Dart Frog Dash

Will & Sophie had been looking forward to this day for months.  They'd been practicing in the yard, running laps from one edge of our back yard to the other, racing each other as well as Craig & me, and mentally gearing up for the run.  :)  It's the Dart Frog Dash at Toledo Zoo and it was a perfect day for it!  The weather was ideal and we all felt fresh and excited.

We arrived early enough to meet up with the Rethman fam in the parking lot and get our t-shirts and race bibs.  The morning was kicked off with a self-initiated, girl-cousins group-hug.  Thankfully we caught the moment on camera in time!  :)

That was followed by a four-person group-hug and sort of huddle.  It's so cute that, even though they see each other every day at the babysitter's, they are always so excited to reunite any other time too.

Mya & Stella put on last year's race shirts at home instead of waiting for this years.  So they weren't all the same color.  But I think it looks super cute this way!  :)  I love Casey's idea of shooting this back view of their race bibs and arms around each other.

Can't. Stand. The Cuteness!!!

LOVE THEM!!!

Heading in.

Pre-race.

They actually ran the age groups in heats this year.  You can see Sophie's yellow sticker that marked her age group in the picture above.  So Will and Craig ran together in his heat and finished before the girls even started.  Casey waited on the sidelines to take pictures and Wes & I ran with the girls.  I've said before that watching kids run and put their whole heart into doing it is almost tear jerking for me.  I'm sure it's the same with any sport, but I'm partial to running.  And it doesn't even have to be my kid!  I was feeling slightly emotional watching all these other kids as I waited for Will and Craig.  Keep in mind, we were still behind the start line waiting for out turn.  The kids just happen to loop around and run back towards us and turn left to the finish line.  So I was actually able to get some pics of Craig and Will.  

Craig said Will did great, though he thinks Will needs to learn to pace himself.  His stamina seems to be that of a sprinter.  ;)  Also, not surprisingly, if you look closely at this picture, Ohio State is in front of Michigan... Naturally.  Makes sense.

Go Will.  And Go Bucks!

Caught a sweet moment of twin love just before our race started.  Hand holding!  It looked like they were wishing each other luck.

Oh my goodness!  I'm so proud of my girl this year!  What a world of difference from last year when I practically had to bribe her with a pony to get her to keep going!  There were no piggy back rides, no long stops (no stops at all, actually!), and much more self-motivation.  I, of course, was cheering her on all the way, but she did so great on her own!

Mya & Stella did awesome too, though they did awesome last year as well.  

Oh, how I hope these girls grow up to love running!!

The finish line is just ahead!  Go girl!  You did it!

Also (Casey), the finishing times this year are less than half because of the heats.  Last year we were at the back of a huge pack and the whole thing was slower moving because of it.  We probably didn't cross the START line until a couple minutes had past.  LOL  This year it was just our little pack of whatever... 3/4 year olds?  So times are probably better, but not just because of one year of improved skill.  ;-)

Way to rehydrate, chicky.  Sophie actually saw these before the race and reeeeally wanted one.  I told her she could definitely have one after she crossed the finish line, because that's what they were for.

More fuel replenishing:  bananas and bagels.

Snacking and people/animal watching.

Big & Little Dub.

Wes - the kid magnet.  

Displaying their finishing ribbons!  Yay!  Good job!!

We walked over to Nature's Neighborhood for a bit afterward.

And then, of course, we went to check out the new polar bear cubs.  Man, oh man, were they putting on a show with their mama!

It was a great morning at the zoo!

Also, p.s... speaking of running... my high school mile record time was officially broken this spring!  I don't know what the new record is, because I think the girl re-broke her own record multiple times in the season.  But my old record was 5:28.00 and stood for 15 years!!  I sooo wish I could have been there to congratulate the girl.  When I beat it my junior year of high school, the previous record holder was there to congratulate me and that felt awesome.  I really am excited for her.  I believe she's state-bound this year and she's young, so hopefully more opportunities lie ahead.

Warrior Dash!!

Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say it was "the craziest frickin' day of my life" (as they claim), but it was most definitely a really fun experience and one that I would like to do again!

A few months ago, my friend Nichole asked me to join her in the Warrior Dash in Logan, Ohio on June 3rd.  I'd never heard of it, but You Tube is very helpful and after watching a few videos, I decided it looked doable and fun.  Plus they raise money for St. Jude's Children's Hospital.  Win win.

Logan, Ohio is in/near Hocking Hills so it was a 3.5 hour drive down there... and back.  Ouch. 

We brought our oldest pair of tennis shoes, some eye black (to make us look intense - haha!), and spandex shorts to minimize the amount of dirt/mud that could make it's way into undesirable areas.

