St. Patrick's Day and the Gladiator Run

I am trying to be a more fun mom.  In the past holidays come and I think, "Shoot, I guess we really should have done something to celebrate this holiday.  Oh well, maybe next year."  I finally had enough of being lame and decided to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.  I rented about 10 books from the library about St. Patrick's Day and Leprechauns.  Tommy and I read them in preparation for the big day.  On St. Patty's Day we successfully made pizza with a green crust, green Jell-O, and two cakes with green frosting.  Tommy and Daddy each decorated one with Skittles, as you can see.  The Skittles tasted a little weird on cake that first night, but after they sat in the frosting overnight they softened up and were absolutely delicious.  A leprechaun came and dyed Tommy's milk green, which he loved.  His poop was green for at least five days afterward.  I had big plans of making a pot of gold with a trail of leprechaun footprints leading to it, but that didn't happen.  Maybe next year:)

Also on Patrick's Day I ran the funnest 5K known to man.  It was called the Gladiator Run and it was definitely the hardest and the most rewarding 5K I have accomplished.  We started out by running up and down a small mountain on dirt trails.  That was probably about 2 miles of the 3.1-mile race.  There were 16 obstacles scattered throughout the course.  They included everything from running through tires to jumping over hay bales to army crawling through mud to swimming through a pool of ice-cold water.  The hardest obstacles for me were the climbing ones.  One obstacle was comprised of 3 huge dumpsters that we had to jump in and then jump out of.  I was really glad to have done this run with some friends who helped give each other a boost in and out of the dumpsters.  The other hard obstacle was right at the end where we had to climb up a slippery wall with a rope.  Then we jumped over fire.  It was awesome and I can't wait to do another race like this again.  It took about 1 hour 15 minutes to do, but the point was to have fun and to do some crazy things rather than to finish quickly.  Below is a little video I made about the run.

Now I get to talk about the psychological benefits of doing something out-of-the-ordinary.  I used to think people who did obstacle runs like this were crazy.  I didn't see the point of running a 5K for anything other than trying to beat my PR.  I guess in the past running has always been a battle of me beating myself and improving over the previous race, running farther, running faster, etc.  My friend posted on Facebook that she was doing this run and I thought to myself, "She's crazy.  I would never do a run like that."

Then a day came about 8 weeks after Lily was born when I had a tough, tough day.  I had to drive to Mesa for my yearly gynie exam and I had to take both of my kids with me, despite having lined up two different babysitters.  The drive was long, Lily cried basically the whole time (she is not a fan of driving in the car), and I was totally worn out by the time we got home.  Ben was sick that day, so after a long day of mommy stuff I put the kids to bed and trekked out to Wal-Mart to get Ben some medicine.  It was a long, exhausting day.  As I walked into the store it hit me:  the reason why races like the Gladiator Run exist.  It's for people like me who get burned out of their daily routine, whether it be a stay-at-home mom or a person who goes to work everyday.  It's for people who want some reassurance that they are still alive, that they can still complete something challenging, that they can do something totally out of character.  It's for people who just want to do something crazy and fun.  Races like this exist so that people like me can bear the sometimes monotonous daily grind with a smile, knowing that although I spend my days cleaning up dishes, toys, and poop, there is this crazy warrior within who climbs slippery walls and swims through ice water.  I know this doesn't relate to some people, but it's what I needed at the time, and I'm so glad I followed through and ran that race.

I was nervous before we started and I kept asking Ben, "Why did I sign up for this?  I'm worried I'm not going to be able to do it.  This is crazy.  Who does stuff like this?"  I walked away from this race a different person than I was before it.  I needed this race.  Maybe that sounds weird to some, but I did.  In the week since the race I have drawn so much strength from it.  I can't tell you how many times I have thought, "I know I can get through today because I crawled through mud last week," or, "Even though I feel frumpy right now I know I am fit and sexy because I climbed in and out of a dumpster."  In Martin Dugard's To Be a Runner: How Racing Up Mountains, Running with the Bulls, or Just Taking On a 5-K Makes You a Better Person (and the World a Better Place)he talks about how running makes you a better person because you accomplish hard things that you didn't think you could do before.  Of course, that knowledge can come in infinite other ways, but for me, it' comes through running and fitness.

Anyway, that's how we celebrated St. Patrick's Day.  Now time to get geared up for Easter...