After paying for two high-priced race entry fees, a full tank of gas in the Sorento, a 2-night hotel stay at the Hampton Inn in Fort Walton Beach, a 3-night kennel stay for our two Corgis, and other trip incidentals, I anxiously clicked through the hundreds of online photos taken during the 2013 Emerald Coast Mud Run for Orphans.  It took me two passes through the entire collection before I came across the only one of me and my husband. And, I’m out-of-focus and he’s barely the profile of a shoulder and an ear.

(SEE RED ARROWS)

 Tears pricked my eyes and I felt an overwhelming amount of regret and defeat. I had nothing to show for all of the sacrifices I had to make and hard work I had to put in to participate in the event. It was right then at that moment that I realized I had paid $800 to fight with my husband in public and get third degree rope burn on my legs.

My husband’s words were still hanging in my ears from Saturday morning when we waited for the traverse rope obstacle, the sun trying hard to bake the mud dripping off our clothes. “We signed up to do obstacles, so I want to do obstacles.” We had just skipped the tire flip because the line was so long and we did the penalty of 10 burpees. We ran up the hill and around a field to the next obstacle, which had an even longer line of participants waiting to measure their worth by the ability to pull their body weight along a thick, synthetic rope. Those waiting were separated into three queues, each in front of its own rope. Now, panting and gritty with sand, we waited for what seemed like an eternity to pull our muddy, abrasive bodies along the rope.

As I later sat at work with red, angry wounds on my shins and calves—I wondered what the real price of that weekend’s adventure was… It was at this exact moment that I realized that doing two mud runs in my running career was enough for me.

Happy wife and husband…

Post-race photo with one seriously pissed off husband

Before and After… for posterity’s sake