Dear hubby and I entered our very first race. It was the Jailbreak (www.runthejailbreak.com), run for a charity called Sower of Seeds. SOS drills clean water wells in India.
The trail was 3.8 miles chock full of crazy fun obstacles. Dear Hubby (DH) and I arrived early. We parked at the Texas Motor Speedway and took the "prison bus" (aka Northwest ISD school bus on loan) to the Jailbreak course at Adventure Park DFW.
We were sporting our very cool bright prison orange t-shirts that we got in our race packets. That was very cool, the picking up of the race packets the night before the race. Packet distribtion occurred at a very fancy Marriot hotel. This being our first adventure of this magnitude, we were scoping out the competition as it were. We realized that we were not going to be the fattest or slowest runners in the race and felt a little better about ourselves. Our self-confidence rising, we waited our turn in line. As we approached the table to pick up our packets, the elderly lady behind the counter looked us up and down, raised her eyebrows and asked dubiously, "Are you here to pick up a race packet?" Our rising self-esteem started to ebb quickly. We assured her that we were here for the race, and tried to act as if we knew what we were doing.
We picked up our race numbers and t-shirts and headed off. Our anticipation was growing again. We had race numbers! We were running in a race.
The bus dropped us off and we explored the public area of the race. The stage was ready for a band, Monster representatives were handing out free samples, which we passed on. The bbq stand was smoking...
The starting area was fenced off and the runners were sent off through a large gateway covered in lights. The runners were sent off in waves every 30 minutes after a quick warm-up.
We scoped out the finish line and wandered around for about an hour before our wave. I looked around and saw that most people were wearing shorts. We were decked out in our BDU pants. I kept asking DH if we looked out of place. He didn't seem to care about that. I think he was worried about the snakes and various other Texas swamp critters we were bound to encounter in the wilderness. (I have to interrupt this story to give my readers some background on DH. He was born and raised in the CITY. I think the most exposure he had to any type of nature was limited to the various city parks he frequented as a child/juvenile delinquent. The first time he visited our farm after we started dating, we took a walk in the woods and he walked through the grass with his hands held over his head, keeping his fingers safe from harm. And when we moved to Texas, the entire drive down here he envisioned the ground writhing with snakes.) That being said, I was pretty impressed that he only required that we wear the BDU's, and not chain mail, bear bells and snake repellent. I was also impressed that he seemed so calm and together.
We clumped up with the other racers as our wave approached. We certainly didn't want to be first out the gate and run the risk of being trampled by the competitive people. We were also feeling brave and confident again and wanted to break away from our natural state of non-joiners, so we clumped ourselves right in the middle of the group. Those of you who know us well are probably shaking your heads thinking, "YEah right, here comes the fiction." No we really didn't go last.
Our wave didn't get the traditional warm-up. The race director stood on the trialer that doubled as a stage for the warm-up boot camp people and quieted us. He told us that they had their first serious injury of the weekend and that it happened on the water slide. When we got to the water slide, we were to lay flat, feet up and be sure not to try to slow down or stop ourselves. Then "ready, set go" or was it "1, 2, 3, Go?"
Either way, we were off and the off-duty sheriff's deputy started blaring his siren as we herded off to our "jailbreak." DH and I took off through the gate and immediatley down a very steep hill, surprised that we didn't tumble down like Jack and Jill. Avoiding breaking our crowns was high on our list of race priorities. Up and hill and over some jumps and junk and stuff. Then through the first watery muddy obstacle. I immediately slipped and tumbled face first into the mud. Laughing and sprawling around, I managed to get up and run, thick mud drying on my hands.
We ran and ran and ran through some tunnels, more mud and a some railraod cars with some crazy man shooting paintballs at us. We came upon our first major water obstacle. We had to ford a dirty lake. Ewwwww. In we charged, grinning from ear to ear. DH had his hands above his head, but this was to protect his cell phone, which he had along in a plastic baggie.
