Mud Warrior

Last October, Nate ran the Tough Mudder down here in Charlottesville. I got to see the pictures George took of the event and have had my heart set on doing the Tough Mudder ever since.

April 14th George and I did the "Mud Warrior" here in Southern VA. We're training for the Tough Mudder that will happen in September, so we figured we'd do a smaller race in the mean time. I was rather nervous because I haven't had much chance to exercise since I had Cole 10 weeks prior to the race. I shouldn't have been so worried.

It was a blast!

George's parents drove down for the day to watch all three boys so George and I could both participate. I think that may have been my favorite part about doing this race--George and I got to do it together.

The way the race worked was interesting. They had heats that left throughout the day, so when we got there and signed in, we lined up at the starting point with a few other runners and, because we got there a little early, we ended up running with an earlier heat than what we were assigned. Fine by us!

Before the race. Look how clean we are!

We decided to bring along our waterproof/shockproof camera to try and capture some of the experience.

George was kind enough to give me some appropriate "face paint" (aka permanent magic marker). Thanks, Love.

Excited to start! They had a cover band that was playing to entertain the people who were not actively racing. You can see the finish line behind George. And yes, that's mud they're pumping onto that black slip-n-slide.

Here is a quick video of our first obstacle--crawling through mud underneath barbed wire.

We encountered several mud pits like that one along the way. It was fabulous!

This picture looks strange because there was water on the lens of the camera, but I wanted to include it to show how truly muddy we got. George even had some in his mouth!

The race took place on a farm and most of the time we were in the woods on the side of a mountain. One of the obstacles was to essentially climb up the side of the mountain for about half a mile. We were not running at that point!

The race was supposed to be 8 kilometers, but it didn't feel that long. The newspaper reported it to be 4.5 miles, but I guessed it was more like 3. 

I wish I could include some of the "official" pictures they took of us jumping over fire and climbing walls, but they belong to the organization and we have to pay for them, so... you'll have to just imagine. We do have some video, but unless you have a strong stomach you get motion-sick pretty quickly since we were taping while running/jumping/sloshing through mud.

At the finish line. Yes, I know this is a terrible picture of the both of us, but whatever. If we only looked at pictures where everyone looked perfect, we wouldn't get to see very many pictures.

We finished the race in less than an hour! Yay us! George bruised his arm pretty badly on the last obstacle and I took home several purple spots on my arms and legs, but for all the rocks, mud, walls, tires, fire, and nets we overcame, I think we fared pretty well.

Thank goodness we brought clean clothes! We toweled off was well as we could, changed our clothes and drove back to Charlottesville where we enjoyed a wonderful long, hot shower. It took forever to get that red Virginia clay off (my nails are still a little stained over a week later!).

I am so excited to do the Tough Mudder in a few months! The Mud Warrior was not as difficult as I thought it would be and honestly, I was a little disappointed the obstacles were not as challenging as I was anticipating. The Tough Mudder will deliver, though, and I'm hoping we'll be ready!