Here's mud in your eye!

It's been four days since the weekend back to back mud runs, and I'm finally caught up enough to write about the experience.  It was quite the weekend....

I've done a number of back to back races at the Camp Pendleton Mud Run, but after the last one in B&U both days, I vowed to never do that again... the blisters on my heels took a good month to fully heal.  Nasty, painful, ugly beasties.   This year I eliminated that potential by running open on Saturday and saving the B&U for Sunday.

Last June my friend Laura quit smoking and asked me to help her stay stopped.  That mainly meant phone chats and texts, until I suggested she find a BIG goal to really help her stay stopped.  She chose the 2013 Camp Pendleton 10k Mud Run.  IMHO it was the perfect goal to choose.  Seriously challenging, but well within her skill set with training.  Last New Year's Eve we signed her up and for the last six months she's been attending her local CrossFit, working on her nutrition and running progressively longer distances.

Not only did Laura finish the course, she completed it in under two hours.  A very good time for a novice runner at the very beginning of her athletic potential!  Congratulations my friend on accomplishing the goal you set for yourself.  I am very proud of you and look forward to watching or even joining you on your next great adventure!

Now, Sunday's run was a whole different kettle of mud sucking catfish... The Filthy 50 Fem's were running and I'd been invited to join them. As had occurred the day before, I was up before dawn and on my way down to Oceanside with my running mates by 5am.  Why on earth we need to arrive at 6:30 for 9am start time is just wrong. lol

I had fully expected to live up to my Roadkill identity by being the weak link on the team, but I dodged that bullet and it hit our team captain Rose squarely in the uterus.  Poor gal was visited by her very angry Aunt Flo and just wasn't capable of much running... in fact I promised her I'd let all my blog readers know that this was actually the first year she was forced to make a pit stop at the half way point of the course.  Hey better that than to attract the undue attention of any local mountain lions. I'm just saying...

(I took this photo through Instagram, and just love the special effects... thanks Trish for finally bringing me in to the 21st Century!)

I particularly love this photo because I think it could very prove to be the last one of its kind.  After running this course well over a dozen times I may be done with it.  My whole love of this race stems from the fact that it takes place on the Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton and as such has always been a place of heart felt tribute, respect and serious awe. Over the last few years in particular, the race has been commercialized and cheapened to the point that it has become a shell of it's old self and really nothing more than just another mud run, albeit still one of the better ones I'm sure.  I know life must move on, and sadly some of the best memories must eventually move to just memories.

A final toast to the U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton...

Great Luck and Here's Mud In Your Eye!