It Starts with Food

Hey!  It's a post about food, NOT about a race or workout.  Let me start with a brief timeline of how I got to this current challenge:

March 2013: I was in great shape!  I was the lightest I'd been since Gage was born, getting super strong, running long and racing at least once a month.

June 2013: Missing a lot of workouts, barely running, went on vacation and stuffed my face like you wouldn't believe.

September 2013: Our whole family dynamic and schedule changed when Jason went back to work and Gage went back to school.  Stopped working out, stopped running, still had a few races scheduled.

December 2013: Did Spartan and barely survived, now about 25 lbs heavier, eating total junk every chance I got.

January 2014: Decided I couldn't keep going on like that, started working out and running again regularly - did not change my food habits.

March 2014: Realized that while the running and working out were keeping me in check, my food habits were keeping me from seeing real progress.

INSERT: Whole30 Challenge  http://whole30.com/

  For a few months (December - March), I had been on a roller coaster of trying to turn my eating habits around all at one time, FOREVER, and then falling off of the wagon 1-2 weeks in.  I truly believe for me that eating is an inside job and that until I was ready to really change, it just wasn't going to happen.  This really helped me when I wanted to beat myself up about failing AGAIN.  I've always had to approach these things from a place of acceptance and not from a place of TRYING TO MAKE THINGS HAPPEN THE WAY THAT THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO.  So 26 days ago, I decided I was ready to start feeling better - not necessarily lose weight, look better, etc - I just wanted to feel better.  I was doing a lot of unconscious eating, which for me just leads to more shame.
  What really appealed to me about this challenge is that I only have to commit to 30 days.  It wasn't forever, it wasn't that I would NEVER get to have a cupcake for the rest of my life, I just had to do it for 30 days.  The basic plan is no added sugar, no dairy, no grains, no white potatoes, no alcohol (easy), no legumes, no carrageenan, no sulfites, no MSG and no paleofied desserts.  Now, to make this REALLY fun, I decided to quit caffeine as well.  The goal of this plan was to kick my physical cravings and mental obsession to the curb by eliminating those things from my diet.  After the 30 days, they encourage that you add back one thing at a time so that you can really see how different food items affect you physically.
  I will tell you that week 1 sucked.  Big time.  Week 2, better physically, but bananas mentally.  By the 3rd week, I could really tell a difference in my energy level and mood and now, on day 26, I can tell you that I feel great!  I've been able to make this work pretty easily and have found so many amazing recipes (even Jason will tell you how great the cooking has been) that it feels like this is way more sustainable than I once thought.  I've noticed a difference in my running (my speed is picking up) and my workouts (my recovery time is insanely fast).  I feel more productive in my day, I'm more engaged in my life and what's going on around me, I even keep up with chores more.
  With 4 days left, I will tell you that I am looking forward to a sweet treat next weekend - I already know what I want - but I'm definitely going to continue to eat like this 85-90% of the time.  My goal will be to add some grains back on heavier run weeks, but keep it to things like quinoa or brown rice.  I am going to allow myself a fun meal or treat once a week or so and for special occasions.  I have made a list of a few things that I have really missed and it will be fun to portion those things out over the weeks.  I am really looking forward to my favorite saag paneer at India Garden in a couple of weeks.
  I think the most surprising thing has been how just this small amount of time has changed my palate and my cravings.  I am trying new vegetables and WANTING them on a regular basis.  I have hated avocado my entire life, but I have to tell you that I have discovered in this little adventure that it's really good!  I am having fun making new things and finding fun new snack ideas.  There are things that I was eating or drinking every day that I thought would totally ruin my life if I had to quit them for any length of time, but it turns out, they weren't that big of a deal.  It's been pretty awesome to enjoy food again and not just unconsciously shove it in my mouth without even tasting it.
  So that's the current health adventure I've been on and I can report that the results have been outstanding.  I know some of you will ask, so I will also say that I've lost about 16 pounds.  I lost the first 10 really fast and it's been a pretty steady 1-2 lbs/week since then.  Of course, I've been running and working out the entire time, so a lot of that contributes.   I've tried to track my calories, not for weight loss, but just because I was afraid that with changing my eating habits, I wouldn't get ENOUGH.  I use a website that's pretty simple and free - www.myfitnesspal.com.

