Xtreme Air 5k and Glo Run 5k

I participated in two fun races recently.  I'm still meeting my goal of participating in one race a month.  In May, I volunteered to participate in the Xtreme Air 5k.  This was perhaps the best race to volunteer for. What I got for volunteering for 2.5 hours was free entry into the first wave of the race, a volunteer t-shirt, a finisher t-shirt, a finisher medal, a bag pack, and a free $10 meal/drink from an awesome food truck.  Totally worth volunteering!  The race was fun. I ran it on my own but not really as there was a lot of runners.  Man were the obstacles challenging. It took about 40 min. to run and complete 12 obstacles. It was very tiring but a good time. Only bad part about being a volunteer was you didn't get a bib # so although they had photographers all around I couldn't find any pictures of me because it wasn't connected to a bib. 

This past weekend my friend visited from Buffalo, NY.  We participated in the Glo 5k race.  This was a blast. It didn't start until 9pm when it was completely dark out.  We decked ourselves in glo sticks and set out at a leisure pace.  There was some fun glo scenes decked out along the race and the last half was on a paved trail and was only list with random glo sticks on the ground. You didn't need a flashlight with all of the runners being decked out but it was definitely helpful. I tripped once (not a surprise) but at least neither of us fell. One recommendation for anyone that does this race in the future...don't wear good clothes or if you do don't get the splatter paint done on you.  They give you the option of getting splatter painted and while we tried to just get our skin other people around us sprayed us all over and got all over our good clothes.  The paint peels easily off your skin but even after soaking and washing twice it still stained all of my running clothes and shoes. I wasn't happy about this.

Mess A Dress Race

This past Saturday was the Mess A Dress 5 miler trail race that I've been talking about since January.  This race was to benefit Center for Youth Services and was put together by Trail Runners of Rochester and Fashion Week of Rochester.  I chose the Molly Ringwald, pretty in pink dress to wear which was donated by intern.  I modified it and on the day of the race had some technical problems with it.  The straps I sewed on would not stay up so I ended up cutting them off and going strapless. This turned out not to be a problem during the race.

This is the description of the race that I sent to family and friends:

 It was a brutal messy run. 90% of running was through mud up to my calves, 5% steep steep hills that were of course slippery and muddy, and 5% running through mud/water pits and rivers up to my knees/thighs. I fell flat in a pool of mud at about 4.5 miles. That is why you magically don't see my gloves on the pictures near the end of the trail. Yes, I littered during a "green" run- i'm a horrible person, but there was no way I was carrying the wet gloves as my legs could barely carry me at that point. 

I was wiped out by the time I hit mile 2. That's what I get for listening to AC/DC at the start. Would have come in 5th female overall if I had noticed a girl coming right up at the finish line, but I had my music to loud and was trying to make it up the practically vertical finish line hill. Lost  by 1 sec.!!!! That hurt. Still made the top performer list though.  

I always feel like vomiting after a run but this time I actually did. Totally gross and unpleasant!!! 

Lessons learned- trail runs are harder than road runs but wayyyy harder when they are all mud. And don't EVER where a tight dress with wire ribbing/boning- very hard to run and breath at the same time in it. And it would have been more fun if my friends had actually run in it with me. I would have actually been racing, just having fun with them, but they all bailed! Yes, you know who you are!

The highlight was that I met this celebrity from Real World MTV. He was from back in the day (so I had actually seen that season) but was recently on the Challenge ones and will be on the next one. He's hot for 40. (he's the guy posing with the balloons) I had my picture taken with him.  The one pic is of me in the background with the 12 y/o boy in front who kicked my butt. In my defense he was taller than me!

So, are you ready to do a trail mud run?!!

The end. A river to go through and then a steep hill.

The beginning. I'm somewhere in there.

Me trying to stay warm and putting my game face on. Not!

Group photo at the beginning.

I'm so over the race at this point but attempted a smile.

The lead Trail Runner guy, the Real World guy, and the head of Center for Youth Services.

Me in the background with the 12 y/o boy in front who kicked my butt. In my defense he was taller than me!

My name is listed on the right side under top female performers.

Boy was he tall. Oh and he heard me mention to someone that he has big feet. That was embarrassing.

Monster Scramble

Oh boy, let me tell you about this race!  First of all- I survived! Second of all- this was the longest race/running I've ever done before!  So this was the MS Monster Scramble 10k at Mt. Hope Cemetery where my friends an I dressed up in costumes and ran through the cemetery.  My friends were a bit freaked out about running through the cemetery and getting bad karma. Me not so much.

It was a beautiful fall day, but slightly windy and a bit cold. I froze! I had a Raynaud attack as soon as I got out of the car and it lasted for about an hour until I hit mile 3 in the race. And I had on 2 pairs of gloves with one pair being running specific gloves.  There was some great costumes with my favorite being Sloth from The Goonies. I which I had a picture of the person.

