Yes, it's true. I've found something better. More satisfying. You just don't do the trick anymore. There aren't enough people to talk to around you. At least not ones I'm close to... You're not cool, not like you used to be. I mean, you completely changed, and it's so unlike you. So I'm sorry to say, after three years of going strong...


Xanga, we're over.

Hey friends! I've waited about three years to get to write about this after actually experiencing it, and now it's finally time! And yeah, sorry if this isn't extremely detailed (or maybe if it's too detailed?) because I don't remember which order the obstacles came in, and, yeah...

So, Jessica and I checked last month to see if there was a Spring Mud Run event, and to our delight we found it scheduled for the 29th of March! Wahoo! Our only tiny little problem was that it was on a Sunday, which meant that I would have to take time to convince my parents that really, I need a break from my regular routine, and from all the annoying people I deal with on a regular basis. I tell you, I was about ready to give up, the situation seemed hopeless, but Jessica and I, well, we're not quitters. She gave me an idea, and I finally used it as a last resort, seeing as all else had failed. I took mom on a walk, explained the situation, and then told her flat out that in return for letting me go, I would have my own "church service" the Saturday before. (This was Jessica's idea, and it's worked, and yes, for those of you who don't trust me, I actually did uphold my half of the deal).

I got the OK from mom, and within a few minutes I was on facebook telling Jessica to get the tickets before mom changed her mind, because I got the yes. *grins* Anywho, a few days go by, and it's Spring Break. I start getting up at 5:45 each and every morning, run 1 1/2 miles to the track, run, jog, and/or walk at least 7 laps at the track, walk the 1 1/2 miles home, get back by 7:15, and clean something like the kitchen. After about three days of this mom practically throws forty dollars at me and says "Take it, you've done so much work it's not even funny!" I told her that if she kept the forty dollars she could buy me some cargo pants instead. We went to Old Navy the next day and I got 2 pairs of cargo pants, one blue, one green, and a sports bra for 41.11. So I had mom pay the forty, and I threw a dollar and eleven cents in there to even it out. (Speaking of money I still need $40 to pay Jessica back for the tickets. Just so y'all know. )

Anyway, I pretty much started going everywhere in my cargo pants and with my combat boots. Even Olive Garden. That was sad because both pairs of jeans and my nicer, green cargo pants were all being washed, so I had a choice between baggy blue cargos, and jeans that were too short. You can imagine which one I took. Haha. Right? You do at least know me well enough to figure out that I wouldn't be caught half dead in jeans that are too short for me unless there is nothing else on the face of the planet (or my closet, for that matter) for me to wear, right? Well, so now you know what I took, in case you didn't before.

Finally it was Saturday, March 28th... Packet Pick Up day in Ft. Worth at a Holiday Inn. Peter drove me up to the Church at around 9:00, and Jessica met us there shortly after 9:30. She drove me to Ft. Worth and we talked the whole way. I don't think there was even one minute of silence from the moment I stepped in her car to the moment we got back to the church. Which is good, cause usually silence can be pretty awkward. Anyhow, Jessica found the Holiday Inn really fast, and I sort of memorized how to get there, but I'm not good with directions... We parked across the street from the hotel in a little parking lot that was fairly empty, ran across into the building, and went to the left, into the breakfast area towards to conference rooms. Then we turned right into a hall looking thing where there were lots of tables with different stuff on it. We were handed waivers to sign, and we saw Mrs. Cooper there.

Mrs. Cooper looked at us surprised and said "You're not running this are you?" and we're both like "Yeah we are!" to which Mrs. Cooper responded with "The mud is gonna be frozen!" Jessica gave me a look that seemed to say "I hope she's kidding". By the way, I forgot to mention that Saturday was cold (45 degrees, I think) and really windy too. So, anyway, we moved down the tables, got a plastic bag and a Mud Run T-shirt, signed the waivers at some other table, continued down the row and got our time chips, had our time chips registered, and all of a sudden, in less than five minutes, we were ready to leave. At the end of the line there was a Navy table with two Navy dudes standing there, and right behind them was- guess who!- Ben!!! I told Jessica and she kind of whispered his name, but he didn't hear her, so I walked up behind him and said "Bennnn" in a low voice, and he turned around with a surprised look on his face. It was funny.