Here are some of our favorite recipes so far:

http://cookeatpaleo.com/paleo-avocado-tuna-salad/ - I don’t like raw onions, so I subbed in diced green apple and added a little cayenne pepper.  This is currently my favorite lunch/snack.

http://paleomg.com/clean-it-up-mondays-turkey-and-spinach-stuffed-sweet-potatoes/ - This is delicious and it could definitely be made the night before and the assembled/heated up the next day.

http://www.tgipaleo.com/2014/01/04/no-mayo-avocado-slaw-paleo-raw-vegan/ - The dressing for this is so unbelievable.  I only used half on the actual slaw and then used the extra for veggie dipping the rest of the week.

http://nomnompaleo.com/post/19886925277/sweet-potato-hash-with-fried-eggs - This is my very favorite “easy” dinner or breakfast.  I add in turkey breakfast sausage – I cook the sausage, take it out and then fry up the hash in the sausage grease. 

http://comfybelly.com/2014/01/mexican-chicken-soup-quick-easy/#more-16401 – This chicken soup is AMAZING and EASY.  If you are into avocado or sour cream (if you are eating dairy), you can toss a little of either in your bowl and Jason loves it that way.  This is also a great leftover for a couple of days. 

http://everydaypaleo.com/one-pot-chicken-drumsticks-and-a-release-week-recap/ - This is another super simple, easy chicken recipe.  I usually buy the BIG thing of chicken legs then I cook half with this recipe and roast half at the same time in the oven for lunches.

http://www.multiplydelicious.com/thefood/2012/12/paleo-veggie-beef-chili/ - This chili is really easy and really filling. 

http://www.steamykitchen.com/31325-paleo-cauliflower-bacon-fried-rice-video-recipe.html - Ok, this one is a little weird, but I promise you, it’s oh so good.  It’s a fried rice recipe, but you use grated cauliflower instead of rice.  She gives a basic rundown and then gives options for different stages of cooking.  I add in shrimp, 1 scrambled egg and frozen peas and carrots to my version.  I use the coconut aminos instead of soy sauce as well.  This also heats up great for leftovers.  Maybe it’s the bacon, but it’s just ridiculous how good it tastes. 

So there you go - feeling good on the inside, which has helped me catch up with how I was doing on the outside.  

Next up will be a race review/recap of the Hit N Run 5K next Saturday!

Women Rock Half Marathon

Race #4 for 2014 is in the books!  It's been a little over a week since this race, so I'm hoping my memory doesn't fail me!

This was the inaugural race here in Dallas - this group runs this race out of Minnesota, I believe - and running a first time race is always fun because the excitement is always pretty infectious.  I'm going to start with the reason why I signed up for this one: SWAG.  When Theresa told me about it, I wasn't sold because it was pretty pricey for a half marathon, but then I checked out the goodies.  The coolest thing was instead of a shirt, we got really badass jackets.  There's always a risk that the quality won't be great, but luckily they really were awesome.  They are like any nice running jacket I would buy retail, complete with thumb holes, full neck coverage and hot pink piping, of course. Here is a picture showing the front of the jacket on the left and the back on the right.  Pretty sweet.

Of course, this race is marketing as a race FOR women, so the entire thing was set up to appeal to us girl runners, so there were a lot of fun touches outside of the jacket.  Of course EVERYTHING was pink, but one of my favorite touches that I've never seen is when we got to the race venue, they had set up tables in the restrooms with pink tablecloths, flower arrangements and baskets with goodies that might be helpful (bobby pins, hair ties, facial wipes, etc.)  They even hung baggies of items in the outside porta-potties.  I thought that it was a really cute touch.  The merch and race flags, etc. were so amazing and of really nice quality - I was impressed with the setup.

This race had a really late start, when compared to what I'm used to for start times.  The race was scheduled to start at 9am, but a couple of days before, it got pushed to 9:15a.  Day of race?  We started the half marathon at 9:30a, which in the nice (hot) weather we were having that morning, ended up making the race a little sticky toward the end.  This race took place at QuikTrip Park in Grand Prairie, which was fun since it was a new location to check out.  There were 2 other large events going on in the same little compound that day, one at Verizon Theater and then the LARGE DFW Swap Meet in the parking lot next to us.  That was fun to run by a couple of times to check out what everyone was selling out there.  Even with these large events, parking was a breeze (and FREE) and we never had trouble with traffic or people getting in the mix.

