At the starting line.
First we ran through deep sand along the river's edge. Then came the first mud pit - not too bad, I didn't get wet apart from my legs. The weather was cool and cloudy, so I wasn't too keen on running the whole race soaking wet.
Karl in the first mud pit.
This was pretty far into the race. I'm soaking wet, and I can't believe I'm smiling after the thing.
Once you're soaking wet, they cover you in sawdust. I crawled daintily through this, and then did a face plant at the end just so I wouldn't look bad. Or good, I guess.
This wall was really high! But it was easy to climb, and no big deal after the thing that came before.
The suds box was really fun! I went through just after they had reloaded, and the suds were nearly over my head. There were at least four nets in the box we had to crawl under, so no avoiding the suds.
Sudsy Karl.
We rang the finish bell together. I stayed ahead of Karl on the running stretches, but he caught up at the obstacles.
So I'm running along, over halfway through the race and finally hitting my groove after the initial sand pit that kind of kicked my butt, when one of the sadistic race volunteers calls out, "Hey! Are you ready for the ice pit?!" Say what? Ice pit? ICE PIT!?!
Yep, a pit of icy mud, with a soldier standing beside it. He sneers at me, "You can't handle this." Although I can't imagine what on earth would ever possess me to dive willingly into a pit of ice water, nothing, absolutely nothing, motivates me like being told I can't do something. "Yes I can!" I yell back. "You won't make it," he says, grinning. "Oh yes I will!" I shout, diving gleefully into the icy depths. Oh my gosh. I gasped, I choked, and I seriously wasn't sure if I'd make it out the other side before my whole body went numb. But I did, and then tingled all the way to the next obstacle.
The "After" photo - after 2 long sand pits, a gnarly web climbing wall and a long spiderweb of ropes, a tire course, a stack of hay bales, two high wooden climbing walls, one with knotted rope to pull up by that made me feel like Private Benjamin, two long plastic tubes that were hell on my knees until I figured out how to scootch through on my backside, a whole row of high hurdles, several sets of back-to-back mud pits that left me staggering around unable to see, and a pit of ice water.
The "After" photo:
Some of our friends ran too.
Look at the tidy princess. Her face isn't even dirty!
The showers. They weren't warm. And where were the firemen we were promised?!
See these socks? They're actually white. Or they were.
We ate free hot dogs that were really good, and root beer floats. Now we're home again, clean and back to normal, more or less.
I love Private Benjamin:
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