(diva)logues

"If you're looking for me... I'm with the girls on the dance floor...

... I'm easy to see I'm with the girls on the dance floor..."

LOVE that song.

We had a fun weekend... especially on Saturday night at my sister's going-away party.  She's moving to Denver next month.  Even though she travels A LOT and I don't get to see her regularly, I'm not looking forward to her living in another state again.  She lived in Dallas for a few years after college, but moved back here right after Bryn & Sydney were born.  So she's been here for almost 11 years now.  Everyone keeps telling me it's a new place to visit, but I like visiting with her here thank-you-very-much.  I travel enough as it is.  I've been to Denver once to ski... over 20 years ago... so I guess I'm looking forward to going back?  Really I have no choice though.  I'm going.  She can't get rid of me that easy! 

 

I have a mess of scrapbooking products all over my craft room floor for an upcoming project I've been working on... which has been making practicing Zumba interesting.  I haven't slipped on any paper yet, so all is good so far.  So... with these projects in mind, I had been going through all my photos on my laptop and ran across my Mud Run photos from last year.  I had been planning to make a mini book, since I already had all the photos printed... over 100 of them.  But... I decided to use these photo collages I had made last year for my blog and went with a pretty simple design that allowed for 24 photos + a boat load of journaling.  The journaling was pretty much cut + pasted from my blog post last year and is probably easier to read here if you're interested. 

My HELLO tag sticker came from the Simple Stories Fabulous collection... 

Did Spin class + a little running this morning.  Came very close to having to sub an abs class + a Zumba class tonight, but someone else offered at the last minute after I was still getting texted & begged this morning.  Thank goodness!!  I've never taught an abs class.  In fact, I don't think I've ever taken an abs class.  I prefer flabby abs.  LOL.  Bryn has her Zumba class tonight.  And yes... I will be checking for shaking body parts if you remember that conversation.  Then I'm getting up at the crack of dawn for Spin class tomorrow morning and subbing a Zumba class at 10:45am.  If you're local... please come dance with me! 

And this weekend is Girls Weekend in Phoenix.  So extra work-outs before I leave are definitely in order! 

"Winners are not people who never fail, but people who never quit."

Well, I have to say... participating in the Mud Run was a blast! Our team (the Dirty Bits) kicked some major butt, finishing the 6.1 miles + about 25 obstacles in 2 hrs & 8 minutes. Considering we had some waiting time at many of the obstacles before we could get past them, I think that's pretty dang great! I posted 3 short video clips on Sunday. If you missed it, you can see them here.

This event was a total test of endurance, strength, teamwork & in some cases... mind over matter. I was lucky to have 4 amazing & strong women on my team with me... my sister & 3 friends. We all had so much fun together & laughed a lot. In addition to being part of this awesome team, I swear we had the BEST cheering section on the course. So many family & friends were there, cheering us on, taking photos & video and then cutting across the field to get to another obstacle before we arrived. We had many, many family & friends at home waiting to hear how we did & sending us notes of encouragement. It was the best day all around. And Bob took 95 photos that day. Love him. ;-)

The predicted weather all week for this day was scattered thunderstorms, but the day turned out to be perfectly BEAUTIFUL. We got so lucky! Our team's start time was 10am & we took off in the 2nd heat of that start time. We ran close to 2 miles before we got to our first obstacle... a mud pit. It appeared to be more of a big puddle & I went in first. I should say I dove in because when I stepped in it was deeper than I thought. I was up to my neck in mud & it splashed all over my face & head. The rest of the team looked at me & decided not to go in that way! LOL Talk about getting weighted down right off the bat! Everyone else was wet from the waist down & I was drenched! 

 
This wall of boards scared the living s&#@ out of me. Not so fond of heights. Not at all. Climbing up was bad enough, but then you had to swing your leg over & go back down the other side. If you fall, I guarantee you're leaving on a stretcher. I should've included a photo of the wall from a distance in my collage, but I'm adding a shot so you have a better view of how high it was. I got to the board 2nd from the top & froze.  I really wanted someone to come & carry me off of there.  I swear I'd do this whole event next week if I could just skip that one obstacle...

