Go Team Dirty Shirleys!

Waaaay back in January, my sisters and I thought it would be fun to get together to run in the Dirty Dash. After little discussion, we invited our mom to join us. We named ourselves the Dirty Shirley's after our childhood favorite drink, Shirley Temples. Now that we're all adults, Dirty Shirley's seemed more appropriate. Plus, what a great way to hydrate before hand?! We didn't leave my dad out either! He was the babysitter. Lucky for him it was for only one of his grandkids, not all 4 of them! He was a trooper! Because he wasn't in the race, he was also the designated photographer. :)

For those of you who haven't heard of the Dirty Dash before, its a 5K "race", except it's not timed and there are obstacles along the course. A handful of which involve mud.  Some were more sloppy than others. Unless you went around them, there is virtually no way to cross the finish line clean.

We signed up for the dash located in Missoula. It was held at the equestrian track so it already had a few obstacles built in. Let's see if I can recall the majority of the obstacles along the course... At the beginning there were stacks of hay bales to climb over. The first two were fairly short, but the third and fourth set were twice the size so we had to help each other climb up and over. Later down the course we were hopping our feet through tires. I think we had to jump over a horse jump next. At mile marker 1 we were faced with our first mud pit. There were 3 sets of air up tubes that you had to climb over. I know I had to be pulled over one of them, which caused Robin and me to land in the mud below.

After we all made it through, we laughed as we headed to our next mud pit where we crawled through tunnels of muddy water. That led us to the mud mine pit. I wish I would have know about it. I happened to slip and while I was on my hand and knees I was hit in the face with a glob of mud. I didn't care until I opened my eyes to discover that I had mud in one...under my contact. Lucky a spectator, or maybe the mine controller, had a bottle of water he was able to rinse it out with, but it stung for the rest of the race.

From there we made our way to the GIANT water slide. I typically don't like water slides, but this one was fun. I was surprised there wasn't a mud pit to land it. But maybe by the afternoon there was? I think after the slide we had to climb up and over a 10 foot net. Pretty scary at the top... I think the next obstacle was a 10 foot wall with a rope that you had to climb over. Also very scary from the top. I was scared for my mom's life on these ones, since there were two of them.

At the 2 mile marker there was *finally* a beer station. We were under the impression there would be beer stations along the course and were a little butt hurt to find only one. Once we made it over both the 4? foot high wall (my mom rolled under them), the rest of the course started to get sloppy again. There were a couple trenches to wade through, and a few big mud pits.

One of the last obstacles featured a HUGE blow up house looking structure where the inside was nothing but sticky mud. To get out you had to try to run, without slipping, and jump over the aired up border. Kile made it out through a window and had to pull me through. My height was a complete disadvantage on that one...

When we all made it though the house, we approached the 3 mile marker. The last tenth of the race we had to wallow through two massive mud pits. They weren't too bad to get through, it was getting up and out over the mound of mud built around it that was challenging!

But all 5 of us made it. It only took an hour and twenty minutes! Unfortunately we only got a couple pictures of us after the race. Ah well. Before heading home, we rinsed off a the shower station. I made the mistake of trying to wash my face off. In doing so, I got mud in my "good" eye. With both eyes burning at that point, I had to take my contacts out and throw them. And then I was lead around like a lost dog. Robin had the same problem with her contacts but not to the extent of mine. 

Next year we're wearing goggles!

Go team Dirty Shirleys!