Well, the race began with an incredibly steep and long hill in which many people walked. While I ran I did look back at my friend and sad "Holy ----". Apparently with my ipod on I didn't realize how loud I had said this and my friend was embarrassed by the looks we got.  The rest of the race continued with many many steep hills from beginning to end.  I did run the entire thing though one hill I felt like I could have walked faster up then I was running.  Since I don't where a watch running I had no idea what my time was and frankly after all of those hills I just wanted to make it to the finish line. I was pleasantly surprised to receive a time of 56min. for 6.2 miles!

This was the t-shirt we received for participating in the run.

This is Amanda and I making tutu's for our costumes.  I had glitter trekked all over my house after that project.

We also learned a valuable lesson when working with elastic. **Don't stretch it to how you want it. Wrap it around you and use that length because when you sew it will affect the ability of the elastic band to stretch. We both had to add on to ours because they were to small the first time around.

** Next up: My last race for the season: The Hot Chocolate 15k in Chicago in two weeks. I start training for that tomorrow. If there are any hills I'm sure to not survive that one! Stay tuned!

Boulderfest, Zombies, and Cheese

Here's an update on some of the things I've been up to, including the much anticipated Run For Your Lives Zombie 5k!

1. Boulderfest: http://feest.us/boulder-festival-rock-the-wedge-with-harmony-rochester-ny-2013 -  My friend and I decided to check this mini festival out after all it is for a good cause. It was quite an interesting eclectic mix of people and music to be sure.  There were two stages for music and an array of styles of Punk, Jam, Rock, Indie and more.  The spectators were also a wide variety of characters, from goth to a full purple velor outfit, to the homeless man with his dog, to a birthday guy who was being video taped by his friends while he was trippin'.  The porta potties were horrid (as reported by my friend). After her expression upon existing one I chose to be in pain and hold it until our next destination.  The vendors were lack lusters (only a few) but the food vendors were plentiful and all were generous in giving some of their profit to Harmony (who the festival was being held for).  Needless to say I was ready to go when it was time to leave to go to a nearby venue to watch a different band perform.

2.  Southwedge Fest 2013 or wait rather a no go fest. My mom was visiting and I was excited to check out this neighborhood festival for a few reasons; Hedonist Chocolate, The Little Bleu Cheese Shop- http://littlebleucheese.com/, and the fact that it was near where I used to live in the city so I wanted to support this up and coming neighborhood. Unfortunately, once we got to the area there was nothing going on!!  My mom thought I got the date wrong but I didn't!! As it turned out this isn't the first time this neighborhood has organizers from the neighborhood plan events only to pull out at the last minute which is apparently what happened to this years Southwedge fest. I do have say that's a loser move on their part.

Since it was a nice day and we were already there we decided to take the opportunity to walk the Southwedge main street and take a stroll through the shops.  A professor of mine and his wife opened up The Little Bleu Cheese Shop and it is so adorable and unique. A highlight of this adventure was checking out their store and seeing my professor at work.  Hedonist chocolate spelled delicious, was pretty expensive, and had No samples. What kind of a chocolate shop is that!  We went into a couple of other quaint shops and checked out a myriad of neat one of a kind sandwich shops and bakeries.

3. The much anticipated Run For Your Life Zombie Apocalypse 5k http://www.runforyourlives.com/ was held last Saturday. It was a very fun run, a little difficult from a running perspective, and incredibly dirty. The Zombies met my expectations as far as costumes. They were pretty vicious especially if you still had a flag on you by the mid-point (which is so atypical for zombies).  I would describe them at the beginning as the zombies from Walking Dead season 1 and then by midway they turned into zombies from the end of Walking Dead season 2.  They literally chased you and ran really fast if you had a flag on you.

The race took place in the backwoods on a motor cross field and then led into a narrow wood path through the woods and back onto the motor cross field.  Zombies were all over. There was a smoke house with live electrical wires (us ladies didn't get hit with the wires but the guys with us did and they hollered like girls!) and a blood tank which was practically as tall as me and freezing. There were a couple of mud pits that you had to crawl through with barbed wire above you and you had to go through on your belly or else you would get caught by the wire. I know this because I got my shirt and hair caught in it trying to stay on my knees. (ouch!) That was the grossest I've probably ever been.  There were some other fun aspects including the pictures you got to take with the zombies at the end.  I did get a trophy and t-shirt but sadly my trophy says "infected".  All of my flags were taken but I lasted the longest out of our group with our original flags. I also do not have my race bib to show because a vicious zombie yanked it off of me trying to get my flag. Damn zombies! If you like fun runs I would recommend this one. I even screamed once because a zombie popped out the woods one time.

**Stay tuned for the Dirty Girl 5k I'm doing with a friend in September. Also, we signed up for the Chicago Hot Chocolate 5k in November. I'm a little worried about the cold and my Raynauds but if there was ever a race tailored for me it would be this one!