Hoosier Dirty Girl? Me, That's Who!

I'm pretty sure I have found my newest running obsession...obstacle racing! I finished my first this past weekend, the Mudathlon, and I am hooked!

If you're not familiar with obstacle races, and I wasn't until this weekend, they combine running with various physical challenges. There is a wide offering of races out there that offer their own unique level of difficulty. Bottom line, if you're interested, there is a race for you!

So here is the break down of the Hoosier Dirty Girls at their first Mudathlon:

I "think" that I may have been the ringleader in getting the team together. I had heard about mud runs and thought they sounded like fun. I'm always up for trying something new and for some reason running through the mud sounded like a lot of fun.

One of the great things about obstacle racing is that they offer staggering start times. This means way less crowds than your typical half-marathon of 10,000 people. We had a great time, 10am. We didn't have to be there too early and we finished before the heat of the sun kicked in. Our resident hair stylist and photographer Sassy helped get us all pretty before we got muddy.

We got a lot of questions about the duct tap on our shoes. It is used to help keep your shoes on while trying to get through the mud pits. The knee high socks were initially just because we thought they were cute, but in the end they helped keep the bugs, scratchy branches and mud away and we were so glad we were wearing them!

Being early gave us time to take some pics and to get pumped for the run!

(Can you tell which Dirty Girl used to be a professional ballerina?)
Here's another hint...

Then we were off!

There were various obstacles along the way.

Walls to climb over...

Giant wooden spools...

The hay bales were my least favorite. Some were fairly easy...

And some were near impossible...

There were also lots of steep muddy muddy hills to climb, a gianormous rope wall and a wonderful cool creek that we got to go through.

Our moto was "No Dirty Girl Left Behind" so we didn't move on to the next obstacle until each and every one of us finished. It was all about team work. No one was going to skip a task. We pulled, pushed and lifted when necessary!

Where did we spend the most time? In the 100-foot-long mud pit! We had to cross it twice! At first I tried walking through it, but that only caused my feet to get stuck. Someone yelled, "You have to crawl!!!" So that's what I did. I lost my gloves but kept both my shoes! The top woman winner ran the whole course in a little over 37 minutes, I'm pretty sure I spent at least that long in the mud pit!

Take 1:

Take 2 was a little more challenging and WAY more muddier!

I DID IT!!!

There's me and T my wonderful running partner! We've done more races together than I can count, but this was by far the most fun!

We did it! I'm so proud of all my Dirty Girls! We had so much fun and everyone should be so proud of all their accomplishments. You can tell how much fun we had by the HUGE smiles we have on our muddy faces! BEST DAY EVER!

***Big shout-out to Dirty Girl Renee who lost her shoes on the first trek in the mud pit and did the second half of the race WITHOUT ANY SHOES!***

So would I do it again???

O-M-G without a doubt! The hubby and I are already signed up for the Warrior Dash in August...the best part???

YOU GET A WARRIOR HELMET!!! You know me, I'm all about my medal, post-race beer and race day swag!

BIG thank you to Jessica, aka Sassy, who did everyone's hair and took fab-u-lous pictures of the whole Hoosier Dirty Girl team. She is also available for individual photo sessions here in Indy. You can see more of her work on her Facebook page Foto Lilies. 

And a big THANK YOU to all of you for checking in each day! You're what keeps me going and I really appreciate all your support! So again, THANK YOU!