On Saturday I was immersed in Torre Pines, the multi green hues of coyote scrub brush, gritty sand and the stinging salt air of a storm rolling off the grey blue ocean.
On Sunday I was standing in my heavily duct taped tennis shoes, coated in sunscreen, slapping a red striped beach ball in the air and cheering with a multitude of hundreds for the San Diego Mud Run to begin! I was pumped to see the mud fly in all directions!
Jay, Miranda and Jake were there to witness my personal feat: run a 5K obstacle course through 30 mud pits that traversed through holes as deep as 4ft 8inches, steel drainage pipes, camouflage nets, vertical uphill inclines and six firemen water hoses. Some of the mud pits were thin gravy and others were super thick sludge. Hence the duct tape on your shoes so that you would not lose it in the mud pit...theoretically speaking of course. I saw a lot of one shoe runners out there on the course as well as limping, staggering, and lopsided runners too.
"Three, Two, One"....we were off and as we ran through the parking lot, everyone was laughing as we got our first hit of the fireman's cold water hose. Around a curve was the first mud pit and most of the women took it very tentative while the men charged down the middle yelling their war cry. By the third mud pit, everyone was slimed in mud all over and were more concerned about keeping their shoes on.
Half way in the race it became an obstacle course of 15 condensed mud pits. The designer of the course must have had wicked delight in creating high sloping mud pits which forced you to drag your bottom down into the mud and try to scamper up the other slippery side. It was all hills and valleys of mud in the shape of a figure 8. They even threw in crawling on hands and muddy knees across a steel drainage pipe down into some more gooey muck.
It was while I was "jogging" up the vertical hillside that an amazing thought came into my head:
"I am so happy to be alive!"
I kid you not. I really did think that. It felt so incredibly good to be alive, participating and shouting encouraging words to other runners. It didn't matter I had to walk when I reached the top of the hill to catch my breath. It didn't matter that I had small pebbles and rocks in the bottom of my slushy shoes. It didn't matter I had mud oozing out of every orifice on my body. It was fun to be celebrated for being so gloriously caked with mud!
I felt blessed to have a husband shouting along my side as I trudged through a mud pit,
"Come on Pimentel. Get in there. Get Dirty Pimentel. You Can Do It Pimentel."
as he was videotaping.
It was sweet to hear the words,
"Go Mom! Go! Yeah, Mom! Lookin Good Mom!" and I knew they came from my daughter, Miranda, who stood among the colorful flags offsides with her digital camera trying to catch a muddy image.
I would hear Jake yell,
"Yeah, Lisa! Goooo Lisa!" while he held bags stuffed with water bottles, clothes, sunscreen, baseball hats and a huge smile on his face.
As we finished the race emerging from the last mud pit, we all looked like creatures from the Black Lagoon but happy. I was handed a yellow tag that read, "45 minutes, 15 seconds". I raised one brown fist in the air and gave my last war cry for the day. The smiling entourage of my family circled me with hands held aloft and many congratulations spoken. I was surprised they could even recognize me through the disguise of my lagoon creature. We headed home after another cold blast of water to "rinse off", donating the tennis shoes that made "it" happen and a frosty mug of root beer. We are already talking about bringing a huge roll of duct tape, towels for after the "rinse off" and wearing swim caps and goggles for next year.
There is nothing like trudging and sloshing in mire, muck, slop, and slush as it oozes and slimes all around your body! Its divine!
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