Anyway, we were moving away from the Navy table, and this kinda huge dude in a Navy uniform steps around and hands us a paper for a SEALs fitness challenge, along with a navy key chain. (yuck!) Jessica and I walked out of the conference room, hall way, breakfast area thing and stopped at another table to shove all our stuff in the bag and figure out what we'd need when and where and why and what for and so on. Ben walked up and shook our hands, said hello and told us that he probably wouldn't be at the Mud Run, although he didn't give us a reason, and then he went back to whatever he was doing, and Jessica and I left the hotel, ran across the street and got back in her car. She drove me back to the church, and then Peter gave her directions to our house. After Jessica left, Peter came back in the Summit, played around on the piano a little, and then we left too. For the rest of Saturday I was pretty much bouncing off the walls thinking to myself "Oh my gosh, I can't believe we're actually doing it!"

Sunday morning, the day of the Mud Run I woke up early, and silently got dressed. It felt a little weird pulling cargo pants, a loose T-shirt, and combat boots on a Sunday. But I didn't care, I was really happy. I ate really early, but continued eating throughout a large part of the early morning. My family ended up leaving shortly before 9:30 for church. No one really wished me luck, but I didn't care too much, cause there were several of my awesome friends that were wishing us luck and praying too. *grins* Jessica got to the house at about 9:45ish, and I grabbed my bags and we left. We talked all the way there again, and ended up taking a different street than the time before, but we found Commerce really fast, and Jessica got us right up to La Grave field like in no time. She's an awesome driver!

We parked in this huge parking space away from the field, and then we walked and walked and walked until we were all the way at the start line so we could ask some strange looking guy how we were supposed to "check in". We had even brought our I.Ds up with us, as well as the copy of the waiver we signed. We found out that "checking in" actually was just arriving at La Grave field. So we walked all the way back to the car, put our I.Ds up, and then decided to change from T-Shirts to tank tops. We looked awesome! Anyway, I had my camera with me this time as we went back to the field, and then we went to where like 20 or more port-a-pottys were- I might add that those things are nasty, but at least the only thing the air really smelled of was port-a-potty cleaner, and not... never mind.

Anyhow, we sat down on a hill and Jessica french braided my hair, as well as her own. We walked around some more and I think we went back to the car like one more time to drop off my camera, since we didn't find any one we knew who could take pictures of us. Then we sat down on a hill near the loud speakers so we could hear when the announcer called our group. There were so many cute guys there, but we ended up sitting by older people, and young children, and that just wasn't cool, but we did have a nice view of the guys down in the field warming up, showing off, and playing around.

I ran off to the port-a-pottys one more time, and when I got back Jessica told me that our group had been called, so we got up to the starting place. There was a fat guy there watching our group, and he saw me and decided to stare. But, I guess that if I was anyone else and I saw me in a crowd, I would stare too. Haha, I have too much self esteem. anyway, we stood there for about 3 minutes and then the announcer and his son got in our group to run it with us, so the mic was handed over to someone else, and he counted us down. As soon as Jessica and I took one step, I hit the timing button on my watch, and then we all pretended to run in super slow motion because we were a ways into the crowd and it took a few seconds for everyone to get out of the gate thing.

As soon as we got some space, Jessica and I broke loose from the crowd and tried to settle into a comfortable pace, but I'm not used to pacing myself, so whatever. We passed a lot of people really fast, and I don't know how far we ran before I had to stop because I can't run well in boots. I would say it was at least a half mile or more before we stopped, I'm not sure. We ran through a little puddle of mud, it was about ten feet to run through and six inches deep, and some guy in front of us said the "s" word three times because he was slipping, I couldn't help but think that he deserved it.

The run took us from the starting line in a U-turn, down a hill, towards the right, over a hill to the right again and down, into the mud, up the hill to the left, forward and to the left again, until we were running along side the Trinity River, we kept switching from slow run/jog, to walking because of my inability to run long distance in my combat boots. Finally we reached this bridge kind of thing that goes across the Trinity, and there were a lot of people taking it easy and just walking there, and so I passed them a little faster. Then we ran up an incline, back onto a field, and that was 1 1/2 miles (apparently). There was our first obstacle, the wall, which I'm told was 8' tall. You had to jump, grab the top, pull yourself over and drop on the other side. Jessica went first and I went after her. It was easy, because I do a lot of jumping and I can jump pretty high, too.

We ran on, and at about the second mile we got to obstacle number 2, the tunnels. I'm not sure how long they were, but they felt horrible on the knees, and yeah, you had to go through them on hands and knees. Not cool. We got out of them fast and ran a little further in the grass and came up to the first water stop. I was SO happy when we got there. I usually don't run without water, and I definitely don't got 2 miles or more without a long break. Anyhow, when we ran on we hit what the people call "the English Channel" it's all watery mud, and we had to slog through it. I walked behind Jessica, and I rather than pick my feet up when I walk in mud or water, I generally just put 'em forward with a lot of force, so I got the back of Jessica's shirt speckled with cold water and mud.

