The Circus: the dirty dash 2012

Monday, June 4, 2012

the dirty dash 2012

Sometimes when you're a good wife and put up with your husbands antics (here. And here. Just to name a few), he'll be a good husband and put up with your antics in return.
This year I got The Man to do the Dirty Dash with me (last year's dash here).

Can I just say that it was so much more fun having The Man there with me? He makes everything better.

I learned a few things after last year.
1. Spandex shorts are a must. They don't rub in nasty ways when they're heavy with mud. Also, they're easy to rinse out in a hasty fashion when you're in the freezing showers in the parking lot after the race.

West was very happy I talked him into them.

2. After two years I do believe that tennis shoes are optional. I think next year I'll be tackling this event in Teva sandals. This way I won't have mud building up under my toes and instep. And I'm hoping that way I can avoid the tiny rock that cuts into my heel and, no matter how many times I try to swipe it out with my finger, doesn't budge and ends up cutting a rather large hole in my heel.

Don't worry, I'll spare you the gory picture of what is my heel this morning.
But let's just say that I'm not going to be wearing shoes for a week or two while it heals.

human hamster wheel.

Heel heals...

I crack myself up.

I picked a later start time this year because last year we had to start this muddy, wet race in 40ish degrees weather. Who wants to get wet in 40ish degrees? Not to mention that also affected the temperature of the mud. And it probably didn't help that it was the end of September. So this year we signed up for the June race, and placed our start time in the afternoon. I also did this because originally we were going to have The Circus join the piglet plunge for kids and that started in the afternoon. I was aiming for us to finish about the time they needed to start so we wouldn't have to stand around too long in our drying mud masks.

Turns out it wasn't our weekend for kids so we didn't have to worry about those details.

There are pros and cons to starting later vs. starting earlier.

Temps vs. crowds and parking.

This would be all the cars that were already there as we were driving up

Our obligatory "before" picture:

Me, The Man, Aaron, Megan, Natalie

The first mud hole Aaron decided to go all out and did a canon ball. It was all down hill from there for all of us. Because if Aaron is going down, he's taking us all with him.

Megan and Natalie

If I ever find myself hanging off a cliff and I have to pull myself up to save my life...

I'm going to die.

But Natalie will survive.

And so will Megan.

Natalie

Natalie... and me contemplating the situation on the other side of the wall

But then again... if it's not too big of a cliff, I might be able to do it after all:

At first we were just planning on doing the 5k course. The only difference between the 5k course and the 10k course is that the 10k course breaks away to a marsh/swamp and then comes back.

We paid to get wet and muddy. Natalie and Megan were set on tackling that marsh/swamp.

It stunk. Reeked. Made me want to wretch.

That didn't stop Aaron from doing the back stroke in it:

the slime monster that is Aaron, Natalie, Megan, The Man

We climbed walls, crawled through tubes, had mud fights in holes and ditches, conquered the sludge, slid down the giant water slide, and did quite a few canon balls into the finish line mud pools. The mud was better than last year (last year it was a lot of dirty water, this year it was thick), and they had more obstacles than last year.

We, my friends, are Dirty Dash champions in our own rights.