FOAM fest

I was so excited when I saw the advertisement for this run at my 1/2 marathon, I knew this was something I had to do-FOAM yeah that would be way fun to play in. BUT who could I talk into it???? Thankfully this is just a 5k and a FUN run on top of that, so if you walk the whole thing, that is ok-It is not timed. I was able to convince my little sister Kelsey to come join in the fun. She is not a runner but working on getting into shape. We went to Sherwood, Or. with Kelsey's friend Jacky (who took pictures at the beginning and end). We signed up for the 3rd heat at 11:30 so we saw many of Gross finishers and wondered what the heck we were doing.
                                     
 OH well-We had named ourselves "pig pens" after Charlie Browns friend but we couldn't find any pig masks etc--- for our adventures. Next time we are going to have the overalls, straw hats, pig faces and the works. Oh yes there will be a next time.

 Stretching before we begin this adventure. Needless to say they had 15 obstacles along with the 5k run. The first was an army crawl through mud, under live cattle wires (ya know like the ones I grew up with around the farm-ouch). I thankfully didn't get shocked but it was a disgusting first obstacle. From that moment on we carried 5lbs of mud in our shoes and clothes (kelsey maybe more). After that we did tire drills, swinging balls, 2 different climbing walls, human car wash, mud pit, HUGE DIRTY SLIP IN SLIDE-you took in a gallon of mud on your face, mud pit with rope to get out of, huge stinky mud pit-that we fell in (it smelled like someone through cow poop in it-ugh), spider web crawl etc.. Needless to say I thought there was going to be a lot of foam but there was more mud than anything. You can say I am not a person who likes to get dirty. I can't stand dirt in my fingernails, on my feet etc...When I go camping I am always washing my kids' feet with wipes because I cant stand the dirt between their toes or mine. This was a "fear" I was trying to overcome. I wouldn't say I overcame it but I did conquer it a bit. I know"God made dirt, so dirt don't hurt" yeah, yeah.

 I think the hardest part was waiting around during some of the obstacles.The mud would dry up all over your body and make you feel like a dried out piece of toast.  Being that this was an inaugural race here in Oregon, they had a few kinks and the slip in slide was one of them. I think we waited about 1/2 hour for the first one and a good 1/2 hour-40 minutes for the Finish line slip in slide. I have never had to wait to finish a race but you do what ya gotta do.
                                    
 OOOOO GROSE

    

 Since our names were pig pens I thought it was appropriate to eat this apple off the side of the road-Yeah it was a little rotten.

 Makes you want to join on in doesn't it?????

 I have a mud race coming up in September and it is actually a mud run- heaven help what I will look like than if this was a "FOAM RUN". I cant believe we Americans pay to run runs where we come out looking better than we started. Really if our ancestors could look at us now.
Truthfully it did make me grateful for the service men and women who go through boot camp and do this kind of training all the time (of course they have it bad-we could choose to do it or not). I bet they also never knew that they would take boot camp rituals and make them into a FUN RUN. WHO KNEW??????