We also came up with a LOOOONG list of things we wish we'd brought such as gallon jugs of water for "cleaning" after the race, plastic bags for storing our mud-caked clothes, etc.  We discussed these things ahead of time at the starting line...  :)

The park we ran through was really beautiful... and contained a misleading amount of uphill running.  There were heats of runners every half hour all day Saturday AND Sunday!

The flames that shot up at the start of the race were ridiculous.  The heat could be felt even from where we were standing in line, which was towards the back.

LOTS of uphill running walking at the start!  The whole race was 3.5 miles and contained 13 obstacles including "barricade" jumps, a "catamaran" raft type thing that we had to swim to and climb over, a couple high walls that required rope climbing to get over, rope bridges, barbed wire to army crawl under, a teeter totter bridge (up and then down), mud slides for all the downhill "running" walking, etc.

These pictures below were all taken towards the end of the race because that's all Craig could capture.  (Oh, by the way, Craig and my brother Taylor came along for the fun factor just because Nichole and I are so cool...  Or, if I'm really being honest, because I asked Craig to take pictures and Taylor to keep Craig company.)  They are the last five obstacles.

In the first picture, we had just paused for a cup of water and were heading toward the next wall.  It had ropes on the side you can't see for us to climb to the top.

I'm in the black tank and Nichole's in the hot pink tee and we're not yet to the base of the wall.

Once at the top, we had to climb over and down the slats on the back side.

Waving like an idiot once I spotted Craig.

Small tunnels dug into the ground with wooden slats and barbed wire above them.  We had to crawl down and through, obviously.

Cargo net wall.  We had to climb up and over.  You can see Nichole at the top here.

Jogging towards the fire obstacle.

We had to leap over these flames.  It was really the only thing I was scared of and my jumps had major overkill in the height department because of that.  LOL  In reality, it didn't even feel remotely  hot or burning.  You could just see/feel the smoke.  Some runners were running straight through it without breaking stride so it's not really all that challenging/dangerous.  I just assumed it would be.  So go ahead and laugh at my jumping... but only if you don't think you would have done the same!

Final obstacle.  Craig didn't get the start of it nor the real image of the chute that it was.  But we basically had to crawl through this shallow mud bath.  There was barbed wire above us so we couldn't really stand up and we were basically just propelling ourselves by pushing the ground with our arms and leaving our legs straight out behind us.  Poor Nichole - I kicked my feet a few times like I was swimming and splashed some more muddy water on her face.  :(  So sorry!

All these pics are toward the end of the mud bath chute.  We were past the barbed wire and finally able to stand up.  :)

Of course, it was terribly slippery and we all slip-slided several times while trying to climb the gradual incline to the finish.

We got our finishing medals and posed for some muddy pictures!  ;-)  I didn't see this at the time, but it looks like a white wall in the background where runners slapped a muddy high-five after finishing.  Cool!

I'm really not sure what possessed me to have so many tongue-out pictures.  I got carried away with the hard-core warrior mentality.  ;)

Mud starting to dry on our hands and arms, making our skin look 80 years old.

Mud caked bodies and clothes.  From here, we headed to a pond to rinse off.  The pond smelled horrific and we felt totally disgusting after climbing out of it, but it was a start at getting the mud off our skin.

Taylor posing behind some goofy guys that wore capes and helmets for the race.  There were a LOT of crazy get-ups:  wrestling singlets, tutus (on guys and girls), capes, super bright colors, etc.

Our registration fee bought us:  a race, a t-shirt, a medal, this goofy Viking hat, and a beer at the finish.  It might have also included a chicken leg, but I can't remember.  That was a big food item there to keep with the theme of warriors.  :)

Taylor wore my hat while I was finishing the race.

Nichole and I decided to at least get our muddy t-shirts off in the changing tent (kicking ourselves for not bringing our change of clothes on the bus ride from where we parked to where the race took place... we ended up having to change in the huge grass "parking lot" between cars!) and put on our new warrior shirts.  So here we are with hats, shirts and medals.

Umm...

A glimpse of just a portion of the crowd that was in attendance just while we were there.

Taylor drank both Nichole's and my beers.  We volunteered them.  Ick.  Not a fan of beer.

Ohhhhh, it was a looooong ride home.  We managed to use a few wet wipes, a bit of bottled water and some towels that we did remember to get more of this nastiness off.  And then we washed hands, arms and faces in the bathroom at Chipotle when we stopped for dinner.  But mostly we still felt insanely gross for most of the ride.  NEVER been so grateful for a shower in all my life!!

Definitely planning to do this again.  Taylor and Craig want to do it.  My sister too!  It would be really fun to have a group!

And thank you, mom and dad, for keeping the kids for us all day and taking them to Lincoln's 2nd birthday party for us.  Bummed I had to miss that but really glad the kids got to go!