We did it!

Yesterday Steve and I, three friends from Juneau, and two of my new coworkers (and 5 of their extended family) participated in the Seattle Tough Mudder. It was 10.1 miles, 20 obstacles, and lots of dirty. So, so much dirt, everywhere. It was really fund, and yes, also really tough.

There will be official course photos coming out later, but for now we have one from before the race (the clean pic) and a couple from after. It was the perfect weather for the day - about 70 for a high, 53 at race start, overcast but no rain.

My favorite obstacle (and everyone else's least favorite) was called Arctic Enema. You climb up to a platform then slide down a shoot into ice water (with a slurry of ice cubes in it) where you have to go under to get out of the shoot, then have to wade a couple feet though chest deep ice water, climb over a wall, then wade again to a ladder at the far side. It was incredibly cold. But I mostly felt bad for the lifeguard standing on the side, wet because she'd obviously been in at one point or more, and shivering because she couldn't keep going on the course to warm up. In my opinion, it wasn't as bad as the polar plunge we did in Juneau, and it was a nice chance to get some of the mud rinsed off for a bit and cool down (way down) from being warm from exertion.

At another obstacle we had to first walk, then crawl through a long muddy field. You had to crawl because the mud was too soft and loose to support a full body weight on feet, and there was a guy who'd gotten stuck (scary stuck) to ~mid-thigh when we were there and had a crew of about 6 people around him working to get him out. As we were headed up the hill away from the obstacle we heard the cheer signaling that they'd gotten him free finally.

Will I do it again? Probably, but not for at least another year! I need to recover from my nasty bruises and cuts first.

What the heck? I look like I've been eating dirt then drooling!  Oh, wait....I pretty much was doing just that...