Ok, ok I'm FINALLY getting around to writing up my post on the Living History Farms Race. Wow what insane fun! So we drove down the night before to Mark's cousin Eric's house. Mark played the cousin card and we got a free night stay :) Although Eric was having a small party when we got there and in the morning I think forgot we were sleeping on his futon.
He rode down to the race to spectate and also played photographer for us. Although for this photo we recruited a bystander.
When we first started at the gun, it was nothing but shuffle-fest on this paved road for probably the first 1/2 mile since it was a mass start of 7,500 people. We were not racing by any means but just wanted to participate in our first off-road run race and see what all the fuss is about. There were probably 5-10 people actually seriously racing for time on this course and the other 7,490 were there for a good time and most were in costumes. Everything from jailbirds to crayons to the barefoot runner in no more than a loincloth to Santa tethered to his 8 tiny reindeer.
The course started out on the road, then on a dirt road, onto a farm field, ok then a couple potholes...nothing too bad yet...then we hit the first of eight creek crossings. You could choose to go THROUGH the water or skip across the top of a few rocks but either way you had to get up this muddy embankment on the other side. Ugh, I just got my hands all dirty....Wow that was fun! Then it's through the woods, back across fields, and around to the creek again. Hm....I turned to Mark, we paused, I said "I Love You" and through the water we went. There was NO way around it so I just shrugged and got all wet and muddy. Coming out the other side the trail was so wet and slippery it was hard to run with any footing. And granted another situation where I learn how bad road shoes are on trails!
To shorten what could be a lengthy description, let's just say the rest of the 7 miles went though the creek 6 more times. Most times were you could go through ankle deep water, or knee deep water. Up the smaller hill or up a muddy incline that requires you to rope climb. We opted to take the harder, wetter, muddier routes. What the hell....we were having a blast!
If you look to the left, you will see Mark waving. Eric caught this picture when we were closing in on the last mile or two
Unfortunately the hills were very tiring and after the last romp through the creek we had to run up this hill along a farm field and for whatever reason my body went into meltdown. My heart rate and respiration got faster and I even got a little tingly in my face. Body brought me to a walk for a few minutes. Very weird! But then we got back into rhythm on the downhill and rounded our way through the Farms and across the finish line.
Here's the best shot we got of Santa and his reindeer coming in to the finish line.
This race I think has one of if not THE best post race food. BEEF STEW WITH CORNBREAD!!! Here is us stuffing our faces.
And here is us after we snuck back through the line for a second helping :)
We couldn't stick around long as we were wet and getting cold and wanted to try to grab some caches on the way home before dark. You can catch up on the details of that adventure on our other blog A Life More Complete
Here's a few pictures of how dirty I got. Honestly could have been much worse. Kinda wish we would have dumped ourselves into a little more....why?....because we could :)
We stopped by Perkins at the end of our day and devoured an order of boneless wings, chicken sandwich with fries and here's what's left of when we devoured the cookie sundae for dessert.
A quick update, personally I haven't done ANY biking since IMoo (ugh...). We've been back swimming a few times but it's proving to be difficult to get into a 4:30am wake up call to get there. We have to be up that early for me to get all the way home to take care of the cats first, then to 6:30am swim, get ready for work in the locker room, grab coffee and get to work before 9am.
Been horrible with getting to the gym for lifting. Probably a total of 3 times since IMoo for that as well. Honestly I'm feeling fat and lazy. Put back on the few pounds I lost this summer so I'm disappointed in myself for that. And going into the holidays is a near impossible time for me to be in weight loss mode. I just have to work not to gain. What can I say...I love food :-P
Mark has somehow gotten me to start reading books. Really for the first time ever. I've never been much into reading unless forced by a teacher. But I've found I like to read non-fiction books. Amazingly I've already finished Lance Armstrong "It's Not About the Bike" and "Dewey" and I'm currently reading "The Man Who Swam the Amazon" and I'm listening to "All Creatures Great and Small" on audio book during my commute.
New job is going really well. I think I'm surprising myself in knowing more about my job than I realized coming into it. http://www.zapevent.com/ for those of you that don't know that is the new company I'm working for. We are an online registration company so if you are a Race Director or organizer for company conventions, call me and I'll help you get setup online for no fee! -end of pitch- support@zapevent.com email that and you will get me :)
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