Run. Mud. Beer.

There is nothing I love more than a weekend away with my Dirty Skirts! The weekend of Cinco de Mayo I ran the Warrior Dash 5K. with 3 of my favorite skirts.  We left on a road trip on Friday evening KC bound! One thing I can say about this race is if you get the opportunity to do one YOU SHOULD! 
The morning of the race we ate our weights in complimentary breakfast.  We drove 45 minutes to find a parking lot about 3 miles from our hotel and rode one of 50 yellow school buses with seats covered in Hefty sacks. My butt stuck to the seat on the ride over, my nerves make me sweaty and sweat makes me feel like a warrior. So thank you to the plastic seat covers and coochie sweat for the first step in my warrior transformation. I wasn't worried about the run, but I was worried about the obstacles. I was worried I would have to skip obstacles all together. I think they give the fuzzy viking helmets out at the start to pump you up! While posing for photo ops, I started to build up my self talk inner monologue. Its about complete not compete. Be confident. Be courageous. Do something new. Do your best. Never Give Up.  It doesn't matter how many races I have run, I still get nervous. I got the same feeling when I would be on stage in high school and college waiting for my entrance. Or when I would be preparing to sing at a wedding or a funeral and my stomach would fill with nervous anticipation and as soon as I hit that first note I felt instantly better. My stomach would take its normal position in my abdomen  instead of my throat and I would just do what came naturally. Running does not come natural to me. Every step is a challenge. Each time I run it takes effort, discipline. Its doing what I need to do even when you don't want to do it. Its knowing what you want for your life and doing whatever it takes to get it.  Its why I love my running friends-- because they get that. They understand why I have to watch what I eat. They know why skipping a workout ruins my day. They know even though I have butterflies I will ALWAYS take that first step. 
The first step of the Warrior Dash was HOT a balmy 88 degrees and thus the challenge begins.

The challenges were just that challenging. If you are afraid of heights beware. I was so proud of my good friend Stephanie who overcame a huge fear of heights this day. She did however choose to tell us the day of the race that any fall more than 12 feet is a 50/50 chance of death.  I couldn't have completed two of the obstacles without my fellow warriors. The first was the tipped catamarans-- the challenge was to swim out to the middle of the pond, pull yourself onto these giant buoys walk across them and then jump off and swim to the other side. Since I am only a little over five foot, this poses a problem. I couldn't reach to pull myself up because my arms are too short, and I couldn't touch the ground to push myself up so there was NO WAY I could complete this alone. Now just as my head went under for the third time two fellow warriors grabbed a leg and pushed me up-- at this point I was airborne but thankfully not drowned. The second was a 14 foot fire pole, you climb to the top of a 14 foot incline (easy) and then slide down the fire pole (impossible). I talk the girls into going down and then when I am alone at the top I freeze-- I cant move. I cant breathe. I definitely cant jump. I watched at least three people jump and hit HARD. The girls are standing below giving me jumping tips. "Get your hands wet", " Hold loosely", "wrap your body around it" "you can do this". I close my eyes, wrap my entire body around this pole and jump! In two seconds flat I am at the bottom and on my butt.One big warrior leg burn to prove I did it! But I did do it! The girls are there ready to run and off we go through walls, mud, fire, and brimstone. It was exhilarating to run and have this much fun at the same time! We wrapped the weekend up with a bunch of crafting, laughs, and drinks-- not necessarily in that order. We left KC with a few bruises, a few new nicknames, and a few great new memories.

Signing off! Winky One Eye