Go, you chicken fat, go away!

Last Saturday we had a Boy Scout overnighter and I slept on the ground inside my tent.  As the day went on my back tightened up more and more.  I was real nervous because I've been teasing my Ragnar team about not being able to run.  Thursday I stepped on a rusty nail and had to go to Urgent Care.  I told them I hoped my foot wouldn't fall off.  Now, I that I was really hurt, I felt like the Boy Who Cried Wolf.  Anyway, I've been taking care of it, and today it felt ok.  I ran 3 miles and it did fine, so I think I'll be all right for Vegas this weekend.

I love you all so much.

I'm calling this my sweet 16th.  My team regrets not baking me a cake. But everything else in this race was about me, so it's ok.  So, people who don't know me are probably going to hate me after reading this report.  And that's also ok. 

Shannon Downs invited me to be on her Vegas team.  She was the captain of my Vegas team two years ago and our So Cal team last year.  She made a Facebook page for our team.  At one point, she asked us all to submit a name for our team.  Only one name was submitted.

Our van consisted of Shannon, her husband who was doing his first Ragnar, Shannon's friend Sharrell who was on Shannon's Vegas team last year, Sharrell's husband Chris who is a cop for the City of Mesa, and our superstar Betsy who was on my Vegas team three years ago.  We took my van and drove up up to Vegas.  We picked up Betsy at the airport.  It was fun listening to all of Chris's cop stories.

We stayed the night at the Mount Charleston Resort.  It was nice and had a beautiful view, but horrible wifi.  We played Uno.  I slept on the floor, which made me worry because my back didn't like it when I slept on the ground the previous week at the scout camporee.  But my back did all right.  Unfortunately, I couldn't stay in one position very long and tossed and turned a lot which caused me to snore.  Oh well.  Burt rules at snoring, too!

Before we left the resort, we decorated the van.  I had printed out some black and white pictures of a handsome Burt Reynolds.  Little did I know that Shannon had printed out some quality pictures of me.  She must have got them off my Facebook page or something.

Our start time was 9:30am.  It wasn't nearly as cold or windy as it was last year.  Matt started us out and did awesome.  He handed off to Chris.  Chris is not to fond of running, but he did great.  He started sprinting when he hit the 1 Mile to Go marker.  We had to boogie to the exchange so he didn't beat us.  Chris handed off to Sharrell.  It was so romantic.  Sharrell handed off to Shannon.  Everyone was doing great and we were getting ahead of our predicted times.  Shannon handed off to Betsy.  Poor Betsy.  She had just run a 3:24 marathon two weeks prior.  Her ankle had been bothering her ever since, so she tried to take it real easy up until Ragnar.  Her first leg was 9.4 miles.  She got about 2 miles in and knew it wasn't going to happen.  The bad thing was, this was a no-support leg because it was out on the highway.  Anyway, another van saw her limping along and called it in.  We got a text message from Ragnar telling us that our runner was injured and we needed to go get her.  It said she was about 4 miles in.  So we drove back down the divided highway, but couldn't find her.  Near the halfway point there was an overpass that the runners had to run up and back down on the other side.  We pulled off there and asked the teams that were waiting there if they had seen our runner.  They had not.  Then as we were driving on the on-ramp we saw another van pulled over.  We asked if they had seen our runner.  They had.  They were the ones that called it in and they said there were some emergency vehicles tending to her.  So we figured they had taken her to the exchange.  We got back to the exchange and found her.  I felt so bad for her.  I told the volunteer to mark me down because our runner was hurt and I was taking off.  My first leg was 3.6 miles.  I didn't have a GPS with me, but it felt longer.  I made it to the first major exchange to find Bethany waiting there for me with my picture on her back.  I gave her a "good game" slap on the tush because they didn't think I would do it in front of her husband.  Luckily someone snapped a picture right then and has immortalized it on Facebook.

