Pretty Muddy

Abby was the one who talked me into my first mud run so its only fitting that I spent her birthday running through the mud and jumping over walls with her. The race was on a Saturday morning and against our better judgment we went out to celebrate her birthday the night before. We got to the race site and breezed through packet pickup before dropping our stuff off at gear check. No lines anywhere which was awesome. We headed to the starting where Abby's husband Johnny snapped a few pictures and his uncle gave us a pep talk.

I've run with Abby before and I know she's faster but she usually slows it down a bit so I can keep pace with her. Our other teammates were a bit faster but I did my best to keep up. It felt good to really push myself to keep their pace but I didn't think I had it in me to do it for the whole race. That first obstacle was a sight for sore eyes because I was definitely ready for the break.

As far as obstacles go, this race had a good mix of various levels of difficulty. I've seen almost all of them before so I was able to charge through most of them. The real test came when we got to the cargo climb. I've done a variation of this plenty of times and now it just seems second nature (every OCR I've ever done has had some kind of cargo net climb). What I didn't realize is that usually Johnny is the one running with Abby so I've never seen her climb it before. I was on my way back down when I heard Abby at the top. She had a panic attack right there at the apex of the cargo net frame. We tried to calm her down and Martha helped her get anchored on the backside of the net. I heard words of encouragement all around us. There were women on the net, on the ground, all cheering Abby on, letting her know we were all there for her. It was one of those moments that reminded what I love about running and OCR in general. When we're out there everyone is a team and we all want to see each other succeed.

When we got to the finish line all four of us crossed together and stopped for a photo op. I really loved that this race wasn't super crowded so we didn't have to wait at obstacles or even at the hose station to clean off. It was well organized and ran smoothly from start to finish. Personally, I would have liked some tougher obstacles but its a great starter course to introduce women to OCR. If you're looking to get your feet muddy but not quite ready to jump over fire, check this race out and bring your friends.