Dirty Dash 10K 2011 - Recap

The day had come where we would cross paths with the mud.

I was running the Dirty Dash with my husband, brother and sister in law.

Rachel and I in our custom made tu-tu's.

 Evan and Jeramie in their .. well ..their cute cutoffs?

It was SO cold.  The folks that we had coming up to cheer us on weren't there yet.  So this meant that we had to lose any extra layers at the car and head over to the starting line.  We were in the first wave, which meant a 9am start.  Solider Hollow is up in the Wasatch Mountains so to say the air was crisp was an understatement. I kept making Jeramie wrap his arms around me so that I would maintain some degree of warmth.  Ahead of us we had a muddy hill.  There were so many people at the starting line too.  So we started to make our way to the middle of the pack.  Next thing I knew the gun had gone off and off we went.  Jeramie was the first to slip on the muddy hill.  I was wearing my old trail runner shoes and amazingly had a decent amount of grip under my feet.  Once we made it up the hill the entire crowd gridlocked.  There was basically a passage where you could only walk single file.  At the time we were so cold and ready to run that we were frustrated by this so early in the race.  However once we passed through it actually worked out really well because it forced the crowd to thin and so the course wasn't crowded at all the rest of the way.

We encountered innumerable obstacles:

hay bales

cement tunnels to crawl through

entire pools of COLD muddy water

pools of water with poles you had to climb over

more hay bales

climbing walls you had to go over or crawl through muddy water under

snow blowers

lots of hills

a half mile swamp

rope wall

swing on a rope

and 6.2 miles of crazy amazing fun

There was a 5k short cut but we were all runners and there was no need for a short cut.

This race was the most fun I have had in a long time. 

We laughed non-stop.

And I kept thinking to myself, just don't get injured, just don't get injured.

As I had started my training for my first half marathon in a couple months.

It did not feel like 6.2 miles at all.

While my hands were frozen little Popsicle's at first I think they thawed out after about the first mile.

Jeramie and I jumping in the last big pool of muddy water.

 Me hamming it up for the camera.

 Here's our group.

We ran pretty much most of the way, other than walking through the swamp.

There was a lot of "jog it out, jog it out" being said as we ran up the hills.

 I seriously can't wait to do this again next year.  Maybe even both times (Spring and Fall).

Even for someone that thinks it looks fun this race is great.  It's not serious.  There were a lot of walkers.

I almost forgot the slip and slide too.  That was really fun.  I guess I was slippery because I made it almost the whole way down the slide whereas most people only got about halfway down.

Then there were the balance beams that I literally ran across.

I have to admit I liked hearing Rachel refer to Evan and I as "Howard Super Genes".

She and Jeramie went a little slower across the balance beams.

I guess us Howard's are just good balancers.

Then when I ran she called me a "show off".

Guess some things don't change.

This race was pure fun!

Our official times was like 1:30, but who cares.