when I ran.  But of course being me, I tried to push through it.  I kept running until my stride was so screwed up that an easy five miler had my right hamstring and calf complaining pretty loudly.  By that point I was limping just trying to walk around, and after a pitiful attempt at Yasso 800s the next day I was finally ready to admit I was injured.  So I took a full week off, which meant sitting out my first planned 20 miler.  It was a tough call, but I was optimistic that a week of rest would do the trick and that I could still get in a 20 miler before Chicago (I originally had two in the schedule).

After a week off, I was walking much, much better.  But as soon as I tested things out with an easy three miler, the pain was back.  I still tried a semi-long run, which went ok, but a month out from a big marathon being able to complete 12 miles with only moderate pain isn't exactly reason to celebrate.  I decided to do what I could to get through the NH Reach the Beach Relay and then make the call on Chicago after that.

The Reach the Beach Relay was a blast, as always, but the running part wasn't really working for me.  My legs were just under 4, 7, and 4 miles, and each one was a struggle.  My hip (and now IT band) was only moderately painful (until I had to run a quarter mile to the finish on sand ... ) but my legs felt weak and after so much time off I just wasn't on my game.  And I could tell that even without too much pain, my gait was still way off.

Photo by one of my amazing teammates, Hannah

Which brings us to last week.  I finally made an appointment to see the doctor and asked a friend to watch me try to run on a treadmill.  The conversation in the gym went something like this:

Me: Will you watch me run?  Am I favoring one leg?
Him:  Ummm, yes
Me:  Are you sure?
Him: Yes.  You are.  You're not bending your right leg enough
[I make a concerted effort to bend my right leg]
Him: That's a little better ...
Me: !@#$

The trip to the doctor was even worse.  I explained what hurt and that ibuprofen helped, they poked around a little to rule out major tears and fractures and such, and then told me that I was not going to be running a marathon in two weeks.  And that I need to go to physical therapy and not do anything fun like run or go for a long bike ride.  When I pressed for an actual diagnosis, the doc told me there's a lot of inflammation in my hip, and possibly some bursitis, which is making things rub together that shouldn't rub together.  Which is causing pain and screwing up my gait.  Which after 26 miles will probably result in some damage to the parts of my legs that currently work ok.  I'd kind of figured most of that out on my own, but sometimes it helps to hear someone with a medical degree state the obvious.

So.  No Chicago Marathon for me this fall.  I'm really bummed, but I'm trying to think about the big picture look at it as a minor setback.  There will be other races, even other marathons, and they will go much better if I give my body a break instead of pushing through this marathon on an injury like I did with the last two.

But I do have a plan (which is good, because otherwise I would probably be face down in a melty pint of Ben and Jerry's right now).

Part 1 of the plan is to take a week or two to rest, focus on getting the rest of my life back on track after so much time training and agonizing over the marathon decision (I'm looking at you, dissertation), and hang out with this adorable little guy:

I'm sorry, human, did you want to sleep here?

Part 2 of the plan is to get my butt in gear again and prove to myself that I can still be an endurance athlete even if I take this fall and next spring off from marathoning.  The doctor said that swimming should be ok, and that I can start cycling when that doesn't cause discomfort in my hip.  So I signed up for my first adult swim class!  It's geared toward people thinking about their first triathlon, so you can probably guess where this is all going :)  I'm also going to really commit to physical therapy this time instead of just using it as a temporary patch to get through my next race.  And if all goes well this fall/winter, next spring/summer will be the time when I focus on getting faster in the half marathon, complete my first half Ironman, and start training for next year's Chicago Marathon.

Thanks so much for all of your support during training, and to everyone who donated to my Race to Stop MS campaign.  Chicago Marathon, I'll see you in 2013.

Monday Mileage Report

My first 40+ mile week of the training cycle and I lived to tell the tale (despite taking a tennis ball to the face on Sunday's long run).  Other than my near death experience, Sunday's long run was actually really encouraging -- it wasn't easy, but it didn't feel impossible, either.  Maybe this marathon thing is going to work out after all ...