There was a 5K, 10K and a Half Marathon option for this race.  The half marathon route was 2 loops of a 6-ish mile route.  We all started on the field in QuikTrip Park and then we ran one main back road on the way out, then hit a trail through a more wooded area (which I didn't know existed!) back to Beltline and the main entrance of the ballpark.  We passed the ballpark to head out on our second loop and we spent a little more time on the main road for that one.  Even though the loop changed a little on the second go around, they volunteers had already updated the signs and moved the turnaround, so there was never any question as to where we were supposed to go.  It was pretty warm, but there were a couple of water stops - 3 total on each loop - along with porta-potties and gel at the halfway mark.  There were 2-3 minor hills, but other than that, pretty flat course.  I remember one hill was a little intimidating, but once we were up - no problem.  Overall, the course was great.  I've only done a repeat race once and that was a 3 mile loop that I had to do 5 times.  I prefer the longer loop for less repeats, for sure.  The second loop took us back through the entrance of the ballpark, we ran the entire outfield and then finished on the other side.  Once we finished, there were more treats waiting for us:

Champagne or 7-Up in a commemorative glass AND a beautiful silver necklace with a ruby 

Super cute men that were there SOLELY for us to ogle and take pictures with

Yep, they marketed to the ladies and delivered the goods in a big way.  We really had a great time, the race was organized fantastically and we felt like we walked away with a great experience.  I do want to comment on one more thing about this race:  the volunteers and energy were INCREDIBLE.  When we first started the race, everyone was SO excited, there was cheering and hooting - something you just don't get at every race.  It felt like my first half again, I was excited and having fun.  I realized that after running so many races, I may have a little race cynicism and this was the kind of race that knocked the doldrums off.  It was impossible to have a bad time or get upset.  The volunteers were so amazing as well as some pretty great spectators.  One group of women came out and just handed out popsicles - and they stayed there the entire race.  There were DJs at the water stops playing fun music to keep things lively and they had groups of very energetic high school kids handing out the water and gatorade.  There were people cheering and yelling for us at each turning point, the police officers were super friendly and overall the energy was just awesome.  Grand Prairie gets 2 big thumbs up for putting on such a great showing of people.

Next up is the Hit N Run 5K next Saturday - it's a fun little obstacle course 5K that looks like that Wipeout show on TV.  Here's my current schedule:

2014 Races

January 11, 2014 – Bold in the Cold 15K - DONE

February 2, 2014 – Too Cold to Hold - DONE

February 8, 2014 – Hot Chocolate 15K - DONE

March 29, 2014 – Women Rock ½ Marathon - DONE

April 19, 2014 – Hit and Run 5K

May 10, 2014 – Gladiator Rock N Run

May 17, 2014 – Spartan Super

May 18, 2014 - Spartan Sprint

July 13, 2014 – Too Hot to Handle

September 6, 2014 - Superhero Scramble

October 5, 2014 – Tough Mudder

November 1, 2014 – Spartan Beast (TEXAS TRIFECTA!)

I'm talking to some girls at work about training for Dallas this year, so that may be my last race in December. I'm definitely planning on Little Rock in March.  I want that BIG MEDAL!

Stay tuned for more fun. 

PS - I did not check this for typos, so please ignore run on sentences, grammatical and/or spelling errors. 

Hot Chocolate 15K

  The Hot Chocolate 15K is my 3rd race of 2014 and I ran it with my good friend, Alicia.  Some back story on this race: I believe this is the 3rd year it has been here in Dallas and I have not run it before because it's a little pricey for a 5K/15K combo.  The upside is that you get some really NICE race swag, the best of which is a fancy hoodie that has gotten increasingly more awesome since the first year.  After seeing people in their hoodie last year, I was kind of jealous and had put this on my "maybe" list for this year.  When Alicia and I ran (walked) the DRC Half in November, she saw some info on it and after I told her a little more, we decided to go for it.  The DRC Half was our first race to run together and neither of us trained, so we ended up doing a lot of walking and we both finished with some minor injury pain.  This time, we showed up to run and we had a blast!

