Dirty Dash

There's quite a few things I have been wanting to write about recently but I don't get to spend much time at the computer. With the drought and heat we have spent tons of time outside, yes outside, because our apartment is like a sauna. So, in the shade of a park tree or at the spray park it is for me and my daughter most of the time. In the "cool" morning we have done a few bike tours too. Today we finally got some rain in the afternoon with lots of thunder and we were out for a walk and stop at the spray park, enjoying the wet. In the morning though I did the Dirty Dash run and for once it was humid as the rain was looming in the sky but simply did not come until hours later. 

The Dirty Dash is a 4 km loop in a park that for the longer option is run twice. It's got a man-made mud pit at the end with flags put up low across the mud so that one has to crawl, belly slide or whatever underneath. We ran mostly on grass and forest trails (the forest is awesome, cool and dark), through a creek twice and up and down a few hills. As a surprise by the organisers we also got to jump over a log, car tires, and three rows of straw bales right before the mud pit. Yeah! Besides, they watered an uphill section with a sprinkler to make it slippery. This race went over faster than any other one because the obstacles and change of scenery made it so much more interesting than a road race. Besides, spectators like my hubby are much more entertained since they can see the runners along different parts of the course including most obstacles.

The latest result list put me 50. overall from 177 runners, 12. women, and first again in my age category with a time of 45 min 13 sec. Not bad under the circumstances. Will do it again!        



By the way the fastest man finished the 8 km in 31 min, the fastest woman in under 36 min. The first guys to come in apparently still had the energy to make somersaults in the mud and one of them ran afterwards the 4 km. Crazy, suppose they train for that. I keep fit with a toddler, a bike and my two feet, so there's not much need to go running laps in the wood every other day (which still would not make me win the race).