Never. Again.

Never again. I hate you, D: the only two thoughts running through my head during 5 kilometers of mud and torture.  For my friend's birthday, I told her that whatever she wanted to do, I would do with her.  I should have known better than to say that to someone who loves to work out.  She decided that for her 29th birthday, we would do a Dirty Dash.  In case you don't know what a dirty dash is, it is a race.  Through mud.  Stinky mud.  And obstacles.  And hills.  With mud.  It was awful.  Full disclosure: I am a wimp and this post will be all about me whining about the race even though I'm secretly kind of proud of myself for finishing it.

1. I got separated from D and her daughter almost immediately after starting the race so I was on my own for pretty much the entire 5k.

2. I had mud in places that mud should NEVER be.  I got home and took a shower that included sudsing up three times.  I still feel like I have mud somewhere on me.

3. If you recall, I hurt my knees a few weeks back and I have barely been able to walk for the past two

weeks let alone train so I was absurdly out of shape!

4. I somehow ended up upside down going down a slide and went down headfirst and landed right on my back.  I have a couple of lovely bruises on my lower back/butt to show for it.  In fact...here are just a few pictures of my bruises (some of them don't look as bad as a they feel).  Only the ones that don't require me to drop my pants.  This isn't that kind of blog.

Top Left: right forearm, Top Right: left underarm, Center: left knee, Bottom Right: left side arm, Bottom Left: left forearm

And to make matters worse, I've had this cough for 7 months and I think running/crawling/climbing through mud didn't help.  In fact, I think I might have inhaled more mud than is safe for human consumption.  My cough is now about 75 times worse.

Because I respect D's privacy ;)  I don't know how I managed to look
clean.  I certainly didn't feel like it.

However...all in all it was a successful day because D absolutely loved the race and plans to do it every year from now on.  I'm glad to have been able to celebrate with her...in her way.  Even though everything hurts, I can now safely say that I've done a mud run and it is just not my thing.