  This race starts in Fair Park, runs through a good portion of Lakewood, comes back around the back side of Fair Park and then you do the last little portion through Fair Park back to the finish line.  I went into this race with Alicia acting pretty cool, since I've run most of that area, but I have to tell you - they found some hills that I was unfamiliar with.  I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it's a pretty challenging route!  For those of you that ran it - what about that hill at Mile 5?  Man!  That was a tough one.  The great part is that Alicia is a cycle coach, so we're on this hill and I was losing a little steam and she's like, "Come on!  Let's do this!  Push up the hill!"  It was awesome having my very own coach with me.  Ha ha!  I got to return the favor later, since this was the longest that Alicia had ever run, so around mile 7 she was starting to waiver a little and I talked her through the last couple of miles.  She wasn't going to stop running, but sometimes it's nice to have someone that  knows the area to talk you through exactly where the turns are when you are getting tired.
  The weather was fine - it was pretty cold, but we were all expecting much colder, so we tried to limit our complaining.  If you look closely at our finish picture below, you can see the frost in my headband.  I kept thinking the sun was going to come out and warm us up a little, but that nice little break didn't come until way later in the afternoon.  The run wasn't bad - the walk back to our car after the race was the hard part.  Man - that's one of the hard things about Fair Park races.  You have to show up pretty early to park (usually in the dark), then you generally have to walk across the entire park to the race start.  Getting to your car after a race then has 2 issues: 1) walking that distance after a long race in possibly bad weather 2) finding your car.  Luckily we had both picked out some landmarks (and a lot of cars were gone, since the 5K started earlier than us), so we found the car without many problems and promptly blasted the heat.
  I don't want to skip the best part of the race - the FINISHER'S MUG!  This is the 2nd reason people love this race (behind the hoodie).  When you finish, you head over to grab a finisher's mug, which includes the following: cup of AMAZING hot chocolate, little bowl of dipping chocolate, snacks to dip (rice krispie treats, banana, marshmallow, pretzels, wafers).  Man.  So damn good.  I will admit that the hot chocolate is the best part - especially in that weather.  I ate the rest of the snacks, but really only dipped the marshmallow.  The chocolate is good, but it's pretty rich - was a little too much for post race.

Here's our finish picture with our finishers mugs and a group shot with some other running buddies:

We had SO much fun.  Now I'm trying to convince her to sign up for Gladiator in May.  :)

Too Cold to Hold Race Review..and updated race calendar

Race #2 for 2014 is in the books!

This race is part of a 2 race combo I registered for last minute because they have a cool medal combo - the medal from this race and the medal from the Too Hot to Handle in July will clip together to make one big MEGA MEDAL.  I swear, throw some cool swag out there and I will sign up - I'm such a sucker.  I got a pretty cool little beanie for this race as well, which I love.  Shout out to Theresa, who went and picked our packets up early in order to get that little hat.

  I have to say the report on this one is pretty simple, especially for those of you that run the same trails I do at White Rock Lake.  First off - let's talk about the weather and the beauty of living in Texas.  Saturday morning, when I NORMALLY do my long runs, was awesome.  GREAT running weather.  Cue Sunday, the day this race took place - FREEZING temps.  Ridiculous.  We had planned to meet early, run 5 and then hit the race for another 5.  The weather just took the wind out of our sails, and since we ran double digits for the last 3 weeks, we figured we'd be fine with 5 this week.  A girl ran past me and she was wearing a pea coat...like the coat I wear to work...and I was like "I'm not even hating."  It was cold.
  The race started and finished at Norbuck Park, and was put on by Run On, who always does a great job. There were sponsors, treats, hot chili (for the finish), cold beer (for the crazies), free samples, a great MC, large outdoor space heaters, etc.  They had it covered - we, of course, took part in almost none of that.  We stood under the heaters before the race and then promptly headed for the car at the end.  So I can't speak to all the post race fun, but it looked great.  It was hilarious when we got there, everyone was huddled by the space heaters and it looked like that scene in I am Legend, when Will Smith has to go into the building to save the dog and all of the weird zombies are huddled together and kind of vibrating as a group.  I was laughing at the scene.
  They started right on time (extra points) and we headed out under Buckner and to the lake.  We ran the lake all the way to the Bath House, at which point they made us take that left and climb up Northcliff.  For those of you that know this hill, you know that it is no joke.  It was a nice little challenge for a 5 mile run - although the 10 milers had to climb back up into the neighborhoods on the way back.  For the 5 mile route, we went up Northcliff, took a right into the neighborhood and then came back down about half way past the Bath House.  Our turn around was before the stone tables and then we just headed straight back to Norbuck.  Easy Peasy.  Took about 2 miles to really feel warmed up and then just as we were getting comfortable, we turned around and figured out where the wind had been.  UGH.  We had the arctic blast in our face most of the way back.
  As I said before, we picked up our medals, looked around and then headed right back to the car, which I promptly drove to Starbucks.  Ha ha!

