Hillbilly Mud Run 5K

*Edited Sept. 18 for the addition of more photos
Today, I ran a 5K, swung like Tarzan over a mud pit, climbed a rope ladder and stripped to my skivvies in a field. Seriously.

I agreed to this race a couple of months ago, against my better judgment. At the time, it was 793 degrees outside and running through the mud seemed like a bad idea, but doable. And then on race day, I woke up to 55 degrees and torrential rain. Not exactly what I envisioned for my obstacle course debut.

The race was in Ft. Smith, and I just knew we would be freezing and soaking wet the whole time. But when we got into town, it looked like there hadn't been much rain and it was about 10 degrees warmer there. Trea and I were planning to meet up at the race with the rest of our team, the NWA Jogaholics, who were about 15 minutes ahead of us. And then we got lost!! Google Maps failed to mention a very important exit number, and we zoomed right on by...and into OKLAHOMA. It seemed like forever before we got to an off ramp so we could turn around. My friends tried to pick up our packets for us and save us some time, but the race people wouldn't let them for some reason. I thought we weren't going to make it in time to run at all.

We finally found the one-lane dirt road that led to the race...a road that was in such bad shape I was wishing for a monster truck...and it was already 15 minutes until the start time.

Glad we didn't take my car

We had to park in a field that was pretty far away from the start and the registration tent. By the time we went all the way from the truck to get our numbers and chips - and then back to the truck to stow our t-shirts and goodie bags - the race started without us! We ran back from the truck to the starting line and saw our friends well on their way down the trail toward the obstacles. Again, not what I envisioned. Stupid Google Maps.

Thank you, Travis, for the photos!!

We were determined to catch up and made good time. While we were running, the weather was perfect, and I was actually too warm. Fortunately, some hillbillies doused me pretty good with a water cannon (i.e. homemade fire hose), and that cooled me off. There were no mile markers on the course, but I think we were about to the halfway point when we caught up to folks on our team. We had gone over a giant sand hill and had mostly been running on dirt bike paths and through thick brush -- most of which had been suspiciously free of mud -- when we saw our team at the rope swings. Trea swung over the mud pit ahead of me and sank up to his knees in black, stinky mud. This was the first serious mud we had seen the whole time and it smelled way too much like sewage. I swung over and to the side and only sank a little over my ankles. With much squealing and prancing about, I made my way across without falling or losing a shoe. Then it was just more dry trails and thick brush, with a couple more obstacles. Not much mud though.

My favorite obstacle

I'm not complaining or anything. Running with mud in my shoes is not my idea of a good time, so I was happy to not have mud from head to toe. But I had judged the event based on the photos from the previous race and expected a lot more than what we got. I should've looked more closely at the obstacle descriptions for today's race rather than relying on past photos for details...since upon further examination, the race organizers consider a little pile of gardening mulch to be an obstacle. Basically, it was just a trail run with about 4-5 actual obstacles and very little mud. But I will say that mulch is super easy on the old knees!

John found a way to get dirty! Go big or go home! (Notice me in the background realizing there's mud on the mouth of my water bottle. Mud runs ain't my thang, y'all.)

Trea ran with me and made sure I got through the obstacles. I think I'll keep him.

We definitely got dirty, just not nearly as dirty as I expected since there was only one real mud pit. And that turned out to be a good thing since there was no where to change and no operating showers or water to clean up with!

Which leads us to my stripping to my skivvies in a field. 

There was no way we could get back in the truck like we were. Our bottom halves were totally disgusting. My pants and shoes were heavy and weighed down from all the mud -- so they had to come off. I tried to hide behind the truck door, but it was an open field with people coming and going in every direction. Hope they enjoyed the show! We put everything in a garbage bag and tried to clean up with baby wipes. I had just gotten my clean pants on when the skies opened up and it began to POUR. After we left the race area, we drove around Ft. Smith for a bit looking for a place to eat, and it was raining so hard we could barely see the road. The folks that ran the course in the second wave definitely had no shortage of mud!!

So...I don't love mud runs. BUT, we had a good time, and it was fun to mix things up and do something different. And I always have fun with my running buddies. Yay team NWA Jogaholics!

Hot blooded

I don't know why my post titles are usually bad cliches or song titles. This one's brought to you by Foreigner. Google it, kids.

