All Mud Runs are not Created Equal

I ran (and got hooked) on obstacle racing during August 2011, when I ran Warrior Dash-Carolinas. I had such a blast, that I couldn't wait to do it again. So, when a group of friends suggested teaming up for the inaugural "Roughneck Challenge," I was game. The event had been advertised at the Warrior Dash, so we all figured it would be on-par, or at least close, to the level of the professionally run Warrior Dash. We all dutifully ponied up our $45 and began preparing for what was described as "No Mud. No Mess. Just Race."

As we found out, the organizers spent more time thinking up their advertising slogan than they spent on the actual race.

When I arrived at the race site, I was surprised to find that the advertised live music and family-friendly games were non-existent. As I walked towards my teammates by the registration booth, I saw only  two vendor booths. The race was held at a local high school, and looking around, I wondered what course had been laid out in order to equal 5k. I was shocked to find out that the course was only 2.5k. Participants would have to run the course twice.

But it got worse.

In order to time the race correctly, participants would have to change bibs between course runs. 

No. Seriously.

After my team ran the poorly put together course the first time (we joked about how many stinking cargo nets we had to climb), a course sparsely monitored by apathetic volunteers, we declined to run it again. The organizers had our $45 a piece; we weren't giving them our pride too. 

It seems, however, that we made out better than the participants of last weekend's Mud Wars in Chicago.

No water? Few bathrooms for over 6000 participants? Obstacles that were patently dangerous and fell apart?

No thank you!

Obstacle racing is still a relatively new sport. And unlike traditional road races, there don't tend to numerous OCRs within easy travel distance for people to choose from. Seeing this void, unscrupulous and/or ignorant entrepreneurs are racing to put together mud runs (and get your money). As tempting as it is to feed your appetite for OCRs, it's probably a good idea to put your credit card back in your wallet when it comes to most "inaugural" OCRs. Unless the organizers have worked on some of the more highly-regarded OCRs (ex: Tough Mudder, Spartan Race, Rugged Maniac, Warrior Dash, etc...), you'll probably be wasting your time and money. 

I wish I could say that I learned my lesson after the Roughneck Challenge, but no. Sadly, this past June, I signed up for yet another "inaugural" mud run. And once again, I wasted my time and money.

Lesson learned. At least that time, I only paid $35 for the taste of extreme disappointment.

Motivational Moment #2

Don't ever forget how much power you truly possess.

Tales of a Has-Been

I Wanna Go Back

And Do It All Over Again

But I Can't Go Back, I Know

I Wanna Go Back

Cause I'm Feeling So Much Older

But I Can't Go Back, I Know

 This song has been bouncing around my head all morning. I can hear Eddie Money's voice, on constant replay. And of course, the cheesy saxophone. No self-respecting '80s song was complete without a saxophone.

 But I digress.

Some people stroll down memory lane. For the past two weeks, I've worn my proverbial shoes through the sole pacing up and down memory lane.  You see, my parents are in the process of moving out of the home they lived in for 21 years. Which meant that I, finally, had to go home and pack up my old room and decide what I was keeping and what needed to be either thrown away or given away.

It's not easy going through things that once meant so much to you, and now have no place in your life. It's hard looking back at the girl you used, through the lens of the woman you are now, knowing what life would bring to that girl, both the good and the bad.

Oh, the things you would tell your teenage self if you had the chance.

In junior high and high school, I was very involved with a national organization. My senior year, I was even a national officer with that organization. As it so happened, this year, their national convention was about an hour and a half from where I live now, so a friend and I decided to drive up and say hi to a couple of friends who were still involved, as well as to see how much things have changed.

There's a saying: The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Seeing the mostly high school crowd, I could palpably feel a wave of nostalgia and memory sweep over me. I could feel that excitement again that I used to feel as a high schooler.

There's another saying: You can never dip your toe into the same stream twice.

As much as things were the same - many of the same sponsors, some of the same faces, though older - it was so different. I was different. I was 15 years older. Instead of worries about whether that cute guy from a different delegation would like me back and whether I would win a contest, I had worries about whether my 3-year-old would finally stop having potty training accidents and whether my parents would acclimate to the their new environment. I looked at the kids around me at the convention - many of whom weren't even born during my heyday in the group - and for a few moments, I envied them. I envied the simplicity of their lives, the joy of new discoveries to come.

The joy and freedom of youth.

And that was where my stroll down memory lane stopped. I had had my moment. It was nice to revisit, but it was time to move on.

As another saying goes: There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens.

This was my time to say good-bye. 



Motivational Moment #1

Words to live by.

Almost Found Out for Who I Am!

Let me just come out and say it: I am never winning mother of the year. And I don't even pretend to be in the running. If they started the qualifying every January 1st at midnight, I'd be disqualified by 12:05 a.m. When my older son, in fits of anger, tells me I'm the worst mommy ever, I just nod and agree with him.

It's easier that way. Why fight the truth?