Our second set of legs were at night.  Betsy still wanted to participate so we switched things up a bit.  Sharrell had a two mile leg.  Betsy ran/hobbled that one.  What a trooper.  My run was 10.0 miles with 828 feet of uphill.  It was no-support.  The first 6 miles felt great.  But then it seemed like the hill got a little steeper.  I knew there was some downhill coming after 7 miles so I just pushed myself to get there.  The downhill was nice, but it wasn't much of a relief.  I thought the last three miles were downhill, but only two of them were.  The last mile was back uphill.  That kicked my behind.

By now it was getting cold.  I slept in the passenger seat of the van for a while.  There were no showers and I didn't feel like baby-wiping off in the cold.  So I just sat there and stewed in my own filth.  I ended up wearing the same outfit for my final leg, which is something I've never done before.  I actually didn't shower until I got home.  So disgusting.  Anyway, nobody needs to know that.  My last run was early in the morning.  Night time hours were over, so I was lucky enough to only have to run one night time leg.  My last run was 3.5 miles.  My back was kind of tightening up, so I put my T.E.N.S. Unit on for a while.  But my hamstring was really starting to bother me.  That worried me.  Anyway, I stretched it out real good and that helped.  It didn't bother me at all.  My final leg was real nice.  Mostly downhill and glorious.  Shannon and Matt split Betsy's final leg.  Everyone did great.  After we finished and while we were waiting for Van #2 to finish, we went to IHOP.  Betsy snuck out and paid for everyone's breakfast.  She's the best.  I love her so much.  I know she felt bad, and I told her how I couldn't finish my legs last year because I also got injured.  I told her how much of a loser I felt like and how I didn't know if I deserved a finisher's medal.  It didn't seem to help her.

As a team we finished about 30 minutes before what I predicted we would.  We were in the top 27% of our division.  I think that's pretty good.  I am proud of my effort.  I wish I was in better shape, but it's hard lately with as much as I've been working.  But I will say that my team rules!!

My wife's sister, Missy, you know, the one that likes to grab my sweaty pocket, has been getting a lot of discount coupons lately.  I think they have something to do with her husband being a veteran.  So she got a 60% off coupon for the Mudathon.  I don't know if she wanted to do this because it sounded like fun or because she got a coupon for it.  Anyway, she thought it was a 5k.  I told her, "Didn't you read the big bold letters on the website? 'This is not a 5k!  This is a 5 mile obstacle course!'"  That worried her a bit, but I told her she'd do fine, even if I had to drag her by her hair.

She had another friend join us for the run.  That made it fun, kinda like being a team, but not really. 

In this picture, Missy is #2.  Haha!  I just said Missy is #2.  Daylene is next to her folding her arms.  I think they're saying a prayer before the race.  I'm right behind them.  I'm #17.  Apparently Missy and I signed up to be timed.  There were only 22 registered runners that signed up to be timed.  We didn't mean to, but oh well.  Next to me is a cute photobomber.  It's like she's looking right at my wife's camera who was so far away from us and zoomed in.  She must have magical photobombing powers.  It looks like she's wearing a tiara, but it's a bandana that someone behind her is wearing.  Anyway, they crammed as many runners as they could into the corral and started groups running every 8 minutes.  We were in the second heat.  As we were waiting a bee flew by and started making everyone nervous.  I calmly extended my arms and clapped it to death.  Everyone was so impressed.  I told them not to worry about this obstacle course.  I had their backs.

This Mudathon had a lot more obstacles than the Mad Mud Run that I've done in previous years.  It was real fun.  There were tires to run through, giant tires to climb over, sandbags to carry, balance beams, cargo nets, monkey bars, walls, steps, and four of five mud pits.

The run was pretty easy.  We stayed at Missy's pace.  She did real good.  She only had to stop and walk for about 30 seconds a couple of times in the last mile.  I was surprised that there were only a handful of competitive runners.  We all kept encouraging each other.  Daylene was afraid of heights and one of the cargo nets was about 20 feet high.  She was scared, but we all helped each other go over each obstacle.  When we got to the monkey bars I tried swinging across but I slipped off after about two or three.  Then Missy got up there and powered her way through.  I was like, "I can't let her show me up."  So I got back up and went and did it, grabbing each bar with both hands because I couldn't skip bars.  I was glad I did it so she didn't have bragging rights.  But it did make me sore afterwards.

