Just Rugged Enough

We have a dear friend, who will remain nameless, whose wife would often tease is “just gay enough”. I can tell you, it is a most sincere compliment. He is one of those guys that loves setting a beautiful table, using place mats and buying accent pillows (for his bachelor pad at the time), but is still a sports loving, beer loving, all around guy.

Before I started having babies, John thought I was pretty tough, mostly due to my constant TKD training. I had reached apprentice black belt before stopping because I was pregnant with Loretta. Back then I would practice my self defense and sparring techniques on John and he once said to me, “that’s great, but you couldn’t really take me down if I didn’t want you to.” Let’s just say, not only did I take him down, I nearly dislocated his shoulder. I never went back to TKD however, due to the expense, distance and truthfully bad hips from all of those round house and tornado kicks (tornado kicks were the best). And while I remained active and lost the baby weight running and swimming, I have never felt as strong as I did then. Probably never will again, but I was regularly hearing my husband call me “cupcake” and I knew he was right and I’d had enough.

I signed up for the Southwick 5k Rugged Maniac and somehow convinced John and our friend Becky to do it with me. We had an amazing time. The event took place at a motor cross racing track, completely hosed down for maximum mud effect. There were 16 obstacles including 3, 5, 7, and 15 foot walls to scale, mud pits, running through tires, mud slides, water obstacles, and my favorite – the super hero jump. It was a steep hill you ran down and at the bottom a wooden platform that you had to launch yourself off of and try to clear a mud pit below. I’ve heard there were at least 2 broken bones from that one and they closed the jump down for a portion of the race due to injuries. It was closed when John went through about 15 minutes before Becky and I, but open for us and HELL YEAH, we took that jump.

John completed the race in 36:20. He was amazing, which was no surprise to me, but I think he might have surprised himself a bit. John is naturally athletic, but he also works very hard to stay in shape and that hard work paid off, because he didn’t actually train for this race specifically. Next year he hopes to shave 2 minutes off his time.

I completed the race in 52:09 and I’m good with that. I did train, push ups and running the trail runs around the office building. Jumping up on benches and running along the curbs. My coworkers thought I was crazy, but it helped. I did every obstacle on my own with only 2 small pushes from friends to get up on the taller walls. I ran the entire race, except for when the terrain didn’t allow it. And, I finished strong. Always finish strong.

Becky finished the race at 52:10. We ran the entire race together and even took the slides together. It was so great having her there so we could motivate one another, but yes, I might have pushed a little harder at the end to beat her, I can’t help it, I’m competitive that way.

My mom, dad and little brother Paul were there to cheer us on. Because of them we were able to bring the kids along too. Paul made up these awesome shirts for everyone to wear.  They were so excited for us and cheered and yelled. It was amazing seeing them all on the sidelines, having the kids watch their mom and dad get muddier than they have ever been and not being afraid of doing something tough, and having fun doing it. My dad almost ran impromptu, but it didn’t work out. I’m hoping he’ll join us next year.

I’ve shown pictures to coworkers of us at the race. I get two reactions, one is along the lines of – that’s amazing! Good for you! The second is pure confusion as to why anyone would ever want to put themselves through it. All I can say is that it took John a few days of recovery before he decided he would run again next year. Becky too, I think. But I had decided before I even crossed the finish line, smiling with a huge goofy grin. I may not have my black belt and I may not run iron man triathlons or the Boston Marathon, but I am a Rugged Maniac, and for me, that’s just rugged enough.