You may ask: "Why do you consider yourself a bad mommy?" Well, there are numerous reasons. And I'm sure I'll share them with you over the coming weeks. But today's example of poor parenting concerns my inability to properly feed my children according to the standards, of well, most people with basic standards.

Let me preface this by stating: I myself have never been a good eater. I think I went until 4 pm yesterday before eating something. Today, I was good and actually had a snack around lunch time. It's not that I don't like eating, I just have others things I rather be focusing on. If you put food in front of me, I'll eat it. But left to my own devices, well...As my husband says, I'd never survive in the wild.

My children have learned to adapt to my lackadaisical attitude towards food by fending for themselves. Older Boy, who is 5, began raiding the refrigerator regularly, until I, in all my wisdom, decided to stock the bottom shelf with healthy snacks for him and Younger Boy. My mother is pretty much in a constant state of criticizing my mothering when it comes to food.

Part of the problem is I'm just not very interested in food. Recipes, cooking? I'd rather balance my checkbook. I'm firmly in the camp that sees food as fuel - if it tastes good, well, that's just a plus. If someone came out with the type of nutritious gruel that the people in "The Matrix" eat on-board the Nebuchadnezzar, I'd be mad stocking up on it.

But, back to the topic at hand: My messy mothering.

One of the neighbors, a girl about a year older than Older Boy, came over to play this morning at our house. Older Boy starting complaining he was hungry. I looked at the clock. It was 11:30. Oh, crap: Lunchtime. Even worse than that, lunchtime with an outside participant.

I tried not to panic.

Lunch at our house generally consists of either leftovers from dinner, ramen noodles, sandwiches, or macaroni and cheese. We didn't have leftovers from dinner. Crap. A peanut  butter and jelly sandwich didn't seem adequate enough to feed someone else's child. My kids? Sure, nothing but the minimal standard for my kids, but this involved someone else's child. I opened the pantry to look inside. I offered macaroni and cheese. Nope, neighbor kid had it for lunch the day before. I began to panic. My poor mommying was about to be found out. Luckily, Older Boy poked his head into the pantry and screamed, "RAMEN!" Neighbor girl got excited about ramen. Phew! Saved! I made the kids ramen and supplemented it with apples. Apples are healthy, right? 

The kids happily munched their ramen and apples. Disaster averted. Neighbor girl went home with a full tummy and my secret was safe.

For now.

In the beginning...

And so here I am. Staring at a blank screen that is just waiting for me to fill it up with words. Sigh. It always starts like this, doesn't it? Where to start? Where to begin?

I guess I should start with why I'm doing this - why am I writing? Why am I starting over with a new blog? I wrote 73 posts on my last blog; why not build upon that? Well, the truth is (and I have a feeling I will be writing those words a lot in the coming days), I needed a do-over. Not a fresh slate - in this day and age, no one gets one of those anymore - but a chance to go with a different type of theme for my blog. I stopped blogging on my old site for several reasons. One was time, of course. Another was motivation. My last blog was filled with diatribes and criticisms. Not really anger, per se, but more like an opinion column. And, well, at this point in my life, I just don't have the angry energy to write an opinion column on a regular basis - that was me 15 years ago. For me, at the ripe old age of 34, writing has once again returned to what it used to be: a chance to express. A chance to get down on paper - or screen, as it were - the words and thoughts that are bouncing around in my mind. A chance to be honest.

So, here I am.

I came up with blog name as I was walking through the grocery store today, with a thousand different thoughts bouncing around in my head, thinking about where my life is, what I have become.

Messy.

My life is always messy. And I don't mean in a cobwebs-hanging-off-of-the-fan kind of way, I mean in a what-paintball-or-water-balloon-am-I-juggling-at-the-moment kind of way. I've always got too much going on, whether it's with my family, my work, myself. I'm messy in that I aspire to do so much in so many areas, but then something shiny catches my eye and, whoops! I'm messy in that my life is a constantly choreographed chaos, and I always swear I'll do better next time...but never quite follow through. And, of course, like so many "messy" individuals, both literally and metaphorically, I excel at cleaning up my messes and trying to learn from them. Probably so I can make a bigger mess next time.

Muddy.

Last year, I discovered a new passion of mine: obstacle course racing, or as they are more popularly known, mud runs. In the last year and a half, I've gone from being a couch potato to happily crawling through my share of muddy, barbed wire covered fields. And while I end up pretty messy after each race, I've found that mud actually keeps me clean. It is my balance. It's what keeps me grounded. And it has a nasty way of ending up in the inner parts of your ears so that you find bits of it weeks later.

Mommy.

I hate being defined by one aspect of my life. I am not just one thing. I am a combination of many things. But, when it all comes down to it, I am at the phase of my life in which the title I hear most often is "mommy." Though I have been trying to break my dear husband out of the habit of calling me that instead of my given name.

And so, there it is. Who I am at this point in time. Messy muddy mommy. Life's a journey. You're going to get quite dirty along the way...