Sunday, Bloody, Sunday....

Can you hear the opening bars to the song, for those of you unfamiliar with the song, skip to the next line! Now cut away to the Muddy Buddy. Opening scene, thousands of people, really. There are 2400 people there. 1200 teams all ready to go. There were brides and grooms, ballerina's in tutus, cops and robbers, and superheros galore, but wait there's more. There were guys in coconut bras, and even old grandmas, the sky was the limit and Brad and I were in it. Oh wait, the kids are watching the Cat in the Hat while I blog and the overwhelming urge to rhyme just hit me. We were in the gray wave. I joked with Brad that it matched our age group which was 85, our combined ages. I think we were the 8th wave to go.

I started on the bike. That first leg of the race was about 1.5 miles. Did I mention I hadn't ridden Brad's bike until right when the cannon blew to mark our start? Anyway, the cannon blows, and off we go like maniacs. I am happy to say I was passed by very few and stayed right up front. I was frickin flying. I was so amazingly stoked, I felt like a mountain biker, like yeah, X-terra, watch out, I have mad skills, here I come!!!! Grrrrrr....

I got to the first obstacle, dropped my bike, ran to the rock climbing wall, picked two really chunky hand holds to put my foot on, pull up on, threw my leg over(so who knew I was so flexible??) took one step on the net side and jumped.

I started running, a pace faster then I was used to because I got a stitch right away which I choose to run through. I think I was frothing at the mouth I was so rabid, I wanted hardware, I wanted this race so badly, nothing was going to stop us from placing. Brad passed me on the bike, we yelled greetings at each other and he sped ahead. I made it to the next obstacle. It was those freaking balance beams. I did it straddling two beams last year, this year I had someone on the beam next to me. I could only do one. I started and I fell halfway through, got back up, started again, fell again then started to the bike.

I grabbed the bike and took off like the devil himself was chasing me. I was flying again. I am passing you, I am coming to get you Barbara, watch out cause if you're in my way, you're going down. Famous last thought! Who's going down, yeah you, no me!!! I went down, and no one followed me. I come flying down this incline, not even a hill really, I had to make a kind of sharp-ish right, and I bit it. No, not the turn, the ground silly. My back wheel went out and that was that. Holy sh*t, I hit the ground like an anvil on the Coyote's head. I think I heard the noise he heard when it hit too. Thank goodness I had my helmet on. It took a second to shake the birdies from around my head, as I was regaining my composure a kind woman stopped to see if I was hurt, I told her only my pride was, thanks for stopping and to keep racing her race. I hopped back on my bike, trying to fly again while assessing the damage done. My bike was working, that was a plus, my right leg was scraped and and a bit bloody, and my arm and shoulder hurt like hell. I made it to the next section where Brad was waiting.

Funny, he didn't notice the mess I was, he grabbed the bike and went. It was bad that he was there already and I was just getting him the bike. He took off like a bat out of hades and I had to do this stupid over and under obstacle. It was just too stupid to describe, imagine saw horses stacked and that's what it looks like.

As I started my run, this guy asks me if I'm okay. I look at him and ask why, he responds, Looks like you took a really nasty spill. Oh yeah, that pesky bike incident. I get my stitch back and work on my breathing to control the hurt. I stopped once, not intentionally, but once already, I am not stopping again dammit. I get to the last obstacle, a huge rope ladder up a slide, I'd say it was 20 feet in the air (or at least seems that way to someone who is afraid of heights) and slide down. I search for the bike. I couldn't find it, there it was, with another bike propped almost on top of it. I hop on and know that the stream crossing and Heartbreak hell, I mean Hill await me. Off I fly, get to the stream, hoist the bike on my shoulder, slog through, pull off to the side, switch into a good gear to start the hill and start pedalling like mad. Low gear, high cadence, low gear, high cadence is the mantra I am meditating to. Unfortunately no one else is and this non-mantra repeating guy and two girls decide that right in front of me is where they need to dismounting because they are grinding away and getting nowhere. Get the bleep out of my way ding-a-lings! I run past them, get back on my bike, stand for the first few strokes and pass a bunch of walkers. After that, I am hitting the road. No really, they direct you out to the road and it's smooth sailing from there. So I go, when I say I was weaving in and out of runners, bikers, humanity I was. Brad was waiting for me, I drop the bike and we get to the mud pit. Well as luck would have it, my foot got stuck in the net as we start. The bad thing is people are pulling up on the net, pulling the thing tighter and tighter on my ankle, I pull my foot out of my sneaker, grab it and we commando crawl through the mud. This year the mud was like really thick frosting. I like it way better then last year chocolate soup, and ta-da! We cross the finish line.

I won't bore you with the details of washing the mud and waiting for results. When the results were in, we came in 13 out of 75. Disappointing, devastating, disgusting, we coulda been a contenda, shoulda placed, woulda had the hardware. But due to the miscalculation of a turn, the slip of a wheel and the biting of some major dust, we weren't. Not this time, but I do believe we will be running again next. And watch out, we will be crushing the course, doing the damage and coming home with hardware or my name isn't Wile E Coyote...