THE DIRTY DASH

In the middle of summer my darling friend Katie, who by the way is an amazing runner, AMAZING my friends, told me about a race she was interested in doing. Something called The Dirty Dash. I was instantly intrigued. When I looked up the race information, read about the course and obstacles, I knew I had to do it. Katie and her husband BJ (who is also an amazing runner) let me tag along with their team and run the race with them. I'm so glad they let me come along. It was a blast.

Let me tell you a little about this race. It took place last Saturday, September 25th. You can run it as an individual or with a team. We opted to run it as a team. The race was held at Solider Hollow where some of the 2002 Olympic winter events were held. We ran on dirt trail, where in some areas was drenched with water to make the course more challenging. The course was filled with 5 or 6 different obstacles, including a snow making machine shooting out snow at the top of one of the hills, barrels of hay you had to climb/jump over, tunnels you had to crawl through, walls to climb/jump over, and tires you had to run/walk through. Not to mention there was a secret obstacle that ended up being running in Deer Creek reservoir which was muddy, nasty and actually really hard to run in. The best obstacle by far was the HUGE SLOP 'N SLIDE going down the mountain. Seriously so much fun. Oh yeah and to cross the finish line you had to jump in this huge puddle of mud, crawl your way through it and climb up one more mound of mud. Awesome. The course itself without the obstacles was pretty tough. There were many hills with some pretty steep inclines. Needless to say this was not a race for the weak at heart!

I've posted some pictures of the event, yes even some I took from the professional photographers sight, I won't be printing them, promise. What you really need to do is get on facebook, and look at THE DIRTY DASH wall and check out the pictures posted. They are some really funny ones and you'll get a better idea of what the race was really like.

I was most nervous about climbing the walls, what can I say, I'm short and have weak arms. When I told Mike I was doing this race and told him about the course, he told me I needed to start doing push ups everyday or I wouldn't be able to do it. Thanks honey. Looks like I did ok clearing those walls after all.

Classic look of disgust/please don't fall.

Katie and I before taking the plunge into the mud pit. Here goes nothing....

Apparently I'm enjoying the mud pit.

Truth be told, it wasn't that bad, and actually felt kinda nice.

Our team after we finished. We didn't get as muddy as I thought we would but we weren't clean either. My team was awesome. BJ and Katie are such strong, fast runners, they could have finished much faster than the rest of us but were kind enough to stick with us three slow pokes. Thanks guys.

BJ, Katie, Me, Scott and Mark

The race sold out this year, (they even opened a second race for later in the day) and will for sure sell out next year. I would highly recommend putting it on your list of things to do. It's not a race that guarantees a PR, but it's a challenge full of good times and lots of laughs!

So glad I got to be part of the

FIRST EVER mud run

in good old Utah.

Can't wait for 2011!