Tough Mudder

This past weekend Forrest participated in Tough Mudder. This was an 11 mile obstacle course designed by British Special Forces. I am proud to say my honey went into it with little to no training and took it like a champion. He was on an 11 man team, which ended up splitting along the course into pairs of 2. Forrest ran it with his brother, Tommy, as they helped each other through the obstacles. Cathe, Vera, and I were "spectators," which meant we got to hike the mountain in pursuit of them, hoping to catch them at some of the obstacles. Our efforts were mostly in vain as we were always 2 steps behind, but it was neat to get a firsthand experience with the course.

There were thousands of participants so they started in waves.  Forrest and Tommy were in the 8:40 wave and here they are waiting at the starting line.

Swinging monkey bars across a cold green lake. 

We had fun riding the chair lift and gondola to catch up with them.  This was at the top of Northshore Ski Resort, Tahoe.

"Beast Mode" cheerleaders!

There were some great costumes there; among them, Superman and Batman.  I had to get a picture of this guy.  As you can imagine the hard-bodies were many.

Forrest and Tommy's turn to scale the wall.  This was at the end of the 11-mile course.

Wet, dirty, fatigued and 4 hours later... they finished!

My sexy "mudder."

This was yesterday, the "recovery mudder."  He received an Under Armour shirt which I thought was so awesome (Under Armour is my favorite brand of workout gear.)  Good job babe, I am so incredibly proud of you!  Next year, we'll be on the same team. :)

Ragnar

Two weekends ago I competed in Ragnar. I was on a team of 12 girls and we ran a relay race from San Francisco to Napa Valley (Calistoga) for a total distance of 194 miles- nonstop. It took us 34 hours start to finish, and we sacrificed 2 nights sleep. Our check-in time was 3:30 a.m. Friday morning in S.F., meaning we had to leave CP at 1:00 a.m. Thursday night. We did get a hotel briefly on Friday night where we were able to shower and sleep for about 3 1/2 hours before completing our 3rd legs, but by Saturday we were pretty spent. There's so much I could say about this experience, but mostly that I would do it again. I hit a low Friday night after I had been up for 36 hours and run 2 of my 3 legs, but those few hours of sleep at the hotel did wonders and gave me just enough pep to finish my 3rd leg Saturday morning. Like anything else, the challenge is what made the experience so rewarding. I loved the comaraderie between all the teams. It was fun to run into other friends there, also. We went out to dinner as a team to Mimi's Cafe after the race and relished in celebration.

Here's me before the race, thinking I was going to get a few hours sleep.

This marker became my beacon that I came to look  forward to on each leg.  My legs: 5.4 mi., 7.9 mi., and 3.3 mi.

Here we are (half the team) after our first two legs, enjoying a little break at major exchange point 1.

Showing off our Ragnar tattoos.

The end of the race, about 3:00 p.m. Saturday afternoon.  We were so stiff we didn't know if we were going to be able to cross the finish line together, but we did.  All 12 of us.