Here is my updated race calendar for 2014:

2014 Races

January 11, 2014 – Bold in the Cold 15K - DONE

February 2, 2014 – Too Cold to Hold - DONE

February 8, 2014 – Hot Chocolate 15K

March 29, 2014 – Women Rock ½ Marathon

April 19, 2014 – Hit and Run 5K

May 11, 2014 – Gladiator Rock N Run

May 17, 2014 – Spartan Super

May 18, 2014 - Spartan Sprint

July 13, 2014 – Too Hot to Handle

October 5, 2014 – Tough Mudder

November 8, 2014 – Nashville Marathon – not registered yet

Date TBD – Spartan Beast – not registered/scheduled

Hot Chocolate 15K up next - I'm excited to see some of the swag at this race.  

 

Fresh start for 2014...and Bold in the Cold Race Review

I just looked back over my last post, which was last JULY?! - so much for my plans to do a race review for every race last year.  I definitely ran a few more in 2013, but I'll admit that my fitness level definitely deteriorated after September - just lots of life changes that I let get in the way.  In an effort to get back to climbing, crawling and running shape, I'm signed up with a new gym/trainer and I've already put together a Spring schedule that includes a race a month through July.  I have races planned for the latter half of the year, but those are longer distances, so I'll be re-working a schedule for the fall later in the year.  Here is a list of the races I am targeting:

2014 Races

January 11, 2014 – Bold in the Cold 15K - DONE

February 2, 2014 – Too Cold to Hold 5M – not registered yet

February 8, 2014 – Hot Chocolate 15K

March 29, 2014 – Women Rock ½ Marathon – not registered yet

April 19, 2014 – Hit and Run 5K

May 11, 2014 – Gladiator Rock N Run 5K

May 18, 2014 – Spartan Super

July 13, 2014 – Too Hot to Handle 15K – not registered yet

September 13, 2014 – Savage Race – not registered yet

October 5, 2014 – Tough Mudder – not registered yet

November 8, 2014 – Nashville Marathon – not registered yet

Date TBD – Spartan Beast – not registered

Date TBD – Spartan Sprint – not registered

I have high hopes to get in a full marathon this year and I am DEFINITELY getting my orange headband at Tough Mudder this year.  I was registered for 2013, but a number of elements came together and I wasn't able to make the race.  I start the year with a few road races, middle of the year are some OCRs, then it mixes up a little.  

First race for 2014 was the Bold in the Cold 15K out at Lake Grapevine.  I have not been running much, just a few short ones here and there (officially on schedule now), so I was nervous about a 10 mile race.  Turns out, no problems!  I have been working out, so I was not in completely terrible shape, and I took a few short walk breaks at the water stops, but overall, it was great.  I had never run out at Lake Grapevine before and I have to say that it's just beautiful out there.  The course was pretty challenging - who knew there were hills in Grapevine? - and the weather was perfect.  Theresa and I had a lot of fun, we talked the entire race and it was over much faster than I expected.  The shirt is a really cute, women's sized tech shirt, which is always a plus - especially since this race is very reasonably priced.  I think they had cotton shirts last year, but those runners also got beanies, which several people were wearing.  I was happy with the tech shirt instead.  

For a small-ish race, the organization and support were amazing.  All of the volunteers on the course were cheering and saying nice things, the police officers were very friendly and the water stops were so clean and set up well.  I was really impressed with the overall feel of the race and how nice everyone was.  The LGRAW group did a really great job and I will be keeping an eye on their events going forward.  It was nice to run a new place and I would love to see more events like this.  Here is a pic of me and Theresa at the start line and a screen shot of my final route from mapmyrun.com: 

Great start to the new year!  

