Rugged Maniac

Well, I am officially unemployed.... until tomorrow that is when I start my new job! Friday, October 14th was my last day with the NPS and it was sad to leave, there are some great people who I will miss.  Since I am still in Colorado I can at least go visit, so that made it easier to say good-bye.  There was a great crowd that came to my going away lunch...

Yesterday (Saturday, October 15, 2011) my friend Deanna and I participated in the Rugged Maniac 5K Race.  It was the hardest 5K (3.1 miles) I have ever done in my life! It was a lot of fun though once we got past the first mile which was nothing but hills! I took my camera along so there are a lot of pictures- enjoy!

We got our bib number written on our leg in case the bib fell off during the race.  I kinda felt like like a convict who no longer has a name, but is known as a number. 

This was a very steep hill that we just ran down! It was very slick and quite scary!

Running through the tires... I did get knocked around a bit, but I made it through!

Our goal for this race was not to do it for time, but to have fun... so we did! Deanna jumping off the boulder having a good time!

We came to a muddy pit that we had to get through.  It was like quick sand and I sank deeper and deeper with ever step.  My shoe almost came off, but we both made it through with our shoes and about 10 more pounds of mud to weigh us down!

There were several places where there was a wall or a steep hill to get up.  Nice of them to put the rope there which made it much easier!

There were also several walls to climb over.

This was probably my favorite obstacle... climbing through the muddy swamp under the barbed wire.  It was soooo hot that it felt good to climb through the water.  Side note: I had my camera with me and couldn't get it wet, so we fastened it to my hair.  I'm sure it looked mighty funny to see that, but I kept it safe! 

This next series of pictures cracks me up...

My head is almost over

 My head is finally over

Almost there (this picture freaks me out... can you see the weird divot in my knee?)

And finally over, but I got my head chopped off.  Deanna said, "I think it's artistic!" Too funny!

 The next obstacle was to jump across these stumps.  I was pretty proud of myself, because I did not fall once!

I had to include this picture... another one where my head got cut off.  It makes me laugh!

This picture cracks me up, too.  Deanna is literally saying, "How did you do this?"

She made it over just fine!

There was one more muddy swamp with barbed wire that we had to made it through.  It was fun!

We climbed up a cargo net...

and jumped onto a soft mat. 

When I run down a steep hill I just go... arms flailing and full speed ahead! If I tried to go slower I think I would hurt myself.

The last obstacle I was unable to get pictures of since I had to put my camera down and go back for it after the race.  It was really close to the finish so it wasn't a big deal to retrieve it.  Anyway, the last obstacle was climbing up to a big slide and sliding into FREEZING water and making your way over these log things in order to get out of the water.  It is a good thing it was 80+ degrees yesterday, because anything cooler and I think I may have gotten hypothermia.  I hit that water and my body instantly went into shock and I couldn't move it was so cold! I don't think I was expecting it to be so deep and so cold, but I made it through!

We finished in about 58minutes 45 seconds.  Our goal was 45minutets, but with as much as we stopped to take pictures, fix my hair to secure the camera, and time to dry the hands so I could carry the camera again I'm sure we could have easily made our goal of 45 minutes.  This year was for fun and now that we know what to expect we will actually have to train for next year and do it for time!

Here we are at the finish. We are Rugged Maniacs! Muddy and wet from head to toe. It was a lot of fun!