Monday, May 14, 2012

Happy Mudder's Day!

(In case you haven't seen my facebook profile, I thought I'd blog about the Marine Mud Challenge that I did on Saturday.  Besides, I want to remember some of these details, so this is also for me personally.)  

First let me say that I had no intention of doing this.  A week ago a friend of mine posted on Facebook that someone had dropped out of her team, and she needed a new member.  On an impulse, I signed up.  The team was called "RMFAO" which stood for: Running My Fat BUM Off.  Since I have been trying to get to a healthier weight, this sounded like a good workout for me.  :)  And, well, it was.


The course is 5 miles long.  We started out running up a mud bank where a very nice Marine then shot us with a fire hose.  Then we had to run through some muck, up this mud bank, slide down the other side under the cargo net, and crawl out through the tunnel.  5 minutes in, and I was wet, muddy, and scraped up.  Fun!



The course had a lot of challenging obstacles... especially for a girl like me who has no upper body strength. I managed to do them ALL, except this one.  With some team assistance, I got my bum up onto the lower bar, but I was too scared to go up over the top bar and then drop down.  That bottom bar is about 8 feet high.  (I had to jump up to grab it.) I went over much higher things, but they all offered a little more to hold onto.  I was shaking like a leaf on this one, and it was the only time on the whole course where I was freaked out.


This was the first of many walls to climb over.  I had never climber over a wall before in my life and I was so proud of myself for getting up there!  Little did I know there were like 4 more walls to climb on the course.  Nathan and Eve were spotting me on my drop down, but I still managed to scrape up my knee on the wall and land on my bum in a pile of pine cones.  Also, a teenager from our church was racing just behind us and broke his leg coming over this wall.  He's having surgery on it today.


This was the taller of two sets of "stairways."  No problemo.


This was the beastliest thing, that I actually accomplished.  The tire wall was very high (15 feet?) and you climbed it like a cargo net.  That was tricky enough, but then you had to go over the top- and my legs weren't long enough to be holding onto anything as I scooted over the top, so I held onto that chain for dear life.  Then you had to climb down the other side.  


Running down the sand cliff. 


Wading through the "big pit" there were I think 5 of these logs that you had to climb over... funny that I don't remember exactly, but I was just very focused on whatever was directly in front of me. 


I'm in the foreground here getting ready to climb over yet another wall out of the last mud pit.  Eve is behind me.  The Marines were yelling at us to belly crawl through this mud... it was so thick and deep, it was hard to lift your feet out of it.


Go team!!  
I'm so glad I did this.  It was HARD, but it's great to feel like I can do hard things.  Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.  ;)


When i got home I was welcomed by 3 beautiful roses from my 3 beautiful babies.  Thank you sweet Rob for encouraging me and supporting me in all my dorky plans! 


After a long, hot shower we headed out with a picnic dinner to Lady Antebellum Amphitheater to hear the Symphony Orchestra of Augusta.  The kiddos danced and played to the classical tunes.

It's a lovely venue.


And I am a lucky momma. 
Best. Mother's Day. Ever.

5 comments:

Aubrey said...

Julie, this is so awesome! You are BAD BUM! :)

Glad you had a fab Mother's Day. Love to the Andersons!

Mandy Benton said...

Julie! That course looks like so much fun--and so so challenging! Reminded me a lot of the obstacle courses we had to do at basic training. I would have loved to do that course with you. If ONLY we were in GA! Glad you had a good mother's day. You deserve it!

Suz said...

You rock Jules! Seriously, I have always wanted to do this and you look just awesome in all of these pics. Love your stinkin' guts girlie!

Harmony said...

Congratulations, Julie! Wow, 5 miles of running with obstacles.
I sure miss you and your family.

Emily Springer said...

you are my official hero and i wished we lived closer cuz i would do all kinds of dorky stuff with you.