Summer Muddin' 5K...and an injury

Summer Muddin' 5K is the 3rd race in a 4 race series that I'm running this year.  This was my favorite race of the 3 so far - mainly because it was nice and HOT outside.  The race in March was cold and rainy, the race in May was warm at first but freezing after we got soaked, but this weekend was STEAMY hot and the water only helped with cooling us off when needed.  I'm one of those crazies that prefers running in the super summer temperatures.  They've tweaked the course here and there, but for the most part, I've got the hang of it now.  I was still pretty nervous the morning of the race because somehow (and I'm not sure how) I had convinced several coworkers and family members to sign up for this race as well.  A handful of them had either run a mud run before or at least a road race - but a large percentage of them had not run a race at all.  I was so nervous about everyone having a good time!  At the start line, there ended up being about 15 of us total, all at different levels of fitness.  The last 2 races in this series I've run with two of my girlfriends - both of whom were also there on Saturday.  It worked out perfectly because each fitness level had 3-5 people each, so no one really ran alone that didn't want to, and we ended up finishing in 4-5 different groups.  My cousin Sarah ran with me and she and I ended up running the entire thing together, which was a lot of fun.  I hadn't previously run that entire race, so it was fun to really get after it a little bit...push the limits. 

 

There weren't many changes from the May course - there was one large mound of dirt to crawl AND an extra mud pit, which was new - but other than that, obstacles were the same.  I would like to point out the picture of me climbing the big wall.  It's hard to get up that thing, so some of us girls use the side braces to get up and over.  This also illustrates the funniest part of mud runs, which is that you usually end up with a stranger's hand on your butt at some point during the race.  I managed to do the traverse again, which was awesome - and Sarah and Kelly both did it for their first time!  I still get freaked out at the warped wall, but I'm bound and determined to figure that thing out in October.  There's a much larger version at the Savage Race in November, so I need to get it together and conquer that obstacle.  The slip and slides were super fun, as usual, and it was awesome to go flying into the water with my cousin.  The mud pits were tough - the heat did make it hard to keep the ground soft, so I have a lot of scrapes and bruises on my shins - nothing new for me. 

 

So then, since everything was going SO well, I decided to make a silly decision and hurt myself.  They have an obstacle where there are logs in a brace that you are supposed to climb over (there are 3 in a row).  There are 2 options: one log is about neck height for me and the other is about waist height.  So you have a choice...your own choice to make.  I normally go for the waist high one - it's easy to swing a leg over and hop to the other side.  My cousin was with me (she's a few inches taller than me) and she says, "I'm going to try the high one!"  Well, if you know me, you know that I couldn't let her try the high one without giving it a go myself.  So I put my hands on it and it's obvious that I won't be able to push myself up without a little run and jump action.  So I take a few steps back, run at it, put my hands on it and jump.  I don't make it over enough to stay on the log - but since it's super slick and wet, I slide all the way backwards (4 feet?) and hit the ground (HARD) flat on my back.  It knocked the wind out of me and hurt like hell.  I got up pretty quickly and stepped off the course for just a few seconds.  My poor cousin - I give her mad props, she was so worried and she didn't laugh even once - and I know that it was at least a LITTLE funny to see. I got up, got moving and we finished the race, but I knew that this one was going to really hurt.  We were the second group of people to finish, so we were hanging out watching for the rest of our people.  As we stood there, I could feel the muscles in my neck and upper back starting to lock up, it was pretty painful.  The first call I made when I got in the car was my chiropractor/friend to get some early treatment ideas.  He gave me some tips and I was able to get in to see him today.  Basic diagnosis - a little bit of whiplash - from basically clotheslining myself on a big log.  Nice.  The appointment today helped and now I'm taped up.  It's not HALF as bad as I was expecting for 2 days later.  I'm hoping it will just be a couple of days before it's feeling more normal.  Unfortunately this means I have to go easy this week, which sucks, since I was getting all geeked up about my Summer/Fall training schedule.  *sigh*  Let this be a lession about showing off...it never ends well.

 

 

Matt, Brandon, Brittney, Deanna, Trish and I

 

Me, Aunt Libby (she turns 50 tomorrow!), Stevie, Uncle Steve, Sarah

 

Lisa, Kerstin, Me, Nana and Lauren

 

Up and Over!

