My curlers didn’t fall out. Yep, that was one of my main concerns as I crawled on my hands and knees through cold, wet mud last Saturday. But I almost didn’t run the Eugene 2012 Dirty Dash.
Once upon a time, (like 6 months ago) Tanya, one of my bestest running buddies, announced that the Dirty Dash was coming to town in honor of her birthday and we should all register. In a moment of runner snobbish seriousness or mommy-brain-fart or whatever, I didn’t sign up. Then, as it happened, there appeared an extra ticket and the next thing I knew, I was showing up to carpool to a filthy, obstacle course 5K with a beer sipping aid station dressed in curlers, an apron and wielding a mean Scotch-Brite sponge. 4 sponges, actually, one for each of us on the June Cleavers Team.
Looks like we’ll have to back up again. About that cake…. Even though I wasn’t planning on running the dash, I WAS planning something dirty…a dirt cake for the dasher-birthday-girl. What started as a chocolate cake with cute little candy rocks for, uh, rocks, peanut clusters for mud and crushed Oreos for dirt became a slightly-freakish-double-decker-girl-jumping-out-of-a-cake dessert that only a dirty dasher could love. Alas…the process.
I have to say, the Dash was a blast. I climbed over hay bales, slippery walls, up and down rope ladders, through pipes, over pipes and under pipes. I hopped through tires, had a few sips of beer at the “aid” staion and crawled through more mud. I took a freezing cold shower with my clothes on with 50 other people and can’t remember when I’ve laughed so hard. And yes….there was running. The running was awesome! There were many many people who showed up for the fun, the mud, the beer and the adventure. But many of them were not runners. “Hey!” We said to ourselves, “We kick ass at this part!” as we passed group after group of mud zombies.
And, while we lost a few along the way, for the most part, our curlers stayed in.