Mon - Cross Rest
Tue - 5.07 mi @ 10:10 pace (GA)
Wed - 8 6.77 mi @ 10:53 pace incl. 8 x 800m (Yasso 800s)
Thu - 5.28 mi @ 11:46 pace (EZ)
Fri - Rest
Sat - 8.01 mi @ 11:16 pace (GA)
Sun - 18.01 mi @ 11:53 pace (LSD)

Post-run happiness: buffalo chicken strips, fries, and beer

The mileage is definitely catching up with me (I'm looking at you, pinchy feeling in my hip!), so I'm looking forward to a step back week.  I'm also going drop the intervals this week to really give my body a chance to recover before I plunge back in with another 40+ mile week, including the dreaded 20 miler, the following week.

Mon - Cross Rest
Tue - 5 mi GA
Wed - 5 mi GA
Thu - 5 mi EZ
Fri - Rest
Sat - 8 mi MP
Sun - 13 mi LSD

Out of Peanut Butter (A Photo Essay)

Me: No more peanut butter!  Disaster!

Klaus: What are you talking about, human?  There's still peanut butter in here.

Klaus: Ok, human.  NOW we're out of peanut butter.

Me: Ooh, Nutella!

(Several Weeks Worth Of) Monday Mileage Report

It's been a crazy few weeks!  As a result, my training has been kind of all over the place -- shifting workouts around and skipping them entirely -- which I hate.  Here's a quick recap of the past few weeks:

July 23 - 29:  I knew things were going to be crazy once I left for San Francisco, so I crammed in as much running as a I could before I left, including that weekend's long run.  It wasn't pleasant, and I was pretty sore on Saturday, but I got the miles done!  And it was great to be able to relax once I got to SF, just needing to get in a few easy miles that happened to coincide perfectly with running between points on the marathon course.
Mon - Cross Rest
Tue - 4.11 mi @ 10:26 pace (GA) 
Wed - 7.02 mi @ 12:00 pace (Yasso crazy hot 800s)
Thu - 4.12 mi @ 11:27 pace (EZ)
Fri - 15.00 mi @ 12:49 pace (3/1 LSD)
Sat - Rest (fly to SF)
Sun - 4.04 mi @ 12:08 pace (SF Spectating Part 1) and 2.52 mi @12:40 pace (SF Spectating Part 2)

July 30 - August 5:  Started the week still in SF and decided not to worry about training for a few days.  I knew I would get plenty of exercise in walking, hiking, swimming, etc., and I did!  Of course, I was a little stressed when I got back to Wilmette, but I resisted the temptation to go crazy trying to make up miles (although I did run four days in a row, again).
Mon - Cross (walking tour of SF)
Tue - 4 mi GA Cross (hiking/beach walking/swimming at Point Reyes)
Wed - 5 mi Yasso 800s Rest (fly back to Chicago)
Thu - 4 mi EZ 5.06 mi @ 10:11 pace including 6 x 800m intervals (Yasso 800s)
Fri - Rest 4.04 mi @ 11:20 pace (EZ)
Sat - 7 mi 5.41 mi @ 11:04 pace (MP discontinued due to thunderstorm)
Sun - 12.00 mi @ 11:41 pace (LSD)

My favorite things to see after a long run

August 6 - 12:  I planned my drive back from Chicago to Boston for Monday mostly so that I wouldn't miss another day of training.  But then on Monday morning I got about an hour into the drive before I had to turn around because the steering wheel kept having shaking fits.  FAIL.  I knew running five days in a row would be tempting fate (plus I was exhausted from waking up early after a stressed out night of not very much sleep) so I decided to just take a nap on the couch and take Klaus for an extra walk.  Then on Tuesday I was up early again (with a fixed car -- thanks, Dad!) and off to Boston.  We made the drive in 16.5 hours, getting back to my apartment around midnight.  Which mean that I once again found myself one run behind and totally exhausted.  Early in the week I didn't quite get in the quality workouts I wanted, but I did end up coming in only 3 miles short of the planned total.
Mon - Cross Rest (Failed attempt to drive from Chicago to Boston)
Tue - 4 mi GA Rest (Actual drive from Chicago to Boston) 
Wed - 8.04 mi @ 11:17 pace (Yasso 800s Zombie Run)
Thu - 4 mi 5.06 mi @ 11:46 pace (EZ)
Fri - Rest
Sat - 8.01 mi @ 10:42 pace (MP)
Sun - 17.01 mi @ 12:36 pace (LSD)

Look, Mom!  I eat healthy sometimes!