 

You always meet nice people at mud runs!

Gladiator Rock N Run 2013

  This was my second year to run this race, which hit the scene in 2012.  Last year we had a large group of family that all ran it together and we had such a blast.  This year a lot of people were busy the day of the race, so it ended up being a group of my coworkers, couple of their spouses, my cousin and her coworker.  I ended up running the entire race with my cousin and her coworker, but my coworkers were right behind us at the finish line, so it was nice that we all pretty much came in together.  This is probably the hardest 5K distance OCR that I've run.  It was pretty tough last year, but they upped the difficulty this year!  It was a different location, and this place was awesome.  It was right on the banks of Lake Ray Hubbard, off one of the large boat ramp areas.  Boat ramps make it a lot easier to get in the lake after the race to clean up! 
  They really shook it up on the obstacle front, which was awesome.  There were some of the usual stuff - wall climbs, tire run, cargo net climb, net crawl - but they had some different things that you usually see in the longer OCRs AND some new stuff that was pretty fun.  There was a big surprise where we had to do a version of a burpee where we pushed a cinderblock up over our head and then completed the burpee motion using the block as a hand grip - we did 30 of those.  There was a tire carry, a 40 lb rice bag carry AND a section where you had to carry a partner about 20 feet and then switch to have them carry you for 20 feet.  That was pretty hilarious.  OH and I almost forgot about the "dumpster diving" obstacle.  We had to climb into AND out of 2 giant dumpsters.  There are buckles on the corners on the outside of dumpsters, but there is NOTHING on the inside.  So we basically had to boost each other out and over the sides.  There were 2 water crossings, one where you had to be submerged to go under some logs and another one where you just had to cross a small creek.  The creek was tough, there were some big concrete blocks under the water and we all ended up with some gashes and bruises from that one.  A huge win for me at this race is that for the first time - I got all the way across the monkey bars!!  I was SO stoked!  So now I've finished a traverse AND the monkey bars.  My goal before the end of the year is to get up the damn rope climb - my nemesis and the only obstacle I didn't complete this weekend - AND to get better at climbing the angled walls, 1/2 pipe obstacles.  I struggled this time on the Beast, which is a steep A frame with ropes to climb up and over.  Unfortunately it gets ridiculously muddy by the time we get there and the ropes this year were thin, muddy and hard to maneuver.  I need to work on pulling my body weight up and over the walls - it will really help with that.  I'm so thankful to my friend's husband who helping launch me up the wall and the nameless volunteer who helped pull me over the top.  I walked away from that one with some gnarly bruises.
  My favorite story of the day (and one my cousin laughed about all the way back home) involves the 300 foot mud pit.  Oh that's right, I hadn't mentioned that yet.  Gladiator decided to really go for broke in the mud pit department and built the "longest mud pit in the world" at this race.  It was broken up into 4 or 5 different trenches, so you'd climb a hill, crawl through mud, climb another hill, more mud, etc.  Well the second trench they made ESPECIALLY deep, so the hill to get over was nearly impossible.  It was steep, slick and had no foot/hand holds.  So basically people were hanging over the top and pulling people over while the people in the trench launched them up and over.  It was our turn and Sarah (my cousin) launched me up while a dude at the top helped pull me over.  You can't just make it to the top either, you have to get OVER the top or you will just slide right back down into the trench again.  So we get Sarah over next and then it's Kelly's turn (my cousin's coworker).  I hang over the top to help this guy pull her while someone at the bottom is pushing her.  The guy pulls her to the top and then turns to help someone else and she starts to slide, so I grab her arm to pull her over and I do TOO good a job because she comes flying over the top, slides down the other side, directly in to me and takes me out as we both go flying into the next trench together.  Damn we were laughing so hard!  I'm pretty sure the photographer caught it, but damn it would have been awesome to have it on video.  Sarah just kept laughing and laughing, standing off to the side as an observer.  She seriously laughed about it the entire ride home.  I was just grateful neither of us got hurt - it was a vicious impact.  Can't wait to see the pictures. 
  Overall it's my favorite so far this year.  The weather was great, the organization was awesome and it was just so much fun.  My next race was supposed to be June 1st, but they just pushed it back to September.  So that means the next one will be Splash Dash 5K on 6/22 with the kiddo!