Anywho, marathon training is underway, and I have my sights set on Memphis in December. But in the meantime, it's still August. And it's hot. So hot that, as I'm running, I picture calming, happy thoughts, like my shoes melting to the pavement or those True Blood vampires walking into the sunlight as their skin melts off and they burst into flames. Not the Twilight sparkly vampires; the spontaneously combusting barbecued ones. Seriously. It's that hot.

I had to work early Saturday morning at the time when I would normally be running to beat the heat. So instead, I had to do my long run later in the day. Trea and I ran 8 miles at high noon. It was 94 degrees with a heat index of 104 and not a cloud in the sky. Also, no shade on the course we chose. Geniuses, we are.

When we started out, I felt fantastic. My last few long runs have been awful because I've been struggling with early morning nutrition. But Saturday, I had finally cracked the code. I had an egg McMuffin and half a small coffee from Mickie D's as soon as I woke up, a banana about an hour later, and half a Powerbar and 1 ShotBlok a few minutes before my run. I had energy! But not too much! I was so looking forward to a strong 8 miles. It had been cloudy all morning, and I thought we would get lucky with overcast skies. Not so much. As soon as I stepped out of the car, the sun broke through the clouds and was merciless the rest of the day.

I realized immediately that I needed to scrap my plans to hit a certain pace and just focus on getting the miles done however I could. I normally start drinking after 10 minutes and then sip every 5 minutes after that. But on this day, in this heat, I drank every 3 minutes exactly, and I was sweating like never before in my life. It was so hot that I even ran in just a sports bra and no shirt. My abs were not prepared for that, but it was nice not to have a soaked shirt blocking what little breeze there was.

After just 3 miles, I was already running low on water. I always dilute grape G2 with water and ice in a 22 oz. Nathan handheld, and it's usually fine for me. But I wasn't even halfway through my run, and it was over half gone. Trea always sweats a ton when we run, so he recently started running with a Nathan Endurance hydration vest. It holds 70 oz., and that still wasn't enough for this heat.

We stopped to walk for a minute around 3.25 miles. The sunshine and heat was making my heart race, so we had to take a breather. We decided to run to Orchards Park because it has a covered pavilion where we could get out of the sun and rest a while and refill our water bottles at a water fountain. When we reached the park, we were at 4 miles and still had 4 to go. We would have preferred to cut it short and finish the miles at night or early the next morning, but we still had to get back to the car. Might as well run it. We stayed at the park for several minutes, I'm not even sure how long. I had three ShotBloks and topped off my water bottle twice. After only 4 miles, Trea had already drank 50 oz. and refilled his pack too.

The rest of the run is a blur, but not because it was fast. I was sipping yucky water fountain water that was the same temperature as bath water. I'd had sweat and mascara in my eyes since mile 1. I had applied SPF 50, but I felt like I was on fire, and I could see poor fair-skinned Trea turning pink. Around mile 6, I stopped for walk breaks about every half mile. It was so hot that when we waited at stoplights, we would try to hide behind the skinny line of shade cast by the pole. I would run along slowly, but doing OK, until we reached shade. Shade trees were like magnets. I could immediately feel the temperature get cooler when we passed under a tree, and my feet would refuse to go forward.

We had stopped and started so many times that Trea's Garmin time was screwed up, so he was just following my time and pace with my watch. For the last mile, I called out updates for us every quarter mile. "We're at 7.5!!" And Trea would respond with fist pumps in the air. "Just another quarter!" More fist pumps from Trea. "EIGHT!!!" And we high-fived like we had just finished a race. I'm sure we looked insane.

What did we learn? 1. Don't run at noon in August. Trea drank a total of 120 oz. while we were out, and it took two days for his shoes to dry. Not worth it. 2. Be flexible with this training plan. As long as we get the workouts done, it doesn't matter what day they happen. 3. Also? If a hot 8 miles is this tough, 26.2 is going to be a serious test, both mentally and physically. Thank goodness it's in December!! Bring on the cold!

Heritage War Eagle 5K Race Report

I make poor decisions. I sign up for obstacle course races, even though I have no athletic ability or upper body strength. I sign up for marathons, even though I shuffle along at a grandmother's pace. And when it's 100 degrees outside, I sign up at the last minute for an evening 5K and run my face off, rather than doing the smart thing and sticking to the treadmill.

On Monday morning, Trea suggested we run the Heritage War Eagle 5K in Rogers. At 7:30 p.m. that same day. Even though the asphalt was melting outside and meteorologists were screeching words like "historic" and "record breaking" in reference to the temperature. I needed to do about 3 miles of speed work that day anyway, so I figured, why not. I made a quick trip home over lunch to grab some clothes so we could change at the office and head straight to the race. When I left work, temperatures in the area ranged from 100-107 with heat indexes (indices?) from 105-111. Awesome.

