Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Indian Mud Run Race Recap and What Was I Thinking??

I know I'm a little late in getting this race report out, but late than never I always say...not to mention that these past several months honestly have been a huge blur...but enough of my crazy schedule...on to the recap.

So this was my second year doing the Indian Mud Run. Last year (and this year as well) I did it with my bestie Leslie. Last year the one thing most people complained about was that there didn't seem to be quite enough mud....well let's just say, Mother Nature made sure that there was no shortage of mud this year!! Our weather here in Ohio has been pretty much wet...wet...wet ever since the New Year...between tons of snow and the longest winter in years, to nothing but rain the last several weeks...yes...there was MUD!! Which honestly made the course this year far more, shall we say interesting?? I went into it not really worrying about a time element since I really had no intention of trying to hurt myself before my next half marathon in August...so Leslie and I just took our time, and we of course found some new friends along the way. We ran with a girl named Amanda, and then a bridesmaid, a bride and a groom...that were getting married later that day (CRAZY!!!) We just all kind of hung close together through the whole race. We were luckily in the first wave...and I say luckily because I can't even imagine what some of those hills and obstacles would have been like after a few hundred runners splattered and dug even more mud into it...yikes!! The thing I absolutely love most about the Indian Mud Run is that it's pretty much a natural course going through the woods...that alone is an obstacle in itself. The first hill is always the toughest which is pretty much straight uphill....and then straight downhill. After climbing over a log obstacle the huge cargo net is next...which is not one of my favorites....I hate climbing over that thing...but I made it and that's all that matters. The rest of the first half of the race is basically running through the woods, avoiding tree limbs and rocks. There was the rope climb that I just couldn't get up this year...not sure if it was the mud already on my shoes or what but I had to go around that one. The ravine was the next tougher obstacle...this year I had to use the rope to go down into the ravine...which was not fun and it was already very muddy and slippery...which again made things very interesting. 

The water slide...oh my the water slide...such an unpredictable obstacle. I had a hard time going down it at first...just couldn't get going...then woosh!! I was like a bullet!! My friend Leslie wasn't so lucky as another runner ran into her on the slide shoving her into the wall banging her head. After going through the woods some more we ended up at the canal. I crossed the canal further down where the non-swimmers were to go, but even there with all the rain we have had it was pretty deep. We crossed a net and then headed to the monkey bars crossing back over the canal and our group decided to take the ropes and boards across instead of the bars...which usually isn't a problem until one of the ropes fell off making the gap between the ropes quite large...I ended up having to hold on the edge of the monkey bars shimmying my way to the next rope and luckily for me the board didn't flip me into the canal...THANK GOD! Then another slippery mud slope downhill to the rock climbing wall...which was very hard this year since the "rocks" on the wall had gotten slippery and muddy making traction next to impossible. My foot slipped off one of the rocks and if it wasn't for my friend Leslie I probably would have fallen off for sure. By the grace of God I made it up the rock wall, then into the ice pit (crazy cold!) and into the mud pit...which I got very muddy in and then I avoided the electric fence area after the horrible experience I had with it last year when I had a wire wrap around my neck. I ended up finishing in about 1 hour 43 minutes...which was not fast by any means, but I made it in one piece which was by far the better option.  

Needless to say the difficulty of the course this year was huge....but it was a lot of fun. After the race was over I ended up with only a couple bruises and the only thing that truly hurt on me was my hands from all the ropes. Overall it was a good time, scary at times, but good.

Now my mindset is looking towards my next half marathon in August, The Emerald City Half Marathon. Initially I was thinking that this training should be easier since I would have the summer off and have extra time, but I'm so finding the opposite to be true. I'm finding it hard to get out of bed early to do a run before the sun starts baking the day, most of the runs lately have been pretty hot and humid....guess that will help me train for a late August half, but it's honestly not too enjoyable. Right now I'm about half way through my training and with all that is going on in my life at the moment, finding time to fit in my runs has been quite interesting. I have truly hit the "What was I thinking?" stage.

On a lighter note, I just finished listening to an audio book that my sister bought for me for me birthday. The book is "Running Like A Girl" by Alexandra Heminsley. If you are a runner, and a girl, you will totally relate to this book. Lots of laugh out loud moments. There are a few expletives in the book..so fair warning if those things offend you, but overall I couldn't stop laughing at some of the things she talked about. I recommend it!

And as if I haven't done enough half marathons lately...I already signed up for my first 2015 half signing up again for the Capital City Half Marathon. :)

Well that's all for now...I need to get some rest...these long days are really getting to me!! Have a great summer everyone!!