Rugged Maniac May 2013

So we got into Petersburg around 10:30, late!  I couldn't believe that Jackson never fell asleep either.  We pretty much just crashed, and of course everyone was up bright and early at 6:00am!  After breakfast, the kids and I checked out the playground that was at the campsite.

Then Erik busted out his remote control airplane.

I was tiiiii-red!  We had had three consistently late nights and early mornings, however it's hard to just sit around thinking about how tired you are when there are fun kids to run around with :)

Since my race didn't start until 1:30, we looked up what to do in Petersburg.  There was a civil war museum that looked like it got some great reviews, so we headed that way.

This place was so cool!  It is run and funded by a family and private donations and they really made the experience so interactive and informative.  It was interesting, because this was definitely a "southerner's perspective" of the Civil War, which to me is hard to sympathize with.  I mean there would be phrases like "Only a small fraction of Southerners actually owned slaves." like that was a good thing, but then immediately say, "but all Southerners aspired to that way of life."  I get that their whole economic model was based on this way of living, but it just boggles my mind that more people didn't stand up and say it was wrong, even though they were benefiting from it economically. 

There were lots of "soldier way of life" scenes that were fascinating.  There was also a really cool walkway that kind of simulates what battle would have been like, sounded like, and looked like.  It creeped out the boys (fake dead soldier bodies), but it was pretty neat.

A real log from a battle with a cannon ball lodged inside, and a bible that saved a soldiers life during the battle of Antietam when a bullet lodged in it.

The museum sits on a piece of property that was owned by a Southern family, and then used as Confederate headquarters for a brigade.

Sniffing tobacco- it smelled like prunes!

This house was really cool- they had preserved it be just like it was during the 1860s.

In the slave quarters/kitchen.  Walking inside these buildings just literally made me feel sick.  Again, I just couldn't comprehend that a mother could just live comfortably in her big house while a whole slave family lived in this tiny room and were worked like dogs . . . I just don't get it.

The kids loved the animals that were grazing!

We could have stayed so much longer there.  We didn't even get to battlefield part, but I needed to eat a bit of lunch and get to the mud run!

It was so much fun that so many people from our ward ran it this year (well a few were from other wards).  Dressing up made it more fun as well!

I knew I wasn't going to keep the tutu on for too long, but it was fun wearing it while it lasted :)

I always love the Rugged Maniac shirts.  Although sometimes I do feel funny wearing a shirt to the gym that says "Music, Fun, Beer" or something like that.

Another picture once Mary Tingey joined us :)

I have to say when Erik decides to take pictures, he takes a lot of them!  I seriously have pretty much a play by play of the whole race through pictures.  

I have no idea what Amanda and I are talking about here.  I think we were both just ready for it to begin!

And we were off!

Last year I never quite decided how I wanted to run the race: if I wanted to try and run my hardest or just have fun with the whole group.  I ended up kind of doing both last year, which meant I really didn't do either.  This year, I just decided to run it and push myself-- for me that's fun even if it sounds antisocial!  I have to say though that having Amanda run right alongside me pushed me even harder, so thanks Amanda! :)

Are running pictures ever flattering? :/

Oh man, this one made me so dizzy.  The fastest way to do it is just roll and that made me so motion sick.

So once I got to the first obstacle that was crawling under barbed wire, I ditched the tutu.  I knew it would get caught, so there it went. When the group came by and saw my tutu though, Shanan rescued it and then wore two tutus the rest of the race.  She showed me up! haha

These walls seemed a lot harder than last year!

Getting pretty muddy!

The boys were so cute and wouldn't stop shouting hi to me until I waved back :)

About to go down the big slide!  This whole race just make you feel like a giant kid!

The last obstacles were more barbed wire, jumping over fire, and I think that was it (Erik didn't realize that there was more, so he kind of stopped after the slide.  Isn't it cool that the spectators could see so much though?  I feel like they made the course snakier, so people could see and take pictures more).

All done in under 40 minutes.  I felt like I pushed myself, but never crazy tired and in the end. In some ways I wanted to turn around and do it all again!  However, I also was really really cold and I just wanted to get dry clothes on, so that was not going to happen :)

Muddy picture with Amanda :)

They also had some fun stuff for the kids to do, and while I cleaned up they were more than happy to ride the bull and go in the bouncy house.

I didn't get a picture of Anna, so I will put this video screen shot.  She kept insisting that she go on the bull.  Not surprisingly though, she quickly wanted off even before it started to move!

A couple of girls from our group about to go down the slide.   After getting somewhat dry and cheering on the rest, we packed up the trailer and headed up to Richmond for dinner.  Our plan all along was to meet the Taylors (who now live around that area) in Richmond for dinner.  They suggested we go to the famous Bottom's Up Pizza.  While we were driving there, Amy Meyer called to say they and a few others from our group were going to Bottoms Up Pizza and asked if we would like to join them! It was fun it ended up this way, especially for the Taylors who got to see a lot of Winchester friends!

Jackson, Clay, and Hadley

Pretty big group!

This pizza was worth the hype!  Soo delicious!

Funny kids

I should say that we got pretty lucky that we were able to park our big trailer in the middle of downtown Richmond.  On our walk back to the truck, Anna was having fun dancing on Erik's shoulders whenever she heard music :)  The drive back went fine, once again though the kids were getting to bed at around 10:00!  It was all worth it though, for such a fun weekend!!