After each of the water obstacles, there was a long stretch of very slippery mud. This slowed us down a great deal. We tried quick stepping and slow stepping and even mud skating, but it didn't matter, it was slow going.
We forded another big swampy area, and ran, according to my calculations about 100 miles, through the woods. We had to run through another paintball shooting obstacle with some girl dressed in a creepy outfit making strange sounds (not sure how that fit into the whole jailbreak theme, but whatever) and some guy yelling, "Get back into your cells." That was fun. We finally came upon our first water station and the volunteer shouted, "Great job guys, 1 mile down."
After running a lot more (realizing after the first water station, that my calculations were a bit off, I just tried not to think about how far we were running at that point) we finally came upon the water slide. I had been thinking about it for awhile. I was trying to act cool and we chatted with some fellow racers in the line leading to the water slide. Meanwhile in the back of my mind, I was recalling all of the clumsiest moments of my life, worrying about the serious injuries that awaited me on the dreaded slide. I kept telling myself, "Just relax, don't try to stop yourself. It can't be that dangerous. It's already Sunday and probably 10,000 people have run so far and only one person has been injured." Just as I was starting to feel confident again, someone came rushing up from behind pushing us out of the way shouting, "Move aside, EMS." I looked at the bottom of the slide and some girl was holding her arm crying.
Oh boy. I was about to shove DH out in front of me to test the slide, when a girl behind me handed me her camera and asked if I would take her picture when she was going down the slide. Since I am very uncoordinated, I decided to go in front of DH so while he was sliding down, I could try to stand up and get my balance so I could take the girl's picture.
I stood at the top of the slide waiting my turn. The slide was made of plastic garbage bags lined up down a pretty steep hill. It kind of looked like something my brother and I would have rigged up for fun as kids. I sat down and pushed myself off, hoping now that I wouldn't get stuck in the middle like fat people tend to do on water rides. Whoosh. Just like that I flopped down the hill and managed to keep my feet in the air and plopped in the water unharmed and smiling like a goon. I snapped the picture, handed off the camera and we were off traipsing down the river about 100 yards.
Well, what goes down the steep embankment must go up again. At least that's how it goes in crazy adventure races. We had to climb the same embankment we just water slided down again. This time the embankment was covered with tires tied together like they had in the parks we frequented as children. That was fun. I climbed up grinning the whole time. (that is a animation of me climbing the tires!)
Off we were running again. Lots of running. My shoes were full of mud and bits of rock and I was hoping not leeches. DH climbed some hay bales, and I walked around them, drank some very watered down Gatorade and ran some more. Our last water obstacle was a real live Texas swamp with marshy areas and all. Even I realized that this was a snake priority area. I calmed myslef by thinking that since we were probably the 10,000th people to run through here, the snakes and alligators probably all got the memo and moved to safer quieter areas.
We sloshed through the swamp, falling in giant holes, getting stuck in sucking mud/quick sand and swalling mouthfulls of nasty muddy swamp water. It was so much fun.
Finally, I could hear the live band playing music. The end was near. We ran some more. I am pretty sure that the total mileage was more like 101.4 miles, not 3.8. The band got louder as we ran some more. Before the finish line, there was a huge mud hole and one of those low crawl obstacles, just like in the army movies. The camoflauge netting and all. I was going to walk around, but there were about 50 strangers cheering us on and I couldn't let them down, so I hit my knees and medium low crawled through the mud. We turned the corner and DH hubby grabbed my hand and we ran through the finish line together.
After we downed two bottles of water and got hosed off by a fireman, we ate our bbq sandwiches and reveled in our accomplishment. This was the most athletic thing I have ever done in my life. I was very proud of our effort. I wiped the mud off my watch and realized that we ran 3.8 miles (aka 101.4 miles) in just over an hour. Not great, but we weren't last. All in all it was a good day. We claimed our bags, gave away our free beer tickets to some guy who was very happy with us, boarded the bus, dripping and soggy and headed home.
We are going to do it again and we are already scouring the web looking for our next race.
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