It's not a mudrun, it's a mudFUN

I feel good. For all you grammar Nazis out there, it's not that I feel well and I'm using improper grammar; I mean, I FEEL good. For more than an hour on Saturday at the Rock'N Run, I was covered in mud from the neck-down. What does mud do? It exfoliates. I feel great. Go ahead, touch me. You can run your fingers along my arms – my skin makes puppies' ears feel like splintered lumber. I make babies' butts feel like sandpaper.

That's right, baby with future obesity problems and dog in need of a good ironing. You have nothing on me!

Look at me, talking shit to these two adorable creatures. That's what happens when you run 3.1 miles, some of it through mud, all while completing 14 mildly difficult obstacles. It makes you hard. Yeah, my skin is soft, but it's disguising my hardened exterior. I'm a man, I'm 27! If completing a 5K run doesn't make me Maximus Decimus Meridius, I don't know what does.

Really though, I'm five days removed from the race and the crippling soreness has finally subsided. And, I've come to some conclusions.

1. I am really good at climbing things; however, event photogs shit the bed and didn't get any photos of me climbing through mud, across monkey bars, over walls and cargo nets, or climbing a rope to ring a pathetic, plastic little bell (if an angel got his wings with that ring, he probably had some severe deformity). So, I have no proof, you'll just have to take my word for it.

2. I am not good at running. And I'm really not good at running up stairs, which we had to do three times. Up and down, up and down, up and down the bleachers in the Rose Bowl. This was my unraveling. I made it three-quarters up the first set before I had to slow my pace. The next two, I trudged up, hands on knees, sucking air, sweat dripping from my nose and chin. We were barely a quarter-mile in. So that's what I need to do: I need to run, a lot. I will also continue to climb shit, because it's fun.

But my pain and exhaustion quickly gave way to joy. I was like a pig in shit because I got to play in the mud. When I started the race, I was beautiful, pristine. Like a diamond in an Icelandic sunset. By the end I was covered in mud. I must have lost 10 pounds in water weight, but my clothes weighed 20. Photos, to illustrate...

That adorable little thing in the middle, that's my sister, Elly. And the Shrek on the right is her boyfriend, Sean. More on his biceps later.

I digress...The first obstacle was a belly crawl through mud with barbed wire looming dangerously above. At first I was like "EEEWWWW," but then I was like "WHEEEEE!!!!!"

(Please don't mind the watermarks, I can't afford to buy these photos. At least I got to 

them before they upped their watermark game and plastered it all over the damn things.)

Now, I said I was like a pig in shit, but that's only a half-smile. You ask "Why, Austen? Why only a smile?" Well I was waiting for Sean to make his way out of the mud pit and he had found some things that people lost. Here he is.

(Censored for your viewing pleasure)

Oopsie...

There he is! He was trying to give some bibs back to people who lost them. We should have kept them for possibility of free beer, but I don't think the beer tickets were still attached. And if I know my sister as well as I think I do, she's laughing at the rhino reference, but she's not entirely pleased that her mudbath didn't make it. So here's the obligatory shout out.

Cute, muddy, blah blah blah, she's happy now. Anyway, these pictures actually came from the second mud pit, and you can see how covered we are. The first wasn't quite as watery, but the gentleman in front of me decided he would kick through it, much like a swimming pool and splash all sorts of mud into my eyes, which stayed for the remainder of the race.

Speaking of eyes, I can't do shit if I can't see. One of the obstacles was crawling through dirt and hay underneath a black tarp, roughly 60 feet long. Elly did this with ease. I was sloth-like in my endeavors, taking more than twice as long as her, and was left with a mouthful of dust as punishment. No joke, I just spit dirt out. If you think you get dry mouth when you're hungover, try licking a sandbox.

Additionally, we had to jump into super cold water. This was just water, no ice, like in the Tough mudder. We still froze. It literally takes your breath away when you go underwater. Just jumping in is no problem. But you take a deep breath, go underwater and your chest compresses. You know there is air in your lungs, but it shocks you so hard that your body stops processing it. The blood flows from your limbs and into your core, but it's not enough. And when you're ducking underwater four times in a row, it's really quite awful. We came up gasping each time, slowly making our way to the end. I was lucky enough to be stuck behind one man who decided that urgency was not in anyone's best interest and he paused atop the ladder to get out. He took in the view. He snapped a photo. He picked his nose, analyzed his findings, balled it up, and flicked it to the side. He took his sweet fucking time and I was not happy. One quick shove and the problem was solved. He wasn't happy, but I wasn't in freezing water anymore. WHAT NOW?! Every man for himself, you dick.

Then I warmed up and I wasn't so mad anymore.

What I learned from the event was: running sucks and I suck at running; I'm good at climbing things and climbing things is fun; I need to talk to my cat about improving my eyesight in the dark; I need to take a lot of cold showers.

After the event, Elly, Sean, and I went to the Pasadena Yard House to drink another beer and reminisce. There were a few people there who had also completed the run and we would cheer and fist-pump and congratulate each other when we crossed paths. It was awesome! Teamwork! Camaraderie! Generally being badasses!

And then it all went to shit. This is where my "training" falls off course. The one free beer at the race and the half-yard beer afterward aren't a big deal. It's what follows...

I went to my parents' house to watch the Nebraska at Ohio State game. We drank beer and ate runzas during the game. Then Nebraska lost and instead of sitting around and bitching about it, we just drank. Some friends came over and drank beers with my dad. Then he busted out the expensive stuff. Then we kept drinking the cheap stuff. Then I went to a friend's house and drank more.

The next day, hungover and balled up with cramped abdominals, I watched RedZone, drank a bunch of wine and beer, and ate a bunch of meat and cheese. Therein lies the problem. A beer, or two, or three isn't so much a problem. But when that one beer brings a bunch of uninvited friends, my whole "eat healthy, be fitness savvy, run and work out" mantra derails. Any and all exercise was completely negated.

On the other hand, I still have a bunch of time to get my ass into gear and get in shape for the Tough Mudder. So I will gleefully procrastinate while you look at more pictures of the run, because lets not let them go to waste.

Seriously. Look at that bicep. Look at his arm as a whole. It's like my head. It's bigger than my head. It's a good thing I like him because there is no way in hell I could kick his ass. 

And there's my sister and I. Next, her climbing. I looked similar, except I was at the top and going all hunchback on the cheap-ass bell.

And here's the rest. One of the three of us. One of Elly because she's photogenic. One of Sean and me lifting her because we had to assert our dominance and show her who still makes us sandwiches. I'm lumping these all together because I am tired and I had to rewrite more than half of this because it was deleted somehow. LOOK AT US ALL MUDDY AND CUTE!!