Down and Dirty

Sorry for slacking on the blog posts!! It's been an eventful few weeks. I got to spend a few days in Massachusetts staying with Grandma, which was lovely. It was great to see her and I'm happy to help her with whatever she might need, but the house is very strange without Grandpa there. It was weird, I was almost waiting for him to come around the corner from the living room, wearing his dark green sweater, glasses on, and carrying a print out of some kind from the computer (most likely a freshly penned Letter to the Editor). His slippers are exactly where he left them last; I put my feet into them for just a second, and I swear I could feel him there with me. I saw the jar where he used to keep his jelly beans, the straws I bought for him when he had trouble drinking out of a glass those last few days, his medicines in the bathroom, etc. He's still very much a part of that house, and while it was tough and sad for me, it felt nice at the same time.

I came back to the city for about 24 hours and then headed off to the Hamptons with 7 of my TNT kiddos to cheer them on for the Hamptons half marathon - and they all ROCKED IT. I really love running, but I also really love cheering runners on. I know exactly how they're feeling, and I want to pump them up and keep them going strong. Everyone hit their goal - Rob PRed at 1:26, Sarah Ray went sub-2 for the first time, Kate ran her first ever half at 1:59, Layla PRed at 1:52, and Rory had a great race despite a nipple mishap. My friends are beasts - and it was SO fun to cheer them on.

I got back to the city last night and then headed up to the Bronx at the crack of dawn to run the Merrell Down and Dirty mud run!! I ran it with my friend Steph, who is new to TNT this season. What a bonding experience, man. It's a 5K race with military style obstacles and lots o' mud, and there were military volunteers at every obstacle either yelling at you or cheering you on, depending on their personality :) The obstacles included climbing over marine hurdles (VERY hard for us shorties, thankfully some nice guy gave us a boost for the first one!), crawling through dirt, climbing up a cargo net, crawling through thick mud, climbing over a wall, wading through the OCEAN (yes, in October), climbing up a sloped wall that had been made slippery with Paul Mitchell shampoo (they sponsored the race), and ultimately military-crawling under ropes through a massive mud pit at the end. It was SO MUCH FUN!! The running part was mostly trail running and I totally wiped out at one point - and when I say wiped out, I mean I tripped on something and did a full superman layout in the woods. I popped up immediately and kept running though, because I'm a badass (the reality is I wasn't badly hurt, just scraped the crap out of my knees and shins).The irony is right before I fell we were saying "I wonder what Michael Conlon would think about us doing such a hazardous race during marathon training." Fail.

After the race we took some pics (see below!) and then went back into the ocean to get CLEAN. You wouldn't believe the places we had mud... The line for the changing area was way too long, so we just stripped behind a bush - and when I say "bush", I mean an area that was pretty much in full view for EVERYone. There's only one way to get off soaking wet clothes, and we were freezing, so it had to be done - plus it makes for a funny story. Oh and the medals for this race were dog tags - how cool is that?

All in all, it's been a great week - time with family, TNT bonding, and great races :)

Muddy girls at the end of the race!!!

Damage from falling on the trail. Other knee/shin looks like this too. Ow.