This Week: I am definitely feeling the miles at this point.  I woke up this morning feeling like I'd been hit by a truck, and couldn't make it through the afternoon without an hour long nap (and even after that I was still tired!)  I registered for the Rock 'n' Roll Providence half marathon this coming Sunday, but I've decided to skip it.  I'm not feeling great about my first ever DNS, but it seems like the right thing to do.  I only signed up for this race to give myself a chance to go for a PR, but I am definitely not in half marathon PR shape at the moment.  And I'm not sure I can take another disappointing half marathon.  I also don't feel like traveling to Providence alone or leaving Klaus for another weekend.  So I'm going to remember the big picture and focus on marathon training.  Here's the plan for this week:
Mon - Cross Rest
Tue - 5 mi GA
Wed - 8 mi Yasso 800s
Thu - 5 mi EZ
Fri - Rest
Sat - 8 mi GA
Sun - 18 mi LSD

How can I leave that face?  Even if he is gnawing on a cow femur ...

Have you ever skipped a race you registered for?  How do you get your rhythm back after a few off weeks?

San Francisco Weekend in Food Photos

The other weekend I went to San Francisco to watch S run his first marathon ever (spoiler alert: he kicked ass) and to visit one of my best friends from school who's spending his summer at Berkeley doing research.

Coming down the hill before mile 20.  I think S is in there somewhere ...

I was super nervous about trying to solo-spectate in a city I didn't know (especially after my Boston spectating fail), so instead of risking a confusing public transit system I laced up my Adrenalines and used the course map and my phone to plot out a route that would take my from my hotel to to the point where the course turned into Golden Gate park (right before the half) to mile 20 in a short enough time that I could comfortably catch S at both points.  Long story short, the route worked perfectly and there weren't many spectators out, so we had no trouble spotting each other both times.  S had a great race, finishing his first 26.2 in 3:36 on a not-exactly-flat course.  He didn't even make me carry him after the race and only yelled at me a few times when I made him take an ice bath.

S had to head to the airport a few hours after the race, so I headed to the Marina to catch up with my old roommate, her husband, and their adorable English bulldog.  Then I met up with my Harvard buddy and spent a few days drinking beer exploring Berkeley, San Francisco, and Point Reyes.

But now, the part you've all been waiting for.  My weekend in food photos!

Super Mario sandwich from Ike's Place -- meatballs, marinara and mozzarella sticks!

The Mousetrap grilled cheese sandwich from The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen

AMAZING carnitas nachos from a random roadside convenience store/deli/taco stand in Point Reyes

And last but certainly not lease, YOGURTLAND.  I can't even explain how excited I was when I saw a Yogurtland.  The Cali running bloggers I follow talk about it all the time (I'd even heard about the Hello Kitty spoons and cups) and I pretty much freaked out when I walked inside.  It was like I'd died and gone to fro yo heaven.

Red velvet cupcake batter, double cookies and cream, and some kind of chocolate with  Kit Kats, cookie dough, and Butterfingers.  And a penguin spoon.

And one non-food photo.  Gotta love that fog!

Rock 'n' Mud Recap Part 2: Rock 'n' Roll Chicago Half Marathon

Ok, this is way overdue, the race was one of my worst ever, and I don't have many photos, so I'll try to make this quick.

The race start was early (6:30 am) so I set my alarm for 4:45 am.  I made it to bed pretty early on Saturday night, but I was still super grumpy about having to wake up in the dark.  I got up, got dressed, choked down a granola bar (we were out of pop tarts) and hopped into the car with a mug of tea.  I'd never driven to a race start alone before and I was a very nervous about getting stuck in traffic or not finding a place to park in downtown Chicago.  Everything went smoothly, but I picked a very popular parking garage and only made it to bag check with less than 15 min left to the start, which meant no time for the ridiculous port-a-potty lines.    I hadn't been chugging water that morning, so I crossed my fingers and found my corral.

I (very stupidly) decided to go out at sub-10 pace even though I knew it was going to be a hot day (one of the big bank clocks said 83 degrees two or three miles into the race) and that the Muddy Buddy the day before had pretty much wiped me out.  I was feeling fine but not fantastic through about mile 4, but after that things got rough pretty fast.  I could tell that my legs were very much not fresh, and it felt like there was a rather pointy brick sitting in my stomach.

Remember this?