When we got out of the English Channel we came up to a muddy ditch with wires running over it, where we had to get down and do the low crawl, like a Marine would do in combat. At first it was really easy, but the further we got in, the more people were trying to cram in behind us, the slicker it was getting in front of us, and the guys coming back through it from the opposite direction were also taking part of my side. There was a part on Jessica's side that was deep, and I slid off my side into her because of it. I got stuck several times, and Jessica either had to pull me, or some people behind me would push on my feet. I was so thankful when we got out of it. My arms ached and  I had at least 10 pounds of slick, slimy mud on me. In fact it was so slick and sticky that it pasted my previously black tank top to me so tightly that I looked like a brown person with only a sports bra on. It attached to me so tightly it looked like skin.

We ran on and there was another water stop along the way I think. This would have been the one where the kids came running up with cups in their hands and offered us the water, which was truly nice and much appreciated. The next obstacle was the Log walk, which was just like 5 poles running over a ditch, stuck in the ground with wood hammered on them, and you had to balance and walk across it. That was extremely easy. Next I think was another form of the low crawl, where we had to get down on our bellies, in the mud, and crawl first under wires, and then under a net and we couldn't touch either, so at one point I nearly had to go under the water to avoid touching it.

The next obstacle we came to after a bit more running was the Cargo Nets, we climbed up them together, and at the top, Jessica grabbed two rungs down on the opposite side and for ward flipped into the net and slid down. The guy there said for me to do the same, but I have this thing about flipping, so I just threw a leg over one side, straddled the bar, got over, and climbed the rest of the way down. we ran straight down a hill to the next obstacle that they call "the Hole to Hades", all it really is is a steep hill, and at the bottom is a concrete ravine that you jump into and climb out of, and then you have to run up the slope. I think this is where we encountered "Annoying squeaky motivator #1" some Young Marine yelling at us in his high pitched voice to pick up the pace.

Next obstacle I think they called "The Quigley" I'm not sure though, anyway, it was this little ditch in the ground full of water, and guys had to low crawl through it, and we got to crawl on hands and knees. The other end was slippery and so a guy pulled Jessica out and she pulled me out. We ran to the next obstacle, the Mud Pit. There was a small line, since only two people were allowed up the hill at a time. The team ahead of us looked funny, they were two guys, and one made it up pretty fast and disappeared on the other side, but not gracefully, the second one had to take another running start to get up the hill. When it was our turn I told Jessica just to take a running start and we'd be fine. I took a really fast start and made it all the way up to the top, where I hit a soft spot and almost twisted my ankle, then I had to position myself and slide down, and that didn't work right anyway, because I hit dry dirt rather than slick mud, and fell into the water almost side ways. The water wasn't very deep, but I swam half way through it any way, and in doing so, I kicked myself in the foot with the heel of one combat boots. There's a bruise there now.

When we got out of the Mud Pit we ran up a hill and Jessica told me that my pants were full of water, sure enough, since I'd put my pants legs on the inside of my boots, they were retaining the water quite well. I pulled them out of my boots, but that made all the water run into my boots, and also loosened the strings, so I had to untie one boot, take it off, dump the water, put it back on and tie it, and the same with the other, as soon as I was done we ran down the hill to the next obstacle, the Over and Unders. It was four logs with waist-deep water under them, and you had to go under, over, under, over them. The water was right up to the bottom of the logs, so we weren't coming out of the Mud run clean in any spots. We did as said, and surprisingly, my sun glasses stayed attached to my head through out all of this!

I think there was some more running through water, and then we got to the rope swing, Jessica went first and made it all the way across, I went second but, I started to slip off the ledge I was standing on and had to jump early, so I ended up landing half-and-half. It hurt my hands and hips to say the least, but we got up and continued running to the Stairway to heaven, I think it was. There might have been one obstacle before that, but I don't really remember it. Any way it was like a large ladder, and it was extremely easy to climb. Except at the top, it started shaking some, but that wasn't scary or anything. After I got down we ran past another water stop and then we got to the Hurdles, a bunch of tubes that were stretched out and we had to swing over them. That was easy enough, except on the last one, I had too much swing, and nearly flipped over, which means I would have landed on my head, I stopped just in time and got a leg over before I dropped.

