Madison Mud Run

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.

Farm Fun

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!

Out from the Easy Maze

Conquering the Left Turn Only Maze

I think Joshua was trying to do a left sign

Made it out the Impossible Maze, not so impossible

Lugging the heavy wagon

Check out all our goodies!

Bella's first time with pumpkins and gourds

Also Teddy's first time...Pumpkin's just as big

Joshua making an excellent dinner

Looks as good as it tasted

Scooping out the seeds and stuff

My version of Bella

And there's Bella

Couldn't leave Teddy out

Joshua's scary pumpkin

With heart ears and some weird grated back

Time to sleep

Date Night

Joshua had the day off and I had to work in the morning but we decided to do something after I got done with work. Joshua said he would plan something and did well by not letting me know what. 

After I got done with work, I went to my car and found a note and rose on my windshield. I know...awww! Well done Joshua! But it doesn't end there. The note said to drive to a park near our apartment and to meet him at the top of the hill.

I get to the park and man was that a hill I had to walk up. But I get to the top and find Joshua. He had a picnic all laid out for us (that was one of our first dates years ago). We enjoyed the nice weather and the food and the view.

We were going to watch a movie afterwards but Joshua fell asleep since he's so tired from working 10 hour days 6 days a week. But at least it was nice to do something with him and see him for more than 10 minutes!

View

View

Enjoying the weather

Drinking hot tea

All smiles

The rose he left on my car

Melissa and Rob's Wedding

What an awesome day!!! The weather was a bit chilly but that won't stop us from having a great time, although Joshua did have to miss out.

My friend Meghan and I got to the wedding place earlier than the rest of the guests. We and another girl were asked to help out to make sure the ceremony place looked great and to hand out programs and anything else that Melissa needed. Anything for the bride :)

The ceremony went smoothly. Nice and short. And Melissa and Rob looked great!

Cocktail hour was great too with hor d'oeuvres like meatballs, bacon water chestnuts and french fries with tartar/ketchup sauce in martini glasses. Delish!!! Not to mention all the candy I munched on. Melsa had the best idea and had a candy stand where we could dish out our own candy into bags as our party favors. Talk about sugar overload!

Dinner was amazing...I got steak done medium rare, a little too rare for me but none the less still ate most of it. 

Dancing was so much fun! Always is with the OC crew. And we had A LOT of fun with the photo booth that was there. You can just imagine the type of pictures that were taken.

Thanks Melissa and Rob for an awesome night!!!

Fun With Photo Booth!!!

Joshua Ciafullo, Sous Chef

Alright, so I haven't really mentioned anything about this for weeks cause I didn't want to jinx it.

JOSHUA IS NOW A SOUS CHEF 

AT THE MARRIOTT!!!!!

He has worked so hard and I'm extremely proud of him for sticking with it!

So how did this all come about?

When Joshua came to Wisconsin, he became a server then met me a year later. To impress me, he cooked me an elaborate dinner and then he realized, maybe I could do this as a job. He got a cooking job at a French restaurant through a friend of the owner where he was serving. He learned a bunch of stuff there but wasn't that happy. Luckily while waiting for me to get done at Old Chicago one night, he met a guy there who was a Sous Chef at the Marriott. They got to talking about what they did and lo and behold, the guy was leaving and they were looking for a cook. He told Joshua to go apply and he would vouch for him. And that's how he ended up at the Marriott.

Joshua worked as a rounds cook for the first two years, becoming the Associate of the Year in 2007 then he got promoted to Lead Cook. In 2009, he volunteered and got volunteered to go help open a Marriott in Bloomington-Normal, IL. He was helping so much that they wanted to keep him there. Joshua then got Associate of the Month in Nov 2009 after helping to open.

This year has been the most interesting year for Joshua and cooking opportunities. The Marriott in IL offered Joshua a job in April and it was a tough decision but we decided to forego it. Joshua got a second job at a catering place that does both sit-down and catering. He only worked there for 4 days in a two week span and they offered him a head chef job but the environment was so bad that Joshua wouldn't be able to do his best work there so he decided to forego it. In the meanwhile, he applied at a different restaurant and they loved him, of course, and told him to call back when he got back from our Smokies vacation.

And the sous chef position finally opened up at the Marriott so he applied for it. It took a couple of weeks but Joshua was a finalist of three. Then they each had to make a couple of dishes using specific ingredients kinda like something you would see on a cooking show. And just last night, the Marriott offered Joshua the Sous Chef position! It's a slight increase in pay, more responsibility, more chance for overtime hours but same benefits. More importantly, it's the title. So after all these years of putting hard work into the Marriott and turning down multiple jobs, he finally has the job he has been working towards since day 1 at the Marriott.

And all this without a culinary degree!

Joshua, Sous Chef