The race was chip timed, but there wasn't a chip start. We got burned by this at the Gold Rush 5K because we were too far back in the pack. So this time we got very close to the starting line, but on the edge of the road so the fast runners could easily go around us. The event was for the Rogers cross country track team, so we were surrounded by lean, athletic teenagers. As soon as the race started, everyone sprinted ahead. As I said before, I make poor decisions, so I tried to keep up with the pack. I looked down at my Garmin and saw I was running a 7:20 pace. SEVEN. TWENTY. I'm a slow runner. Pretty sure my Garmin didn't even know that first number could be a seven. I pumped the brakes and tried to shoot for 9:30. About 100 people passed me, but I know my limits, and I did not feel like testing the emergency response plan at this little race. 

Mile 1 = 9:27

As soon as I took my first step, even though I had been chugging water all day, my mouth immediately felt like cotton. I could barely swallow, and I was so annoyed that I would have to lose time at a water stop on a 3 mile run. I blew by the first one hoping I could tough it out. But I had started too fast, and the heat and pace were getting to me, so I stopped at the second water station and just walked a couple of steps to get one drink down without spilling before picking up the pace again. I don't think it cost me that much time, and it was about the best drink of water I've ever had in my entire life.

Mile 2 = 10:14

After the two mile mark, I was seriously struggling. The sun was going down, so there was a little relief from that, but the heat was so intense that I could barely breathe. There was a breeze, but it just felt like opening the oven door. I wanted to walk. The course looped around a neighborhood a couple of times, and even though the loops were different, we kept running by where we started and finished. For some reason, mentally, that was really hard for me. I felt like, "We're here! Why in the world am I still running?" I wanted to quit. But then I stopped that train of thought and really made myself assess the situation. Did I feel nauseated? No. Did I feel faint? Not yet. Still sweating? That's a good sign. Is my heart rate OK? I think so. I gave myself a mental head-to-toe check up and realized that even though it was hot and the pace was hard for me and I was tired, there was no reason that I couldn't finish and finish well. Runners always talk about mantras, and at this point, mine became: "It's supposed to hurt."

Mile 3 = 10:02
 
The end of the race finished with a lap around the track, and even though I was exhausted, tracks just make me run faster. That final 0.1 was a 9:21 average pace, and I finished in 30:25! A new PR! I took about a minute and a half off my previous 5K time. Considering the temperature and my lack of speed training, I'm really proud of this. I know I ran as hard as I could, and next time I'll be able to run even harder and break 30 minutes.

Trea also set a PR and broke 30 minutes for the first time. He finished in 28:30!

This was a really tough race because of the heat, but I'm glad I did it. The not so great news is that now my marathon training plan has to change. My plan is based on meeting specific paces for each run based on my 5K pace. And since my 5K got faster, my training paces just got about 30 seconds faster too! Eek! My 16-week plan starts August 14. It's gonna be an interesting next four months...

An extreme test of my physical and mental limits

I do believe I've lost my mind.

I have entered a race that required me to sign the scariest waiver I've ever seen. I have agreed to participate in an event that promises to be a "hazardous activity...an extreme test of my physical and mental limits that carries with it inherent risks of physical injury that cannot be eliminated completely, including but not limited to an above-average risk of death and/or serious injury."

To do this race, you also have to be cool with "close proximity and/or contact with thick smoke and/or open flames...inadequate competition equipment and/or equipment failure." Contact with open flames?? Yes, this is a fabulous idea. In fact, I should PAY someone to LET me take these risks. I have most certainly lost my mind.

On September 17, I will be participating in the Hillbilly Porkchop Roundup 5K River Run in Fort Smith.

Judging from the last event's photos, there promises to be more mud than open flames.

Source

In just a couple of short months, I will be climbing a rope cargo net, getting sprayed by a water cannon, swinging on a rope like Tarzan (or Jane) and crawling through the mud. There are 16 obstacles on the 3.1 mile course. The description for number 16 simply says, "If I told you, you wouldn't do it! Don't ask!" I'll assume that's the one with fire.

Why would I sign up for this? Well...because all the other kids are doing it. I'll be on a team with the NWA Jogaholics, my favorite running buddies. So at least if I come in contact with open flames, someone will be there to put me out.