 

 

We had to crawl through a couple sewage tunnels to get to the other side of the road.  That was gross.  We were able to do everything though.  If you failed at something, it just meant you were getting muddier... or maybe in some cases you were leaving on a stretcher.  LOL  Thankfully that didn't happen though.    

 

We had another high obstacle to get over, but this time with the netting I wasn't quite as freaked out.  It still sucked though... oh yes it did.  So did the Gorilla Ropes.  LOL

 

Ok, well the "Leap of Faith" kinda sucked too.  In fact, I woke up that night thinking about it and couldn't go back to sleep because I kept replaying that obstacle over & over again in my mind.  Did I mention I don't like heights?  Try standing on a platform as high as a high diving board & jumping into water where you can't see the bottom.  I hesitated for a bit before I finally pulled my hat off & jumped to get it over with.   

 

Our last obstacle was a big slide into... yes... another mud pit!  We just weren't muddy enough yet.  Did you know that mud is a natural exfoliant?  Smooth skin baby! 

 

Unless we were in mud, we ran the whole way which helped with our time.  Although at one point I said, "Does this course never end?!"  We found the finish line finally though!  Thank goodness the fire department was there at the end to hose everyone off.  Thank goodness I had a change of clothes in the car.  In fact, I just changed in the parking lot while Bob held a towel in front of me.  Modesty had left the building by that point.  I was freezing after the fire department shower & needed dry clothes pronto. 

The whole thing was fun.  Really, really FUN.  If it ever comes to your city, you must do it.  It's for a great cause & it's a blast!  I'm really not the outdoorsy type & really don't enjoy getting dirty at all, but this was the best time.  It pushed us all to our limits... mentally & physically... but it was awesome.

Yay Dirty Bits! 

Happy Mudder's Day...

Some quick video clips from yesterday's madness! Hope you're enjoying your Mother's Day! And ps... I don't know how to get rid of those nasty images at the end of my videos?! So let's just try to ignore those...ok?

Just hanging around...

 

I mentioned last month that I'm going to be participating in the Mud Run for MS on May 7th.  In addition to having to run a 10K (about 6.2 miles) with my team, there will also be about 20-25 obstacles to complete along the way, most of which will be surrounded by or made entirely of MUD.  The running will be the least of my worries... I'm not exactly excited about all the mud though.  One of the toughest obstacles is supposed to be the Gorilla Ropes & according to the Mud Run website... only 1% of females & 10% of males are able to do it:    

GORILLA ROPES

Think of them as Monkey Bars made out of rope but spanning 25 feet over, yep you guessed it, over one nasty mud pit.

Definition

1.    Monkey Bars Made Out of Ropes
2.    Arm and Core Burnout

This is the most difficult obstacle on the course. It requires an amazing amount of upper body strength. We tested it for 3 months on 31 different people 16 women and 15 men. The result. Only about 10% of male competitors make it across the 25 foot span. Only 1% of female competitors make it.

You have to climb up to them and then find your rhythm. Swinging one handed from one to the next is best but keep your arms flexed. If you don’t control your lower body and core going across your efforts will put you in a position to be “twisted” and out of synch which will muddy the timing needed to catch the next rope and make your dismount awkward.

The ropes are never slick since they are made of a material that has incredible grip even if frozen … but at this point in the race you are tired and your stamina is about to be tested. It is upper body strength, hand strength and core strength that will get you through.

So, in addition to stepping up my running, I've been trying to do some upper body work.  Yesterday when we went to a nearby playground, I decided to attempt the monkey bars.  I made it across once... barely.  My 2nd attempt wasn't successful... only half-way.  My sister (one of my Mud Run teammates) has already announced that she's just going to do a cannonball into the mud pit below the Gorilla Ropes.  Something tells me I'm going to be following suit. 

 

But I did manage to get a lot of cute photos from the playground yesterday & really that's all that matters considering I have that new Echo Park Playground line to play with.  You know what I'm sayin'... ;-)

If you would like to make a donation to Multiple Sclerosis, you can do so on my team page. 

Have a great week!