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Four years now I’ve entered the MuddyBuddy road race. Each year I convince a new person to be my "Buddy" & each year until the present, mi esposo has refused to suffer the indignities of the mud pit beside me.
My first partner Jaime had recently run a marathon, and was also easy prey to machismo-baiting (i.e. threaten his manhood & one could get him to do most anything. Come on guys, you know how it is…) Thus I convinced him to race with me, as well as to allow my 2 cute girlfriends to borrow a bike from him so they could race too (not like I had to twist his arm on that one). Race was a blast, within minutes finishing I was saying "Again!"
and Jaime proceeded to curse me profusely in his own subsequent blog entry.
Say what U want Jaime, you know you liked it…
ahem.
Without fail, each year kicks off with me arising before 6am to strain my way up & down the dirt paths, and asking what masochistic abnormality drives one to pay good money for this sort of pain & suffering!?
Yet always there is my favorite obstacle: the giant inflatable slide that has to be climbed up with rope ladder and then flung down the other side, and by the last mile I am thinking of the beer garden at finish line & the sheer exuberant, stupid fun of splatting frontside into mud and swim-crawling to the finish line.
Pl, the partner of last year’s MuddyBuddy T, came along begrudgingly at an ungodly hour to cheer us on.
"I just can’t get over the idea that there really are this many people who actually want to do this." Pl said.
In fact, this year marked the first sold-out San Jose Muddy Buddy- that means there were 1800 people ready to mudhop & roll.
Muddy buddy teams are sorted by type (co-ed, all male, all female, and-you have to love this "beast" and "masters"). Then the teams are further broken down by combined age i.e with P we are combined age 67. Beast teams have a combined body weight over 400 lbs., and Masters are the kick ass seniors.
When T (trim, fit & pushin’ 60) was my partner-the neighboring teams stared at me:
"how OLD is your partner for you to be in this age group start line!? What are you-like 12?!" Well, no, actually our team age was a ripe 89.
Then there was the year my office spouse partnered with me…and the bike tire went flat by the time we hit our 1st obstacle. Thus, our plan to "leapfrog" and alternate bike/running the 6.5 miles became an unplanned running of the entire course by both parties. But hey, we made it to the finish, I inadverdantly flashed the finish line spectators (note to self: heavy hunks of mud in clothing tends to flop out/weigh things down), and baby D got a cool Ninja turtle Mini MuddyBuddy Tee for his mom’s valiant efforts (although D would not enter the mudpit despite or perhaps because of watching swarms of wild eyed adults wearing bike helmets,viking
helmets, and frog costumes flop and claw through said pit).
After 3 years of this, P agreed to be my MuddyBuddy. Hurrah!
The Flying Ranas (significa ‘frogs’ en espanol), almost missed the startline of the entire friggin’ race due to the black hole that is time management w/ my beloved, as well as both of being so zombied at that hour that we missed our freeway exit. An hour later, we finally arrive at the packed to capacity park.
"..but I have to go to the potty!" I grouched.
Instead, we biked/ran like bats outta hell just to reach the registration table, pin our race numbers on, and find our start group, bodily needs be damned.
How to explain it? The blurred boundaries between fear and fun, pain and exhilaration? It’s something like a roller coaster, suspense movie, or dom-sub sexuality I suppose. Waiting for the starting gun to shock you into movement, taking in the buzzing excitement of fellow racers & hollering spectators.
Running up infinite hills in clouds of choking dust, quads & lungs burning, and turning each corner only to find more hills - I started to ponder that maybe Hell would be like this. That would make sense really, an entire level of Dante’s inferno devoted to running a never-ending dusty race with the promise of a water station enticingly around every corner-yet never materializing.
I tell myself to enjoy the obstacle course, and to remember that the next leg of the race I’d be on a bike. Then I’d actually trade off with P for the bike, and find quads burning yet gain as my wimpy ass stands on the pedals to crawlingly take on even more Hades hills; then I’d be zipping down a trail at high velocities. The bumps in the trail and the speed of the bike almost blinding me as I fly. In between grinning like an idiot at the rushing of cool air, the rest for my quads, and that primal thrill of speed - my adrenalin shot sky high with fear at the realization of how little control I was maintaining on this bike, that I would flatten any runner who wanders into my path, and flashbacks to my previous bloody mtn. bike wipe out at the adventure girl race. I remember having to touch myself, my face, my legs, stunned that nothing was broken, cataloging signs of neurological damage, of my hero-the dude who patched me up enough to continue the race, and of the revolting state of my bruised legs and torn up elbow. Ok, ok, this is no time for PTSD.
We finish the race. P kisses me, and says "you owe me!"
Not sure if that means he doesn’t want to be my buddy next year?
We see a mud covered couple wrestling and laughing in the grass surrounded my friends family members. One of them talks about how MuddyBuddy is a good metaphor for life. Then they unfurl a huge homemade banner: "Would you be my MuddyBuddy for Life? Marry me."
A collective "AAAAaaaawwwwwwwwwwww, how sweet" goes up among all the muddy crowd, and the family tries valiantly to wash enough mud off her finger that they can get the ring on after she said "yes."
There is a huge public hose area where dozens of people in various states of undress and muddiness do their best with garden hoses and low pressure. This year Paul Mitchell was a sponsor, so you had filthy people hosing down with dirt in a park yet smelling lovely of teatree formula Paul Mitchell shampoo which had to double as shower gel. I put on this year’s race tee, always too big, and have taken off my shorts to deal with the mud. A truck of other racers cruises by, "Good stuff!!" some guy hollers. Whatever. I’m not "butt-wild nekked" as my sweetheart once termed it, and there is little place for modesty in this crowd at this point.
We snag some swag, meet friends & take pics with the disposable camera I carried in a ziploc during the race, and dash home. After that exertion, P is craving salt. I point out that anyone selling fries after a race would make a fortune. We wind up at a crowded In N Out as I pray we don’t run into any of my clients who may be traumatized at the sight of me.
Despite the public hose down area, one can only clean up so much after such a profuse dipping. I am cursing his fastfood needs as I stand there trying to look nonchalant and normal with pebbles in my underwear, dirt coating my legs and under my fingernails, & mud caked on my pigtails.
Within an hour: presto. My alter ego. Shortly after 2:00 I am doubly showered, re-clad in bronze ballet flats, silk shirt, jacket and slacks, wearing my "Commissioner" name badge at a city event honoring the volunteers that keep our library, parks and rec, fire and police stations running. P and I eat cheesecake, schmooze with the Mayor and my fellow commissioners, clap politely.
After that I count on Paddy’s coffee to sustain me as I drive to my private practice to see a client. She thanks me for letting her come in on a Sunday and frets that she is inconveniencing my life and keeping me from things. I reassure her that I’m not missing out, it’s my pleasure to work with her, and I think to myself, "if you could have only seen me 2 hours ago…"
Join the fray next year dear reader, come on, you know you want to…
www.muddybuddy.com
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