Muddy Fanatic

 I ran my first 5K today.  Actually, more accurately, I jogged, climbed, swam, and crawled through my first 5K.  Tony and I did the Muddy Fanatic, a brand new locally based extreme 5K.  You can check it out here.  We arrived and registered at 8 am and our run time was 9:00.  We were soaked from the beginning, thanks to the fire truck at the starting line spraying everyone.  We ran through the woods, up and down a mountain, through creekbeds and lakes.  The obstacles included things like rapids, mud pits, barbed wire, climbing walls, floating rafts and rope swings.  There were also two muddy slip and slides.  Remarkably, I had a ball!  I did walk around the obstacles that involved climbing the walls.  I don't have any upper body strength and I knew I'd never make it over without falling.  Falling off a wall and leaving by stretcher was not how I wanted to finish my first 5K.  At any rate, Tony and I finished in under two hours, which I was proud of.  That included waiting in a couple of lines for obstacles that took a little longer.  We emerged fairly unscathed.  Tony has a cut on his knee.  He went at the course whole hog - slipping and sliding.  I was more cautious.  I looked for footholds because I was scared to death of slipping and falling.   Nonetheless, I have two wrapped fingers.  I sprained my pinky (which is making typing difficult) on the rope swing.  The rope swing was intentionally not long enough to cross the mud.  When I fell off, my pinky kept holding the rope apparently.  I actually did jog parts of it, but so much of it was slippery and muddy that it was all I could do to slog through other parts. 

When we finished, we went back to the car to get a few pictures with our phones before going to hose off.  Of course, no real showers for fanatics!  We also had to claim our free beer for surviving the course.

I am so proud of myself for completing the course!  Now I'm totally hooked - I had a ball.  I'm already looking forward to doing another one!