I've never really been one for traditions. Sure my family does Thanksgiving dinner, but aside from the holidays, we don't have any traditions. No yearly vacation spots (though we do like to go to Cape Cod) or annual day trips. But this year, I think I may have started something for me and my housemate. Last summer, I talked my roommate into running a warrior dash with me. This 5k sends participants crawling, jumping, and swimming through different muddy obstacles over the course of the race. The objective? To finish. Having done that last year, Grace (E15) and I decided that we were going to set different goals this year.
Now that we're living together, we thought it out be fun to step it up: we were going to dress up for the race. I'm no stranger to dress up-- I ran a midnight run on New Year's last year dressed as a fairy, wand and all. But Grace thought that it would be good to dress up in the weirdest articles of clothing we had. I agreed. The outfits we came up with were insane. People were laughing, taking pictures, or just doing a double take. What else would you do if you saw two girls who looked like they put their clothes on in reverse?
The race itself was a blast. Last year Grace and I stuck together, but we decided that this time around I was going to try to place. After dealing with a slippery wall, an army crawl, a series of mud pits, a rope climb, an enormous sandy hill, and a few more obstacles, I ended up dropping a few minutes off my time and placing 6th in my age group and 15th overall (out of over a thousand people!). I also got really really dirty :) Grace also did well and improved her time from last year too.
Armed with our new race shirts, viking hats, and medals that double as bottle openers, we hung around after the race to enjoy the festivities. Unlike last year, we sprang for a turkey leg, which we used as a prop to take stupid photos of ourselves. The day ended, like last year, with us getting hosed off by a volunteer fire department, tossing our dirty shoes in a heap for donation, and then trying to figure out how to get in the car without making a huge mess. We may have failed on that last part, but I think this is a tradition I can live with.