Graduation at The University

I swear it feels like yesterday that John first set off to UVA to pursue his Master's degree in Systems Engineering at the School of Engineering and Applied Science. I remember he told me it would be a tough year for him, balancing school, work, his son and me. But he did it, and I'm so proud of him. Last weekend we headed up to UVA to watch John walk the Lawn and later on receive his diploma. It was a great weekend, busy, hot, chaotic and fun as hell. My family gave him a wonderful UVA diploma frame for graduation and it looks quite impressive hanging in his office. I will most likely bring my UVA undergraduate framed diploma to hang up as well, because we are nerds like that.

I will write more later but wanted to share this news and congratulate John on his amazing achievement. I'm proud of you babe - you are a lifetime learner.

Down and Dirty

Just wanted to share two more photos from last weekend's adventure races. This weekend was HUGE - Brett's birthday, John's graduation, his whole family in town to celebrate... It was a great time and I'll share more later this week when I'm not about to pass out from exhaustion. I'll leave you with some pics from last weekend for now... Enjoy!

Muddy, Rugged, and Butt-Busting Weekend

This weekend kicked off the summer series of muddy military style runs that I've signed up for in an attempt to train for the tough mudder. Well, Friday's race was designed more for fun than anything. RVA hosted the 3rd annual Dominion Riverrock events this weekend on Brown's Island. Mud runs, dirt bikes, rock climbers and music lovers came out to enjoy Friday Cheer's concert and wet dogs leaping for toys into a pool of water. My roommates and I headed down after work on Friday, dressed in our matching camo t-shirts and ready to get muddy. The race this year was a lot smoother than last year. They took out a mud pit that had been placed along the trail last year, which had caused bottlenecking delays at the entrance of the trail. The mud pit at the finish line was significantly improved too by adding a cargo net on top that racers had to crawl under. Overall, the race was a lot of fun. We wrapped up the night with Blue Moon beer and Boka Truck takos, which definitely made the night a success.

But wait, there's more! I dragged myself home and washed my muddy clothes, only to do it all over again the next day. I managed to dry my shoes in the dryer for the Rugged Maniac, a 5k military style obstacle course race held at the VA Motorsports Park in Petersburg. We signed up for a 12pm wave so that we could sleep in a bit and head down there without rushing. My co-worker Daniel and his friend Winslow rode down with me. We got there an hour before our wave-time and the first thing I saw was a mountain covered with a tarp and streaming water, with racers flying down into a pit of mud. We headed to the start line and hit the trail. The first few obstacles were easy - jumping through tires, climbing over short 4-foot walls, maneuvering between twisted ropes, etc. It wasn't until we exited the trail where we witnessed a huge field of halfpipes and obstacles. We hit our first mud pit with the thickest mud you can imagine. Our feet were covered and weighed us down. We climbed up and down the halfpipes and approached a series of walls to scale over. At first I had no confidence that I would be able to climb on my own but somehow I managed to jump high enough to get one hand on the top of the wall and then pull the rest of me over the top.

Then came the river obstacles. We came upon a series of planks over muddy water that you had to walk across. I couldn't reach the next plank and decided to jump. This was such a mistake. I slipped and landed right on my tail-bone, bumped my head and fell into the water. Daniel and Winslow fished me out and made sure I was okay. I honestly thought that I broke something but the only thing broken was my dignity. The pain was awful but I didn't want a little pain ruin the fun I was having. We kept going, swimming over tubes in cold muddy water, crawled through a pit of mud covered by barbed wire, a few more halfpipes and finally the mountainous slide at the end. The 3 of us went down together. I was honestly scared out of my mind when I slid down. I picked up so much speed, I thought for sure I would run right into Winslow below me, but we skidded along the mud pit to the end and ran through the finish line.

What a weekend. After all of that I celebrated with a BBQ stock-the-bar party and the Lebanese Food festival the next day. My tail-bone is quite sore and I have no idea if I'll be able to go back to the gym today, but I'll give it a try. I'm definitely enjoying adventuring racing so far, even with humiliating injuries.