So this weekend has been crazy but I added another run to my resume!
Friday night on the way home from work we had flash floods and insane storms all night.
I spent Saturday working inventory at my work starting at 6am. I'm used to being in a desk and this was 8 hours (with a lunch break thank god) on my feet in steal toe/steel metatarsal heavy boots climbing around a steelyard. Ooooof. Two baby toe blisters later and I was wondering why I'd agreed to do "mandatory inventory." I was beat!
But fast forward to this morning for The Great Pumpkin Race!
My friend had run it the day before (it's a race offered two days in a row) and posted that the course was total mud. She'd lost her shoes in the corn maze. We also got an email from the organizers saying not to wear our good shoes.
I scrapped any plans to wear anything cute and grabbed some sneakers from circa 2001 that I bought for walking at Disney way back when. They were white behemoths. I say "were" because "spoiler alert" they wouldn't make it home with me. Luckily the race was at 10 am (4 waves 15 min apart starting at 10 and we were in wave 1) so we got to sleep a little later than usual for race days. My mom met us at the farm to hang out with my daughter while we ran.
My hubs decided to do the Tough Pumpkin option with me. For a few extra bucks you get a pumpkin that they weigh and it becomes your best friend, cause you have to carry that thing throughout the race to receive a special medal. We each got 3lbs-ers. I grabbed ones with good stems to give some holding options. I mostly went with football hold.
The first 100 feet of the starting line was pure mud. Like "get stuck in" mud. We just hoped that would be the worst of it. Hahahahahaha.
(It wasn't)
The first two miles were through open farm and offered quite a bit of hills. There were parts that reminded me of running on sand (not real easy) and parts that were smoother and much easier. Nothing as easy as roads which is all I'm used to. My hubby told me to go ahead of him a bit. I should mention that I choose not to run with anything but my pumpkin. So no gps/phone/music. I'm kinda glad. Still like my music for road runs, but I needed all my focus on everyone around me and the ground.
I had taking a few walk breaks through the 2 miles but didn't feel one ounce of bad about it. No sense getting hurt for no reason.
The second mile was probably the easiest terrain and my hubby agreed making up good time there. But then the corn maze approached and who would have known what was waiting for us. Ever been in quicksand? Me neither, but I'm guessing it was like this. To say the last mile was easily over 20 min is being conservative. People were trying to hang as close to the corn as possible, single file, trying not to get stuck...cautiously running any dry parts. It was insane. Lots of laughter and cursing heard all over. And then my shoes succumbed to the mud! My feet came right out my very well tied shoes. My feet covered in mud at this point, I see a girl run by in her socks. And then I decided to just "Leg it Go" and had my Elsa moment...but the mud version of Elsa. I picked up my shoes in one hand, my pumpkin in the other, and I ran through the mud like a crazy person. When I eventually hit mile 3 my socks were so heavy with mud they were starting to slip off. I was only holding my shoes thinking that at some point we'd be out if the maze and I could "wipe them off" and put them back on. Hahaha
At this point I decided I was gonna run through the finish smiling with my pumpkin and shoes held high. And that's what I did to some very big applause and laughter from spectators. I found my mom and daughter who said " take a bath dude" and got my medals. One for finishing, one did holding a pumpkin, none for holding my shoes.
I saw my hubby exiting the maze and went to see him cross the finish. He was only 3 min behind me and was still inside his shoes. We were having a silly time about it. I imagine earlier this year something like this would have made me frustrated and sad. Now I'm an insane runner person and was just excited to have a funny running story and something else to say I accomplished.
We had brought towels and clean shoes luckily. we got free cider and pumpkins and had a nice time. I'd recommend doing these races but ONLY if you wait to register day of IF there was no rain the week before.
Final time? I came in 73rd place of just under 700 people...in 43:16! I think it was the socks that made me fast at the end. Haha
My hubby was 46 something and also up there in the rankings. Super proud of him! Mostly for being better than me at keeping on his footwear!
I think the winner came in a 29 something. I literally have no idea how he did that. Maybe he wore cleats? I'll attach pics because I'm too tired to look up how to imbed them in the post. I promise to learn that soon!
Update: I'm 162 out of 678. I was 73rd in my wave of 200. I'll still take that