I tried to ignore the GI trouble, but it hurt too much and I kept having to slow to a walk, so I finally decided to stop at one of the on-course port-a-potties somewhere in mile five or six (and I decided I would be perfectly happy with a sub-11 pace).  Unfortunately, the pit stop didn't help (sorry if all this port-a-potty talk is TMI, but you are reading a running blog ...)  I was so frustrated with my pace and how much I was walking that I was almost crying by the time we turned on Michigan Ave around mile 7.  I couldn't imagine walking through another 6+ miles, so I briefly thought about dropping out but decided to wait it out a little longer.  I made another port-a-potty stop in mile 8 (I think?) and that seemed to do the trick.   Suddenly, I could run again!  I wasn't feeling fantastic, but I definitely felt like I could finish the last few miles at a reasonable pace.  I cruised for about two miles, and then things took a turn for the (much) worse again.

By the 9 mile mark, my goal was to keep the run under 2:30, which basically required staying around 11:30 pace for the last four miles.  I was feeling pretty good about that until just past the 10 mile mark, when we started stopped heading south and turned toward the lake before turning back north to Grant Park.  It was hot, my legs were done, and my stomach was unhappy.  Again.  I probably walked for at least half of the last 5K, and even then I felt like there was a good chance I would vomit on the course.  I made one more port-a-potty stop, and tried to ignore the guy who was sitting in the grass resting, which seemed like a pretty good idea.  By this point I knew that even my last-ditch 2:30 goal wasn't going to happen, so I revised again -- keep the average pace under 12 min miles.  I picked it up to a jog for a good part of the final mile, and apparently even looked halfway decent in the finisher chute (according to a friend who also struggled with the heat but still managed to finish his first half in 1:45!).  I finished in 2:36:10 for an 11:55 average pace.

They were passing out mini-Jamba Juice smoothies right after the finish line, which looked awesome but turned to to be another HUGE mistake.  I rushed to grab my gear-check bag and bolted for the finish area port-a-potties, where I hung out for a miserably long time until I felt like I could meet my friend to walk across the field to pick up my Rock 'n' Mud medal.

After a few more minutes chilling in the park, we headed a few blocks over to a new brunch place near my friend's office.  A whole bunch of other runners had the same idea, but I have never been so grateful for a long wait for a table!  By the time we were finally seated, my stomach had calmed down enough to enjoy an awesome post-race egg, potato, veggie, and cheese skillet.

When I got home a few hours later, I couldn't really talk about the race without crying.  So I wrote this blog post, took a shower and a nap, drank a lot of Gatorade, and decided to move on.  What can we learn from this disasterpiece of a race?

1) Eating at Five Guys <15 hours before a race is not a great idea

2) Maybe my body has trouble processing shotbloks when it's hot?  I don't think the timing of the stomach freakouts was a total coincidence

3) When I go out too fast (i.e., try to PR regardless of weather, training, or current fatigue level), I blow up hard.  Same thing happened back in June.

Rock 'n' Mud Recap Part 1: Columbia Muddy Buddy Chicago

I just got an email from the good folks at Columbia Muddy Buddy that informed me of the following:

There are only 384 people in the Chicago area who are as crazy stupid as I am?!  I'm shocked.  Anyway, on to the silly mud photos race recaps you've all been waiting for.

On Friday, I headed down to McCormick Place (so inconvenient!) for the Rock 'n' Roll half expo.  I knew Katie was waiting for me back on Michigan Ave, so I picked up my number, shirt, and swag bag and then hurried through the merchandise area.  Escaping an expo only $20 poorer (they had pink grapefruit Gu electrolyte tabs!) is actually quite the accomplishment for me.  Then I met up with Katie, grabbed some delicious Wao Bao for lunch, and we headed over to the Columbia store to pick up our Muddy Buddy packet.  We were a little early, so we ducked into H&M to try to find some costumes (get it? our last name starts with B.  we're so clever).  We totally scored at H&M AND then when we got back to packet pickup some nice guy from Muddy Buddy HQ handed us free black omnicool baseball caps that just happened to match our new costumes perfectly.

Free stuff!

After that all we needed was a quick stop at Walgreens for some electrical tape and the Killer Bs were ready to get muddy (get it?  our last name starts with B.  we're so clever).

