rugged weekend

Last weekend we took a mini-vacation to Richmond so i could run in a 5k obstacle/mud race called Rugged Maniac. tons of friends from winchester were going and most of the ladies ran while the guys watched the race and the kids. i honestly didn't really know what i was getting myself into, but lots of these people had done the race the year before and they were voluntarily doing it again, so how bad could it be, right? 

I definitely am glad i did it, but "fun" is probably not the word for it. it was pretty challenging, which i liked, but also there were just SO many rocks in the mud. seriously, you do not think about how many tiny rocks there will be, just waiting to scrape your arms and legs up! i felt good about it when i was done, and sore the next couple days, so i'll call it a win!

We decided to make a weekend of it, so we went down saturday morning, the race was at 1:30, and we stayed down there saturday night and leisurely made our way back up the state sunday afternoon. we actually made a lot of hilarious pit stops on our way back, but i'll probably just post about that day separately because i need to get the pics off our phones. 

Piper loved the opportunity to play with a bunch of old friends for a couple hours while we were there

before...so clean, so naive...

squinty pic before the race. katie and i went with black/practical clothes. definitely worked out better than all those tutus ;)

action shot.

climbing over one of the first obstacles...they seemed to get progressively harder.

climbing down the other side. i ran with Jenny for a lot of the race, which was fun, but then i got held up on a barbed wire obstacle and i never caught back up with her. 

waiting to climb the giant red wall you'll see in the next pic. this expression perfectly captures how i felt during this run. it was HARD. the obstacles definitely kicked my butt...especially with all the scrapes and bruises i've been nursing for almost a week now haha

climbing the giant walls with a little help from some super nice people who just stayed up there to help other racers over the wall

so gross. i had mud in my eyes here.

post-race pic with jenny. she was smart enough to use her water to clean her face off a little! after jenny and i finished, we had awhile to wait for everyone else (the others in our group didn't run the whole thing and tried to stay together while we were antisocial)

piper on a mechanical bull. i was really surprised she was willing to try this, but she was clearly, visibly freaked out and pretty much just wanted right back off. 

the slide! they squirted soap on you and away you went! it was pretty fun....unfortunately they made you think this was the last "obstacle." it was not. there was more barbed wire after this (so. much. barbed. wire.)

That night, after we got cleaned up, we went over to visit the Foxes! it was so nice to see them and catch up and Piper LOVED playing with Lucy...she keeps asking me when we're going back to Lucy's house!

It was a fun weekend and a good experience. i would definitely recommend doing a race like this, especially if you think you might ever want to do a Tough Mudder, which is a much longer race...although perhaps going in naive is better.