The hardest obstacle was the cargo net/monkey bars.  It was about 16 foot long.  In the middle there were a couple of planks that you could stop and rest at.  Well, you were kinda obligated to rest there.  You had to use the cargo net like a set of monkey bars, but the problem was that it hurts your hands.  So one girl got the bright idea to climb to the top and go over the obstacle.  Another person swung their feet up to the net and crawled upside down.  That's what I decided to do.  It was difficult, but I made it to the middle.  The rope hurt the back of my ankles, too.  Since I only had about 8 feet to go, I decided to try and jump out as far as I could and Tarzan swing the rest of the way.  When I grabbed the rope it sunk down and my feet landed in the mud pit.  Missy ended up falling off the net into the mud pit, too.

All in all, we had a fun time.  We hosed off when we were done.  I donated my shoes, tossed my socks, and then went out to eat breakfast.

I didn't have a whole lot of time.

It rained all day yesterday and a little today.  I went out at 11:15pm.  It was a little cold, but shorts and a t-shirt were fine.  I wanted to run down the canal, but when I got there I saw a sign that the road was closed to all recreational activities due to maintenance.  So, I just went along the streets.  When I got to Southern and 32nd I could tell that there was a car that had no intentions of waiting for the light to turn green.  It slowly creeped its way out into the intersection and turned left on to Southern.  I pointed and yelled at them as loud as I could.  "You're in trouble!  I'm telling on you!"  Then I saw some weirdo in a hoodie sitting by the street on the other side.  It's almost midnight.  What are you doing out there just sitting?  Weirdo.  Maybe he was an urban ninja.  I saw three more urban ninjas tonight.  They need to work on their stealthiness.

Happy Thanksgiving.  I love you all so much.  I got up this morning with four of my daughters, my sister, and my dog to run the 2013 Kimball Stake Turkey Trot.  I think we had about 250 participants.  A large majority of them were on bicycles or scooters.  When you get there, you grab a number and safety pins, write down your number on a sheet of paper with your name and your guess as to what time you'll finish.  The winner is the person who guesses the closest to their actual finish time.  No cheating allowed.  I think my guess was 34:40.  Or 33:40.  I can't remember.  We got there right before it started so I was still pinning my bib (index card) to my shirt when everyone started.  I jumped in the back of the pack and started trotting along.  Before long I found my 8 year old, Abby.  I stopped and walked with her for a while.  Sometimes we would jog.  Sometimes we would speed walk.  I stayed with her for almost a mile before she said that I could go ahead without her.  So I did, but I felt bad and told her to make sure she stayed with the group.  Then I just moseyed along to the finish.  A couple of minutes off my guess.  But I did start my Endomondo and it was yelling out my time every mile.  So technically, I was cheating.  Anyway, I ran back to find my daughter and by this time she had caught up to two of my other daughters.  They were taking a short cut.  My other daughter dropped out and called mommy to come pick her up.  It was a beautiful morning.

I went to Safford to visit my brother the day after Thanksgiving.  We stayed the night at a Comfort Inn.  It was quite comfortable.  I snored all night.  Then I pigged out on the continental breakfast because the room was so expensive and I wanted to get my money's worth.  Probably not the best idea knowing that I would be running shortly thereafter.  I figured my brother lived two miles away from the Inn, so I ran a mile down Highway 71.  It wasn't long before I realized the higher altitude was getting to me.  I also needed to launch some snot rockets, but I'm the worst at that, so I didn't.  I saw a bunch of cotton all over the road from the cotton farms nearby.  I thought about grabbing a handful and blowing my nose into it.  Again, I didn't.  After I crossed the hightway and turned around I felt a piece of phlegm bubble up.  I got ready to hock it, but it shot right out.  It was bloody and snotty and it landed all over my shirt.  It was so gross.  I think I'm getting sick.  I found a crumpled up piece of paper and wiped it off.  Then I continued on to my brother's house and got exactly 4 miles in.