We had to go through the first three obstacles again, the low crawl, which was harder now, because while the mud had pretty much dried up, it was even stickier than before, and I was running out of energy. Again, people pushed and pulled at me, and someone in the crowd was cheering for me, no clue who it was, but whatever. Jessica dragged me like the last three feet, and then I got up and we had to slog through the English channel again, and then we go to the tunnels and had to go hands and knees through that. Further up were the walls. Jessica got over hers pretty easy, but she is a lot taller than me. I didn't make it on my first try this time, my arms were so worn out, and the top was slick and muddy, so I dropped and went to a different wall with some warped boards, jumped, got the top, and used the warped boards for my feet, swung over, dropped, and then we ran across the concrete bridge over the Trinity again, and I think we might have walked some here, but Jessica and I were determined, and we ran across the finish line.

When we stopped a little boy ran up with bottled water and handed it to us. I drank some of mine and used the rest on my watch to see how much time we had taken. After I washed it off, I showed it to Jessica with a look of surprise. 1:53 said my watch. One hour and 53 minutes for 6.2 miles and, what? Like 17 or 18 obstacles?! I was amazed. Anyway, the fire truck that was hosing people off had to refill just as our wave finished, so Jessica and I stood freezing in the wind next to a bunch of muddy guys that were drinking beer, while we waited. Someone told us the water that the fire fighters used was so cold it would give you brain freeze. Jessica was already cold enough, and really didn't want to hear that, She even suggested just going to the car and changing without getting rinsed off, but we'd have made a disgusting mess of her car, and we would have looked like old women with some form of leprosy, or something that made the skin crack, and warty, and fall off.

So, we stuck it out, and everyone crowded around when the fire fighters came. The water was not so cold at first actually. I liked it, but then the pressure and temperature combined, yeah, I got brain freeze several times over. When the guy moved the water cannon away, I found a spot with fewer people and stood there because I was still so muddy. A guy in front of my turned around and asked "Have you even been hit yet?" cause I seriously didn't look like it. I was like "Yeah, but barely!" The water cannon came around again, and he almost drowned us that time, but it was still great. Everyone was freezing and complaining, and screaming for more. They ran out of water really fast and left to get more, We were all shaking and trying to get the last of the mud off, and that [really, really cute] guy who asked me if I'd even been hit said that his face hurt from the "involuntary smile", I could relate, I'm sure a lot of people could. Seriously, who doesn't love being completely covered in mud, being completely surrounded by people covered in mud, in the freezing cold, with freezing water being sprayed on ya, by young, evil fire fighters, who enjoy themselves way too much up there?

Anyway, Jessica and I walked back to the car where we thought we'd change, but there was a couple laying out on the ground warming up, and almost all the cars were gone, so we grabbed our change of clothes and went to the changing tents. It was a small tent and the sad part was that a lot of people forgot their towels. And, well, what has been seen cannot be unseen... After that I got out of there in a hurry, didn't even bother pulling my shirt on (no worries, I had the sports bra thingy which is like wearing a two piece swimming top, and I had my jeans. So whateva) until I was out of the tent a ways.

On the way home I nearly fell asleep because it was so nice and warm in Jessica's car. When I got back, I took a shower, and then Peter drove me to Sonic and I got a burger, unfortunately it wasn't very good. After dinner I cleaned my boots and all my clothes in the shower. I got a horrible sun burn, and dad also made me go to bed at 9:00. That sucked. Oh well. The next day, Monday, I had school, and I was tired, so, blah to that. Then later I had guitar practice, and even later I had church. Church was okay. I told a lot of people about the fun we had, and a lot of people were asking me about it. Shiloh forgot that I was sun burned and put her arms on my shoulders so she could lean on me or something, and I screamed from the pain. We also helped move some rocks for the bike trails at church.

Later, after MPG and RR dismissed I watched Ben and Josiah arm wrestle, and somewhere between the time I got there and the time I left, I told Josiah that the hardest part for me at the Mud Run was the low crawl, to which he replied with "That's cause you don't know how to do it right". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .*no comment* . . . . . . . . . -Well. (to Josiah) You don't know boots. *crosses arms* I'm still right. My boots are combats. Summer COMBATS! And yours are winter combats. And Ben's might be jungles, but they're not green, so. Go Figure.

Anyhow. Jessica was an amazing partner for the Mud Run, it was lots of fun, and we accomplished what we set out to do, with no regrets!!

That's all!!!
-Sarah

[e][d][i][t]: I forgot to mention, there were three other obstacles along the way, I just don't remember exactly where they were at. One we had to go on hands and knees through things that looked like tires sticking out of the mud, you're not allowed to touch the tires, if you do, you have to go back and start again, we got through that really fast, and another small water obstacle, water on both sides I think, and a little mound of slick dirt you had to run up, and down the other side into more mud. The other one had a plastic tarp on the ground, and you had to low crawl under something there too... But like I said, I can't remember exactly where in the course these obstacles were. Sorry people.