The Dirty Dash

I organized a team to participate in the Dirty Dash and the long awaited day finally arrived! 16 of my friends ended up running. My friend, Windy, dropped out at the last minute, so Dustin took her place. At the first of the race, there was a contest. The first one to run to a certain point up a muddy hill, back down again and slide home-run style was the winner. Guess who won? (Hint: Not me!)

Joe came up with our team name, Skid Marks, and we had some awesome shirts printed.

Here's a before shot:

Front row: Amy Gunn, Kevin Spraker, Steffanie Barnes, Kim Knudsen, Amber Barton

Back row: Maggie Arave, Dustin Barnes, Jennifer Barron, Anne Ringle, Kaylene Spraker, Jamie Moline, Shaylin Cunningham, Brittany Christensen, Gary Bowers, Joe Christensen, Shantel VanWagoner

Our race time was 9:20 a.m. We had to leave at 6:45 on Saturday morning. When we first got there it was pretty cold. When I saw this...

it made me a little bit nervous. I didn't know exactly what to expect. I definitely didn't expect to have the most fun I have EVER had!

The first obstacle was a HUGE mud hill that we had to climb up. There were tons of hay bales to jump over, walls to scale, tunnels filled with mud to crawl through, swamps to wade through, balance beams to cross (but it was more fun to crawl through the mud below), cargo net walls (this one was a little scary), rope swings. I had two equally favorite obstacles. On the first one, they had a series of blue tubes that most of the people were straddling and flopping over. My team decided to go underneath them. It was so unlike me to do something so crazy, but it was super fun! The other one was a huge blow up slide. Before going down, they squirted you with dish soap. I ran, slid on my stomach and zipped down the slide so fast. It was a blast!

Here's our group approaching the finish line. This is the same puddle of water as above. I was wishing at this point that we could have done the 10k. I was having so much fun, and I didn't want it to be over.

I absolutely LOVE this picture. We look like a bunch of sea creatures emerging from the swamp. So much fun :)

Post race portrait!

Shantel, Kim and Amber

Shay, Joe, Brittany and Jamie

Shay and Jamie

Kaylene

This is a race that encourages costumes. There were lots of crazy, creative and just plain weird ideas. I could have sat there all day long and just watched. These guys were definitely my favorites. Probably not the best costumes I saw, but they were the most fun! I was tempted to give them a big muddy hug.....

I love this picture of Jamie after her shower. Showers were available after the race, but they were ICE COLD!!! I washed myself off the best I could, but the cold water made my head hurt SO BAD! I still had mud all over my face, but there was NO WAY that I was putting my face in that water.

I had so much fun with this race. I am so grateful for such a fun group of friends. I cannot wait until next year!!!