Muddy Buddy

This morning Jeremy and I woke up about 5:00am and headed into the heart of the Texas Hill Country (near Dripping Springs) to meet up with my best friend Molly, for the Muddy Buddy competition!

Molly and I have been training for this partner event for about six weeks...and we were ready to show our stuff. The Muddy Buddy Event is the best race ever because it combines running, mountain biking, obstacles like climbing walls and 25 foot inflatable slides, and of course, a massive mud pit at the very end.

Our course was about 7 miles and it was broken into 5 different legs. Molly and I have one mountain bike between the two of us, and we alternate between who gets the bike and who is running.

Here is our beautiful before photo!

These were our supportive husbands...ready to cheer us on.
True love and devotion to get up at 5:00am on a weekend to see us through this special event!

Molly getting last minute advice from her husband Kevin....
"Don't fall off the bike!"

Jeremy, telling me just how cool I look in my helmet...
somehow I'm not buying it!

We were in the 9th of 10 waves headed out on the course, so we actually started right at 9:00am. It was an AWESOME morning....mid 60's with cloud cover. This never happens in Texas in May!

I started off the race on the bike, and Molly started off running...on a side note, I have gone mountain biking a total of one time before on a real course...and that was at summer camp circa 1995...so I wasn't so sure how I was going to fare on the bike!

Here I am taking off from the start...
nervous laughter has already begun!

And there goes Molly! Our goal was to beat the cowgirl buddy group...you can see her in the far left corner of this picture.

If you wanted to you could wear costumes...the umm, most memorable, were the chip n' dale dancer guys in the first wave... not sure I'd want to be running behind them!

I took off at the start like a crazy woman! It was great. I was passing people left and right and taking hills kamikaze style! I think it was the adrenalin, but man, that biking was so much fun. I don't think I actually stayed seated for that whole first mile and a half... I was standing up, going over rocks and down gullies...it was great!

After a little over a mile you hit your first obstacle/transition area...the first obstacle was a 15 foot vertical climbing wall with a cargo net on the back side. I dropped the bike for Molly and set off on my run (the next mile and a half). After finishing the second obstacle it was on to the 25-foot vertical cargo net climb with a great inflatable slide to go down, once you get to the top! (see below). I spotted Molly coming up right behind me on the bike, just as I finished the slide...perfect timing...and I was off on the bike again!
We flip flopped like this for the rest of the race and I really had a fun time...just trying to watch my footing on the runs, keeping my momentum on the bike for the big hills, and seeing all the crazy costumes along the way.

Finally, at the end, Molly and I met up one more time and we ran straight for the mud pit!

Oh yea, mud is getting everywhere!

And we finished the race just before the 60-minute mark! Not bad!

And the after picture...the taste of sweet victory...or that might be mud Molly! =)

For some reason Jeremy and Kevin didn't want to give us a celebratory hug after this?!?

All in all it was an awesome experience. I was even ready to go immediately back out on the course for one more try! And we're already thinking about getting in one more Muddy Buddy event in Dallas this October...so stay tuned!

Our official time was: 59:41. We came in 36th in our age group out of 74 teams...so better than half the group! Not bad...and also came in as team #571 out of 800 teams overall!

POLL: So what do you think about this picture....we're looking really tough, right?! =)