Blood, Sweat and Beers

So you know how I was all "get over yourself" about suburban athletes a while back? Well, last weekend, for a very brief period, I became one of them.

A few weeks ago, my brother in-law (second from the right)* suggested a bunch of us do the Rugged Maniac 5K together. This race consists of dirt track and forest trail running with obstacles, such as climbing cargo nets and scaling 5 foot walls. The website also featured seemingly drunk people wearing costumes running this thing, so the percentage of rapidly-aging suburbanites out to recapture their youth and, subsequently, tearing a hamstring in the process (ahem...H) would likely be low. The likelihood I would be annoyed by a pack of drunks dressed as Santa seemed high, but it looked like fun and not too intimidating, so H and I signed up.

Fast forward a month, and it's the night before the race. H and I decide to take a closer look at the obstacles, only having given them a perfunctory glance upon registration. Seven foot walls??? Traversing a pool of muddy water by jumping from stump to stump, at the suggested "full-on sprint" lest I wind up in the shit-colored drink? Oh Sweet Jeebus. I am a tough broad, but I kind of wasn't banking on this. I was envisioning going for a short run through some mud and jumping over a bunch of junk. H and I packed our bags and nervously went to bed, trying to fight the visions of one of us breaking a leg dancing in our heads.

At one-thirty, I am rousted from my sleep by gut-ripping cramps. That's right, folks, my period. Mother Nature is nothing if not a sadistic prankster, I mean look childbirth, so it made perfect sense I would be awake in the middle of the night, on the eve of the race, with a heating pad on my abdomen, suffering through the kind of cramps that almost made me pass out in Algebra II twenty years ago. I spend the next four hours drifting in and out of consciousness before the alarm goes off and it's time to go.

Fueled by Starbucks coffee and one of their gross egg-white wraps (it seriously looks and tastes like rubber chicken), we arrive at the motocross tracks where the event is to be held. Having signed up for the nine-thirty wave to avoid any drunken jackassery, we were surrounded by the early-morning crowd - nary a Santa suit in sight. There was, however, one serious Rutgers University face-painter, ala Seinfeld's Puddy, who also happened to be sporting a crew cut and cat-eye contact lenses. I would be staying far, far away from her, thanks. There was a gaggle of gals in their twenties in booty shorts and midriff tops, whose wardrobe choice made me wonder if they had seen how far they were going to have to hike up their legs to get over some of these walls. There were also the required men dressed in tutus and a guy wearing nothing but a Speedo - not even shoes. And due to the early hour, there were a few gym-sponsored groups, some of those Cross Fit nuts and the like, chugging Red Bull and running warm-up laps, but the rest of the crowd was pretty normal and mellow, which was good considering I was cranky and jumpy from too little sleep and too much coffee.

Ten minutes to race time, I brave the port-a-potty to take care of my feminine hygiene. The line is primarily men at this point, all taking HUGE dumps, which makes the process of changing a tampon over an open vat of raw sewage even nicer. The lack of trash receptacle was made up for with a giant dispenser of hand-sanitizer. I want to bathe in it. No more time for dilly-dallying, it was time to go.

I'd like to thank the organizers for their choice of pre-race music, as their mix of "Eye of the Tiger" and "Everybody Dance Now" was the perfect combo to soothe my nerves and get me pumped up all at the same time. Before I knew it, it was "THREE...TWO...ONE...GOOOO!!!!!" And we were off.

The race was too long and too hard to go through minute by minute, but there were high points and low points. The beginning of the race was annoying and super-crowded, with everyone pushing to get ahead. This, and the talking, are why I am a solo runner. Shut up! I don't care that you're turning forty and are running this with all your girlfriends, your shrieks of laughter make me want to smack you. The first obstacle, jumping into a ravine, six inches deep with muddy water that smelled like poo, then crawling through a utility pipe laid in that water, was the cause of a lot of squealing from the ladies. Oh, grow a pair. What did you sign up for? This isn't Zumba.

It got better from there as H and I were able to bust out of the bottleneck and get some room. But, for some of the obstacle, I was not at all prepared. Barbed wire. REAL barbed wire! A foot off the mud-covered ground and I have crawl under it. Good luck to the gals with the naked tummies. Having three of the world's slowest women in front of us so we had to, literally, lie there in the filth, with their asses in our faces, waiting for them to move, was an added bonus. Then there was the four feet deep pool of muddy water, across which floated six, large PVC pipes chained to the sides of the pool, that we have to either swim under or go over. There was no way in hell I was putting my head in that water, envisioning the ear infection I would get (never mind the vaginal infection I was sure to contract anyway), but H, ever the strategist, had us push our upper bodies over them, letting our weight carry us over, then dragging our hips over the pipe, while we reached for the next one. At least my head stayed dry. And the three foot high, one hundred foot long, cage-tunnell made of chain link fence, that forced us to squat and walk at the same time, still has me crying every time I use the toilet. There were a total of fourteen obstacles, including the walls I spoke of, a tire gauntlet and fire pit (which was really six inches wide, so should be called a fire pot).

H and I finished it in a little over forty-four minutes. Not bad considering this was our first race. After we finished, what I was left with was not a sense of personal accomplishment, but the realization that we rock as a couple. For many years, when I watched The Amazing Race, I always thought H and I would be one of those duos comprised of a slightly irresponsible husband and harpy of a wife, whose most frequent soundbite would be of her screaming his name in an annoyed tone. I was afraid the Rugged Maniac would be riddled with all the annoyed looks and sharp comments we can occasionally make when we are trying to get the kids out the door, coupled with mud. But it wasn't. We spoke in gestures and with even-toned brevity. We followed each other's cues seamlessly. There was no tone of annoyance from H as I asked him to help me down from the seven foot wall, since I didn't need my knowledge from Physics I to know the plywood was dangerously close to toppling over and we had better go around (he didn't). He calmly shouted out "Hold up a bit" when I was too far ahead of him**, and I did.

This race felt like we were in a war (barbed wire and all), and even though I have said it many times, this day proved I want H in my foxhole. I'd like to carry this calm communication through to the rest of our lives. Why can we speak so kindly when we are swimming in e. coli infected water, but snap at each other when we're packing the cooler for the beach? Maybe it's because in the race, we were both doing half the work, and in the current construct of our family, one of us is often doing more at certain points. Maybe if we can see the raising of this family as one big Rugged Maniac, with obstacles and filth included (Little Man recently took a crap during his nap as big as my head and full of corn, I think that's worse than mud), and that we are both moving us toward the finish line, we can have more moments of that kind of cooperation.

In any case, this race was a great memory. We still are healing form our scratches and bruises, and considering doing another one soon. The best part of the day was sitting in the sun afterwards, filthy dirty, drinking a beer with my partner, laughing at the guy in the banana costume. I'll try to remember that feeling when we're at the pool and I'm tempted to scream at him for not packing the sunscreen.

And no, I didn't get a bumper sticker.

*This picture does not do justice to how filthy we were.
**He was the brains behind the operation, but I was the brawn. He got us through the obstacles, and I kept us moving in the flats. It was humiliating however, that i didn't kick his ass, since I work out approximately ten times as much as he does. Damn testosterone.