Oops, I did it again...

I thought I learned my lesson after the Tough Mudder.  If you came up to me and said "hey, let's go run up and down a mountain," I would reply without hesitation "absolutely not."  Do you know why I would say that?  Because it's stupid.  But change the question to "hey, do you want to do a mud race?" the answer is always "YES."  Because, for some reason, that sounds like fun and not stupid at all. 

The eve before Hurricane Irene (dud) was scheduled to demolish the Greater Boston area, Micah and I ran the Spartan Race for the second time.  Last year we ran this race with a group of people.  It was our first mud race and if you were to take out the 32 hornet stings we endured collectively it was a lot of fun.  You ran up the mountain once, went through a few fairly easy obstacles, and ran back down.  Apparently, a lot of people complained that the course was too easy last year.  It seems the Spartan team took these comments personally.  This year was unexpected and ridiculous.  They took out the "girl-side" of the 8 foot walls you had to jump which was not good for Micah or myself since he had to help me over every single one of them.   The barbed wire crawl went from a nice and easy 5-minute army crawl to three sections of barbed wire about 30 yards a piece straight up hill, split up by 6-8 foot walls you had to jump. In mud and rocks.  As if that wasn't enough, they added obstacles.  One of which required us to take a 5 gallon bucket, fill it up with gravel (1/2 for girls, 3/4 for guys), and carry it up and down a hill.  Why do I pay to do this stuff?  The good news is, this is the first of the three mud races I've done where I didn't get stung.  Isn't it sad that this is the good news?

All in all this was a great race, but I wish I would have been prepared for it.  I expected to drive up to Amesbury, roll around in the mud, and have some fun.  Instead I returned home broken.  It hurts to get up, sit down, and breath.  And I know what you're thinking...the answer is yes, I will be back next year.

On another note, we learned Sota doesn't like earthquakes.  We knew that she wouldn't be pleased about Irene, but this is what we came home to after the earthquake the other day...

There are two windows in this bedroom.  The other set of blinds was completely torn down.  Our guest bedroom looked like a murder scene.  And look at Baxter sitting there like nothing happened.  Worthless.

St Pete Beach

Micah and I decided this year we needed a vacation, just the two of us.  So, as continued punishment for failing to complete the duties assigned to him as we planned our wedding and honeymoon, I left all the planning and booking up to him.  I vowed to do nothing but show up to the airport at whatever specified time necessary.  And that's exactly what I did.

Only it wasn't just the two of us.  We have a new friend that joined us on our trip.  His name is Möl, he is from Sweden, and he is a snake.  He first made an appearance in our coffeemaker when my mom came to visit.  Then, he managed to wrap himself around the vacuum cleaner and later slithered his way into a pitcher full of tea.  He ended up in Florida by stowing away in our beach blanket, surprising Micah our first day on the beach.

Not one to hold a grudge, Micah allowed Möl to join in our vacation fun and what says vacation better than Cheez-Its?  Nothing.

I decided Möl needed a taste of the high life and took him to Madfish where he rattled his way onto Micah's entree (with the help of two very bored servers).

And on and on it went.  At first, Möl was just a source of entertainment (and a really good way to annoy one another) but on the third day of our trip, he saved our lives.  Here's the story:

We were on the beach reading our books and decided it was time for lunch.  We had a couple of sandwiches and a box of Cheez-Its in our beach bag ready to go.  No big deal, right?  I mean, growing up we went on vacation every summer and I distinctly remember having a sandwich or two on the beach without incident.  Clearly, my parents never took us to St. Pete Beach.  This beach has the most aggressive, violent birds I've ever encountered.  (The duck at Burdette Park who chased me around the pond when I was 7 comes in a very close second).  As soon as Micah pulled out his corned beef sandwich he had a bird hovering over his shoulder waiting for the perfect moment to snag the lunch right out of his hands.  It looked something like this:

I screamed like a little girl, causing the people around us to laugh and the aerial attack to switch focus to me and my peanut butter sandwich since I was obviously the weaker human of our group.  One bird quickly became 100 (okay, maybe 8) and all I could hear was their evil cawing and the beating of their wings around my head.  I ducked and dove but couldn't shake them.  Micah used this opportunity of freedom to hide his sandwich back in the bag, but I wasn't so lucky.  Knowing I had a back up in the bag, I threw my sandwich as far away from our stuff as I could and curled up in the fetal position.  The birds followed the sandwich and left us alone.  Once the coast was clear and I stopped hyperventilating, we resumed lunch.  Only this time we had security.

Besides being attacked by flesh-eating sandwich-loving seabirds, the vacation was a good one.  We even went paddleboarding!  My experience was slightly more successful than Micah's.

And, for the record, we attempted to continue training but within the first mile running on the beach I stepped in a hole in the sand and twisted my ankle.  Oh well, vacations are meant for eating and lazing not exercising.

MosquiDO's, MosquiDON'Ts

I wish I could be one of those people who woke up early every morning to greet the day with a smile and a positive outlook. I tried that today.  Instead of waiting until after work to run in the heat of the day, I've started setting my alarm clock early enough to run a couple of miles while it's still cool out.  This morning there were two major problems: #1 I have NEVER been a morning person and #2 it was anything but cool.  The temperature may not have hit the high for the day but have you have been tempted to run laps in a sauna?  Me neither.  My goal was to run 3 miles, take the dogs for a cool-down walk, and make it to work before 8:00AM.  Triple fail.

The alarm went off and as any self-respecting procrastinator would do, I hit snooze three times.  I finally dragged myself out of bed but the extra snooze hits left me no time for a pre-run breakfast.  Who needs food or water before running?  Not me.  I walked out the front door and ran smack into a wall of humidity.  I was covered in sweat before I even started running.  Trying to muster through the steam, I decide to keep my running on the bike path.  I thought it would be nice to run on the nice quiet path through the trees and past the lake.  Even better, the bike path is paved but there is a nice dirt shoulder that's perfect for running.  Tranquility. 

I knew I wouldn't be breaking any records on this run.  Not only was it too muggy to breathe, but I've taken a couple weeks off running because of a minor foot injury (don't worry, I Googled it and I'll be fine).  But this run was tough.  Glacial, I would say.  And the bugs - oh, the bugs.  About one mile in, a mosquito (or other buzzy-flying thing) started following me.  She stalked my whole life on the bike path.  She hovered around my ears, waiting for an opportunity to enter so she could lay her eggs in there.  I know this to be true because it is scientific fact that this is what mosquitoes want.  See the scientific equation below for proof if you don't believe me.

Well, I wasn't going to just let her in without a fight.  No way.  I did everything I could to get her away.  I jerked my head from side to side, slapped and swatted around my face and ears, and screamed in frustration.  All I managed to do was make whatever small children happened to be near cry.  I was officially slow, hungry, tired, frightening to the young, and a walking mosquito nest.

I went home in defeat with my shoulders slumped.  My run was too slow to take the girls for a walk and I rolled into work around 8:15.  Greet the day with a smile?  Come on.  Get real.  My days go much smoother when I greet them complaining and grumbling one full hour of sleep later.