Our start wasn't until 10:30am, so we got to sleep until a reasonable hour and planned to leave around 8:30am for our hour-long journey west to Indian Hills Farm.  Of course, we made Mom and Dad do a fun photo session in the front yard first. 

Katie has a better game face than I do

We got to the start around 10am and got an awesome parking spot thanks to my super cool Rock 'n' Mud VIP parking pass.  The walk from the car to the start also gave us a sneak peak of a few sets of buddies coming into the final section of the course with it's last two obstacles before the mud pit.  We also checked out the mud pit, just to see what exactly we were getting ourselves into.

Source

We lined up with all the other runners in our wave around 10:15, and then stood around for 15 minutes doing the wave and generally getting very antsy to get out on the course.  And then, we were off!  Clearly the obstacles were the highlight of this race, so I'll go through them all in detail in a minute, but there was also quite a bit of ground to cover!  And it was not ground I'm used to running on -- lots of grass and bumps and other things to twist an ankle on.  We started off going up a ramp into a hay loft, which the announcer told us was not an obstacle, but a handy "feature" of the course.  There were also a few "features" toward the mid-point in the form of two nasty hills that were difficult to even walk up and down.  But Katie and I weren't going for any awards (especially after we saw the lines forming before many of the early obstacles) so we kept our pace easy and walked when it got too steep or the sun got too brutal.

Go Katie!  Not sure what happened to me in this shot since we were next to each other the whole time!

Over Under Over: We had to climb over a short wall (came up to about the bottom of my ribs), then under a bunch of netting, then over another short wall.  The over was much better than the under!  The netting kept trying to take my hat off, and I'm pretty sure this is where all the little red spots on my knees came from.

Cargo Climb:  This was one of my favorite obstacles, and also the first one where we encountered a line.  The volunteer told us we were allowed to go around if we wanted to, but we weren't in any hurry -- I wanted to climb on things!  For this we went up a slightly angled cargo net, over the top, and down another slightly angled cargo net, then did the whole deal one more time  Getting up and down the cargo nets was easy, but navigating the transition at the top was a little tricky.  I could never seem to get myself in a good position to start climbing down!

Diamond Balance Beams: I was worried about this one, but it wasn't too bad.  Two parallel "balance beams" (much narrower than an actual balance beam!) started off next to each other, then split apart and came back together.  You grabbed your partners hand and walked across.  Lucky for my, my buddy is a former gymnast so she managed to keep both of us up pretty easily.  I took one bad step down onto the wooden support, but that was our only slip up.

Spider Web: Coming up to the Spider Web it looked like another cargo net, but then we realized that it was made of elastic cords that were criss-crossed all across the frame.  You had to find a gap and work your way through two webs, which wasn't too bad except when we each let go of the elastic with a foot still inside!

Not-So Low Walls:  This obstacle featured two walls that we needed to get up and over, each one just a little higher than I could reach my arms over my head.  The walls had those nubby holds you see on indoor climbing walls, and by stepping on one of the lower holds I could get my fingers over the top, which made the climb much easier!  The backside of the wall was another cargo net, which we were pros at by this point.

Team Traverse Wall:  Surprisingly, the Team Traverse Wall gave us more trouble than any other obstacle.  It was a long wooden wall with a small ledge built into the bottom.  Each partner took a side, and you stood facing each other and "hugged it out" (holding the top of the wall was discouraged) to keep yourselves up.  Shuffling along the ledge wasn't too hard, but then the ledge turned into steps of varying heights, and then the steps got narrower!  We were surprised when one of the girls in front of us fell off the wall, and then Katie fell in the exact same spot!  Apparently that step was a little more worn than the rest.  But she got back up, we finished the last steps, rang the bells at the end of the wall, and headed up the two steep hills.

(Mini) Mud Pit:  Katie was really concerned about the mud pit in the middle of the course.  She did not want to be running another two miles in the hot sun covered in sticky mud, and I don't blame her!  But this mud pit was much tamer than the one at the end of the course, and by the time we got there the sun had mostly dried it out.  We came out with shoes covered in mud, but otherwise still pretty clean.

