Pretty Muddy Recap

And once again, I have taken a blog hiatus, but this one is not without good reason (but then again, I always find myself saying that). I am hoping this will be the last one of the summer, but you never really know with me! From Friday at 11am, until yesterday at 3:15pm, I drove approximately 11 hours. I went from Houston to Austin to Dallas to Houston to Austin, and in each city, there was some event or activity that was calling my name. So, if you will please forgive me for staying away for a few days, I will try not to let it happen again.

But, it's time for my Pretty Muddy race recap. As a blog ambassador, one of my responsibilities is to complete a post-race write-up, so that is exactly what I plan to do. I have to start it off by saying that while I had a wonderful time, and the race was a lot of fun, my experience will be a little bit different because one, I didn't have a group put together for this race because all of my friends are scattered across the world right now, and it is hard to motivate college-aged students to drive all the way to Dallas for a 3-mile run, and two, I couldn't stick around for any post-race activities, because I had to get back to Houston for my brother's high school graduation (more on that to come). So, my post will focus solely on the race and atmosphere itself.

The Race

After a non-traditional race breakfast of hard-boiled eggs and fruit salad,

I arrived at Skyline Ranch around 7:00am, which allowed me a great parking spot, for my 8:00am start time. I was glad I arrived early because that allowed me to check in, check in my purse to the gear tent, and participate in a 7:30am kickboxing class. It was definitely not an intense kickboxing class (can't be worn out for the actual race!), but it was a fun warmup event. I participated for about ten minutes before making my way over to the starting line.

This is the first women-only event I have ever participated in, so I was not used to seeing all of the fun costumes, but I loved seeing how much fun some of the groups must have had coming up with cute matching costumes, or catchy sayings. My favorite shirt that I saw said, "Strong Today, Sore Tomorrow." There were also lots of fun tutu's, and lots of pink, which I not only loved because I love the color pink, but because one of the race sponsors was Susan G. Komen, so I loved seeing all of the support and awareness being raised in the ongoing fight against breast cancer.

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At approximately 8:00am, the first wave of 2013 Pretty Muddy runners were off! I found myself toward the front of the pack, and we hit my two most anticipated obstacles first. The bubble tunnel was a bit disappointing, but that might have been because it hadn't had enough time to generate as many bubbles. I'm sure it was much better as the day went on. The slide was just as fun as I thought it would be - I felt like I was at an elementary school carnival all over again.

After the slide, however, was where trouble hit. We crossed a creek, and instead of staying left like we should have, a group of about five of us went right. We ran on for a while before a man in a golf cart chased after us, informing us that we were running the wrong way, and that if we continued following this path, we would be doing the trail in reverse. We decided to continue on the path we were currently running, but we sure confused a lot of women when they saw us running in the opposite direction!

We hit the creek again, and ended up running about half a mile through the water until we finally hit dry land again. At this point, there were only three obstacles left: the haystacks, the ball pit, and the large pile of mud that required submerging your entire body into the mud. I am not going to lie and say I was thrilled about doing that - I don't mind being muddy, it's just the fact that I am voluntarily covering myself in mud that gets to me. I wish I had a picture of myself all covered in mud, but I was not willing to get my purse and phone all covered in mud!

I immediately washed off as best I could, threw my old tennis shoes to the side, where they would later be donated to people in third world countries, grabbed my purse, and headed back to my hotel so I could take a shower and get in my car to make the four hour drive back to Houston. I made a stop at Bucee's for gas and a water bottle, and made it back to Houston by about 1:15pm.

My shoes are somewhere in there! (Source)

All in all, it was a really great event. I loved seeing women of all ages, shapes, and sizes out there looking like they were having a blast. Exercise can definitely be fun, and I think if anything is to come out of this blog, I hope that readers will come away with that the fact that anyone can start an exercise program, and everyone's exercise program will be a little bit different, depending on the particular person's likes and interests. Get muddy, wear pink, but just be sure to get moving!