tough mudder

If you're wondering if most of our weekends this summer are consumed by races/athletic events... you're correct. Luckily we've got a few vacations in the mix too but basically we are booked solid.

This weekend took us to Vail, Colorado for Paul and 4 of his closest, craziest, friends to compete in the "Tough Mudder" Basically a navy seals training obstacle course race, going up a ski slope. The course was 10+ miles and spanned over hills all over the mountain. Intermixed with the trail was about 25 crazy obstacles. Fun right?

We left Friday afternoon with our little caravan and stopped about halfway in Grand Junction for dinner. We rented a big townhouse for all of us to stay at that was awesome! It was huge and nice and a great location. We all got our own rooms and tried to get a good night's rest.

Saturday was race day. We got up, got ready, and grabbed some Subway breakfast. A sight never to be seen again at Subway:

(The boys decided to dress as lumberjacks. Which for a few of them - especially Paul - somehow turned into an excuse to wear extremely short cut of jean shorts). We headed over to Beaver Creek resort where the race was held, got checked in and walked around the venue.  It was definitely a guys event, there were girls doing it too but it was all geared up for the fellas... messy and rough and tumble.

 

And then at 12:20 they were off!

Unfortunately the best way to see the course is to follow right behind a participant because spectators could only get to a few of the obstacles. But all of us girls definitely tried our hardest! As soon as the boys started we were off too, following and catching buses, hiking, riding gondolas and running after them. We got everywhere we could considering we were all wearing sandals and lugging bags and babies in tow.  I created my own little mudslide as i was hurrying down a hill and slipped and fell on my bum, and a little bit on Caitlin. Definitely took us a few minutes to recover from that! The boys seriously had a blast though and it was fun to see them when we did. It was also fun to witness all the other people during their obstacles and see how people handled things. We definitely heard our share of colorful language as participants came out of freezing cold pools or slapped against the ground during the slip n' slide.

 

 This was the "Gernoble Jacuzzi" obstacle. Basically a huge dumspter full of freezing cold water including ice cubes, blue dye, sludge and other unknown items. Paul took a giant leap in and a giant leap out.

This was the giant slip n' slide that ended in a muddy puddle then they had to run up a mound of snow and slide down the other side.

 Other obstacles included greased monkey bars, swimming under barrels, crawling through box mazes, climbing over walls, lots of ropes and ladders, and lots of cold water. The last one was running through mud with hay bales with live wires hanging down. The boys caused quite the crowd uproar when they decided to all take off their shirts and run through the wires together for their big grand finale.

 

The boys finished and had so much fun. They had plenty of stories to tell of obstacles and things that happened along the way. And they all said they would do it again in a heart beat! 

 

After the race we went back to our place and took some much needed showers, ordered some much needed pizza and relaxed. That night we went hot tubbing and watched a movie. 

  

Sunday we headed home! We were only a little ways into our trip when we got stopped between two big tunnels. There was an accident in the tunnel in front of us and traffic was stopped for about an hour and a half. Luckily the weather was nice and we got to get out of the car and enjoy the sunshine. We even let the little girls take the wheel for a little while.

What a fun weekend to spend with friends and family! We are so lucky to have such fun and crazy people in our lives to have these experiences with.