Cindy Lou: October 2010

Last race of the year! A fun one! Well, should be...right? It was but not without consequences.

Joshua and I joined with one of my friends and her brother and his wife formed a team called the MadRock Runners. Not too creative...the three of us live in Madison and her brother live in Rockton, so became MadRock. We knew we weren't going to win anything but decided to form a team anyways.

We get to the park around 8:45. Temperature was about 35 degrees at that time. Our wave was suppose to go at 9:15 with the first wave at 9:00. 9:00 rolls around...they're still doing the costume contest (which none of us dressed up by the way). 9:15 comes, no one has started yet. Finally, it does. By that time, the temperature increased a few degrees, maybe to 40, 42.

Joshua and I run away from the rest of our group down the hill toward the first obstacle which felt like forever, okay maybe a quarter mile from the starting line. Obstacle Number 1: Wicked Water Crossing, which was waist deep cold water with ropes on the sides to hold onto if needed. The crossing was about 10 feet long.

Brr...now I'm cold and running into the wind. And I'm losing my shorts...good thing I was wearing my bathing suit bottom. It felt like another quarter mile run until we reached Obstacle Number 2: Freaky Foam Tunnel which was suppose to have Halloween themed music and strobe lights filled with sudsy foam. I don't remember any music or any strobe lights and the foam was not much of an obstacle. Disappointed with that obstacle.

More running...then Obstacle Number 3: Witch's Wall Climb which was a 5' tall wall with rock climbing holds to help us get over the wall. Not bad...pretty easy with the rock holds.

Just so I don't keep repeating myself, the obstacles were short and there were lots of running in between.

Obstacle Number 4: Spooktacular Slippery Slope which was basically a short steep hill.

Obstacle Number 5: Haunted Forest, supposedly a dark forest filled with creepy ghosts and goblins. Not so dark as it was not covered and it was daylight out. No ghosts nor goblins. Basically running through some woods.

Obstacle Number 6: Creepy Crawl, which we crawled through 10 feet long tubes. There should've been mud there but there wasn't.

Obstacle Number 7: Obstacle Course of Doom, a 52' long inflatable obstacle course that includes barriers, a wall climb and a fun slide. In other words, one of those kid's inflatable fun goodness you may see at a small carnival or park event.

Obstacle Number 8: Terrifying Tires, a pile of tires...literally a pile of tires. I was afraid of twisting my ankle. They should have made it as a tire run like you see at a boot camp. That would've been fun.

Obstacle Number 9: Hell's Hurdles, a steep uphill filled with hay bale hurdles. These were a bit challenging trying to hurdle up the hill. I cleared the first few but then had to step on the hay bale instead of hurdling because my energy depleted. Finally! A challenging obstacle.

Obstacle Number 10: Skeleton Slip and Slide which was suppose to be 100' of slip and slide but there was no slipping or sliding because there was no constant water to slip and slide down. So we had to carefully go down the hill on a tarp.

Obstacle Number 11: Werewolf Wall Climb, another 5' wall climb that had a rope to help get over except the rope wasn't helping, even the volunteers said not to use the rope but to haul yourself over like you're getting out of a pool. Joshua had to use the good old hand hold grip for me to get a step up over the wall.

Obstacle Number 12: Black Cat Balance Beam, 4" wide and 40' long winding beams. I almost fell a few times but caught my balance each time to complete that obstacle successfully.

Obstacle Number 13: Spider Web Crawl, a 6' high of cargo nets. It was fine until I reached the top, swung my leg over to climb back down when my thumb got caught in the cargo net, trapped between the rope and the wood as someone was pulling on it. Now I've got an awesome bruise.

Obstacle Number 14: Pyramid of Pumpkins, a pyramid of hay bales which I easily scaled and went over. It would've been more fun if it was a HUGE pyramid like on American Gladiators.

Obstacle Number 15: Scarecrow's Swamp Crossing, which I don't even remember. Either I was getting hypothermic or it was a small obstacle that I didn't even notice it.

Obstacle Number 16: Mummy's Mud Pit. Perhaps the best obstacle of the entire course. Knee deep mud that you HAD to crawl through. This was the muddiest obstacle and I wish more obstacles were like this were you ended up with mud all over yourself.

FINISH LINE!!! 47 minutes and 11 seconds! Not bad for the congestion at several obstacles. I felt good about my pace.

By the time I finished, I was so incredibly cold and was probably getting hypothermia that we did not stay for the free wings and beer. We went back to the car to get out of the wind and cold. We cranked up the heat and I changed shirts and sat in the car for a good half hour before actually leaving. But that didn't even help as I was shivering the entire way home and that wasn't good cause I was driving. When we got home, I immediately jumped into the shower and just stood under the hot water for 15 minutes before even washing up. I must've been in the shower for 45 minutes using up all the hot water.

Would I do this again next year? Maybe. They need heaters definitely at the end so people don't freeze to death at this time of the year. They hold one in the spring so maybe I'll do that one instead because it won't be as cold. There's also an event called the Tough Mudder which is twice the distance and 5 times harder. I may do that one next year...it's in July so it won't be so cold hitting that water.

I bought a sport disposable camera so when I finally use that all up sometime, I'll post those pictures up. Unfortunately due to the extreme cold and not being able to feel my fingers and being disoriented at times, I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted to.

Fun times...time to be a hermit and rest until next season...well, I'll probably try to run 3 times a week until I go into full training mode in February/March.

Shockingly, Joshua and I both had off...for the ENTIRE day!!! But what to do? Joshua found us a fall activity to do. Corn maze at Skelly's Farm Market in Janesville.

We weaved our way through 2 corn mazes along with a left turn only maze. The first corn maze we did was called Campfire Stories Corn Maze and it was fairly easy. And if it wasn't easy enough, there was a map that people could use to find their way out. We did have the map and only used it twice. We hit a few dead ends here and there but it was easy to back track and go the other route.

We then stopped by the Left Turn Only maze to try it out. As the name says, only left turns. We did it! But I got a bit dizzy afterward cause I was just basically circling around.

We then had our go at the Impossible Maze. I kinda wanted to try that without the map but after a quick glance at the map, I knew we had to use it. There was no way we'd finish that maze without it because there were A LOT of dead ends long after you made a route decision and dead ends that led to dead ends. I still wanna go back and try without a map.

After the mazes, we decided to go pick out pumpkins. We actually went out into the fields and picked them out since Joshua has never done that before. He was like a kid again! We also got a few gourds, apple cider, homemade doughnuts and mmmm my favorite caramel apple! It was a fun time at the farm!

When we got back to the apartment, we made some dinner. Chicken with some cream sauce, homemade garlic spinach mashed potatoes and asparagus. Mmmmm, delish! So glad I have a Sous Chef in the apartment!

We continued on our all day date with a movie, My Best Friend's Girl, which had its moments. But we also carved our pumpkins. Joshua was a bit sad cause his pumpkin was a bit old and dried out and rotting. But we still had fun and we saved the pumpkin seeds to be baked later on.

Whew! Time for bed!