Slide For Your Life:  Another long line, but so much fun!  We climbed straight up yet another (much taller and more vertical) cargo net, which was a little tricky since it was on top of the inflated plastic slide which made it tough to get more than a toe into the net.  And we were dealing with a constant rain of mud from the shoes above you.  Then at the top you sat down and slid down a very steep inflatable slide that a volunteer was spraying water on.  And then we got to do it again!  Some people went around the first slide to avoid the line, but getting to slide twice was totally worth it.  After the slide we ran back across the highway to the start area, where three more tough looking obstacles stood between us and the mud pit. 

Rope Climb:  The rope climb has never been my friend.  I could never do it in gym class and it turns out I haven't improved much.

Not my best camera work, but those are the ropes we had to climb

Katie jumped on the rope, climbed up a knot or two, rang the bell, and jumped down.  Meanwhile, I clung to the rope next to her, totally unable to climb.  Katie tried holding the rope for me so it wouldn't swing, but that didn't make much of a difference.  Finally the volunteer (who had clearly had to help dozens of no-upper-body-strength ladies like myself up the rope) came over to coach me up.  He told me to reach up for the highest knot I could get, and then hold on and bring my knees all the way to my chest to get my feet up to the next knot.  Then all I had to do was stand up and ring the bell, which I only managed to do because the friendly volunteer guy had apparently put his hand over the knot to make it bigger.

Me (to the volunteer): Thanks!

Volunteer: No problem.  But I'd like my thumb back now.

Me: Oops, sorry!

Me (to Katie and anyone else who was listening): I CLIMBED A ROPE!!!!

Katie (happy she doesn't have to disown me): I was not leaving until you got up there.  We are not quitting now!

Rope Wall:  Not going to lie, I was not happy when I saw more ropes.  And these ones were much taller, too!  We had to climb the ropes up what was probably a 12 foot metal wall.  The photos I'd seen before the race made it look like the wall had crossbeams built in as steps, but in reality they only stuck out from the wall a tiny bit, barely enough to get a toe on.

View of the rope wall from the beer tent

Standing at the bottom, I did not think this was happening.  But somehow, I made it to the top not too far behind Katie.  Then we both looked at each other like "umm, how do we get down?!"  We were expecting a cargo net, but it was just a straight drop down the other side!  Fortunately we quickly realized that there were metal bars every few feet that we could climb down like a latter.  Then it was just a few yards until the final climb!

Slippery Mountain:  This one was tougher than it looked.

Slippery mountain, again from the beer tent

Climbing up wasn't too bad, but at the top you had to shift your body weight from laying back, keeping the rope taut, to leaning forward with your hand over the top of the wall.  Katie made it no problem, but I chickened out and grabbed the volunteer's hand to keep from face planting into the wall.  We climbed down the wooden ladder on the back and ran for the mud pit!

To the mud pit!

Mud Pit:  The mud pit was awesome.  And a lot longer than it looked from the sidelines!  There were flags stretched over the top so you had to crawl through, and a guy with a microphone yelling at everyone to "Get on your stomach!" and "Do the backstroke!"

I love me some mud

Katie's not so sure ...

Can you tell which one of us this is?  It took me a minute ...

When we got out of the pit, I wanted to run for the finish, but quickly realized that was going to be slightly difficult with shoes that felt like mud bricks!

It's difficult to find your finish line photos when your bib is covered in mud

After we crossed the finish line, we picked up cold bottles of water, which turned muddy pretty quickly.  Fun fact: mud does not taste good.  Then we went to the hoses to clean our hands before we went to baggage claim so I could get my phone and get more muddy photos (Katie tried to get a little too clean before I got a picture, but I put a stop to that).

After our little photo session, we decided to get cleaned up.  Unfortunately by that point they'd turned off the giant shower of water, but we still jumped into the little pond with everyone else.  It looked like a less concentrated mud pit, but still managed to get us pretty clean.

The shower that wasn't

So we settled for a bath

We decided to back to the car to change into clean, dry clothes before getting our free beer.

Then it was time for the beer tent.  The beer was a little hoppy for me, but I still drank most of it.

After hanging out for a bit, it was time to head home, and pick up some food since we were both starving!  I'm not used to driving to races (except for Reach the Beach, of course) so it was odd to have to put so much thought into the quantity and timing of my post race beverages, but everything worked out perfectly.

I followed up my totally delicious Five Guys burger and fries (and diet root beer!) with a nap on the couch and then started getting ready for Sunday's Rock 'n' Roll half!  

You might want to remember this ... it will come back to haunt me in part 2 of this recap