Run Like A Mudder

I want to run.  I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike. Oh, sorry, Queen got stuck in there for a minute. I want to run races.  I want to do a mud run.  There’s only one thing stopping me. Me. Well, that and the fact that my left running shoe is about to turn itself into a peep-toe flat.  I can only imagine what my Asics have to say on the matter. As many times as I have said it, I want to run.  I even said it a few sentences ago.  See?  I do say it a lot.  I have started running again several times.  One of my favorite pinned items on Pinterest says “If you’re tired of starting over, stop giving up.” There’s a girl beside the text.  What is she doing?  Running, of course!  It’s a sign.  Maybe it’s just a sign that people quit running a lot.  I understand that, it’s not like it’s easy!  If it were, everyone would do it.  And no one would be overweight. So, to sum up, running is hard. I have done two 5K races in my life.  The first one I did not even two months after I had my second child.  I love to say that it sounds so hard core.  I recall right after the cord was cut saying to what, oddly, was a roomful of med students that I now had to go train for a race.  It was the medication talking mostly. My second 5K was a week after that same child turned 3.  Good and spaced out.  I did manage to shave almost seven minutes off my time, though.  Unfortunately, not a very impressive time to begin with.  Oh, well, we aren’t all Kenyan.  Gotta start somewhere. I want something to challenge me, and yes, running on its own does that.  I want a REAL challenge.  I want…the Tough Mudder.  Probably the toughest event on the planet, it says so right there on the website.  Ten or so miles and about twenty obstacles to get through.  Now when I say obstacles, my mind automatically reaches back through the television ages and channels the old Nickelodeon show Double Dare.  Anybody else remember that or am I really showing my age here? I don’t mean walking a balance beam or, as it were, trying to find an orange flag in a pile of goo.  Ever see Ninja Warrior?  It’s kind of like that.  Crawling through a field of dangling live wires, jumping bales of flaming hay, a massive pit of mud to traverse.  THOSE are obstacles, baby.  Nary an orange flag to be seen. Luckily and somewhat surprisingly, your finish time at Tough Mudder is probably the least important thing anyone focuses on.  Getting through it and helping people out along the way is what it’s about.  I have seen YouTube clips of parts of the races that bring me to absolute tears they are so great and that is not something I admit willingly.  Look up Tough Mudder on YouTube.  You’ll see what I mean. It is, without a doubt, hard core.  And it is what I want. This may come as a shock to you, but I am not a Marine.  No, it’s true.  Spare me your gasps of surprise.  I possess what I believe to be about the average amount of upper body strength for a chick.  Which means I can’t do a pull-up.  That bothers me.  Partially because I know that won’t get me through Tough Mudder.  At all.   I also can’t expect a REAL Marine to follow behind me and hold my legs up when I have to do things like monkey bars.  Ascending monkey bars.  The humanity. Yes, people will gladly help, but I’d really rather not need it if I can at all avoid it.  That’s why I have to start training for it.  Another potential problem is the entry fee.  It’s no $25 road race, dude.  It’s a three digit price tag.  Proceeds go to a very worthy cause, the Wounded Warrior Project.  If anybody deserves my money it’s them.  Or March of Dimes.  Or Susan G. Komen.  But they aren’t getting it.  Wounded Warrior is.  Oh, except for the fact that I don’t have that kind of money to donate.  See the potential for an issue there? Yes, without the funds, I’m really just running up and down my parents’ driveway looking for a mud puddle to jump in when I’m done.  While my 3 and 4 year olds will disagree, I don’t think that is worthwhile. I don’t know how long it would take me to fully train for the Tough Mudder, but I do know that Zumba alone will not accomplish it.  More’s the pity.  I gotta do the stuff I avoid in the weight room.  The stuff I used to be “sick” for in gym class.  Yeeeahh, pretty much the stuff I can’t do. Oh, I also would prefer not to do this alone.  Any volunteers?  I can’t make my Hetero Life Mate Rosa do it.  She says no.  Some days it’s hell, no.  Other days it’s HAELLLL NO!  I’m pretty sure one of these days it’ll be ‘stop asking me’ followed shortly by ‘I think we should see other Hetero Life Mates.’ People, I implore you.  Don’t make me roll in the mud by myself.   Incidentally, when you finish you do get a bright orange headband.  Hey, it could have been a flag in some goo.