{fitness}

I've been a pretty poor blogger lately. Forgive me?! I thought with two extra days off during the week I'd have all of this extra time to pick up my blogging, but instead I've been keeping busy with other stuff... namely wedding planning and getting things done on that front. Not going to lie, also been busy with enjoying the nice weather and getting sucked into a good book and being able to sit out in the sun on my swing and just read. Keeping up with my fitness routine and just having some summer fun! The weather seems to have finally decided that it is summer and is going to be warm out. I have to say that after my morning run this morning in 70 degree weather, as much as I hate being cold in the winter, I just might prefer running in the cold than the warm. Because when you are running in 30 or 40 degree weather (or even colder), you don't sweat as much. Or maybe I just don't. Or maybe I do and the cold weather just dries it faster, haha! In any case, my three miles this morning were rough!

This past weekend Victoria and I did our very first adventure run and it was seriously a BLAST! I would never have thought it was going to be as much fun as it was and now I am even more excited to do the Tough Mudder in September. It is going to be SO much fun! The race that we did was a 5k, which both Victoria and I have successfully done before. We knew there was going to be obstacles and knew about how many, but they didn't tell us anything about what the obstacles were going to be and boy were we in for it!

Here are some before pictures. Yes, I totally wore my Run Bitch Run head band, gave my best 'mean' face and got ready for the race! They even branded us before the race! Haha! And in case you're wondering, the penguin duct tape was supposed to help keep our shoes on because of the all of the mud we were going to be stepping in. It helped for the first half, but the more mud we were in and water, the tape started to loosen up and I don't know how much extra help it really was. It did help keep my car key in place though. Yes, I tied my car key within my shoe laces, tucked it in next to my foot, and then duct taped over it. Yes, I'm crazy like that, but I didn't want to leave my car unlocked and I don't have a hide a key thing on my car so I needed to keep it on me some how. I'm so good like that! And then the annkle bracelet because, you know, I'm an escaped crazy person! Actually, it was our timing chip.The first wave of runners left the gates at 8am... we were in Wave 4 and were let out at about 8:20am. Victoria and I started out running, but we weren't too far in before the mud hit us. We knew at that point we were really in for it! At first I tried to avoid what I could of the mud... I know... a mud run and I was avoiding it! What?! Obstacle one included hopping some baracades. By obstacle two, they had you tramping through some swamp like water. And you know what, I just went for it. Straight through, soaked shoes and everything. We were in it to get dirty, why not!

By three, we were trapsing through some of a pond, getting wet almost to the waist and this was after having to slide on our tooshes down a small mud hill to get to the pond. Yes, mud butts! Haha! I think it was just a matter of getting into the mindset of you're doing this, don't think about how dirty you are going to get, don't think about that you just climbed through a pond when you don't even like swimming in a lake. Just do it! And did it we did!

There wasn't much running going on (at least from Victoria or I) because so much of the paths were just pure mud and you couldn't without the risk of falling and twisting an ankle. We hopped across some tires. We were in a creek and crawling through huge culverts, we were jumping over bales of hay, balance beam walking, climbing over a wall, inch worming down a hill backwards, climbing on trees, hoping not to fall, falling, monkey bar crossing, slip and sliding head first, mud pit crawling, and edge climbing up pure mud... all before battling some gladiators at the end! It took us a little longer than maybe we would have thought, but Victoria ended up hitting her knee during one of the obstacles and tweaking it pretty bad and the last thing I wanted was to push her to the point of her not being able to finish, so we took it at her pace and finished proud! It was SO much fun!I ended up getting a few scratches on my arms from the slip and slide. It was a lot of fun; however, by the time that we ended up going down it, lots of people had already gone down and the water and mud at the end meant that you didn't stop sliding at the end of the slide, you slid right into the grass, mud, and stones and my arms didn't like that. But I survived and my battle wounds were SO worth it!And I'm going to leave you with an outfit that I ended up finding while we were rummaging this past week. Both the top and the jeans are 'new' to me and I love them and hell, I'll pay $1 for $70 jeans! Love it! CIAO! LOVE ME!