And it's finished. The Mudder. And the Blog.

I haven't been able to sleep the last few nights.  You know how when you lay down and everything that's in your head just won't quiet down and let you drift off to dreamland?  The things that were bothersome during the day become more pronounced at night.  And not pronounced like "both-ur-sum" but bigger and badder than they were in the daylight.

A girl can't run on a few hours of sleep a night, at least not this decaffeinated (since June 2004) girl.  I thought maybe closing out the last chapter of my Mudder journey would get some of the words that were bumping into each other in my head out on paper, or virtual paper, and I could finally go to bed.

So here I am, at a few minutes to midnight, more than a week Post-Tough-Mudder.  And what do I want to share?

Well, here are some tidbits, in no particular order:

1.  It took a long time to wash the mud out of my hair.  A really long time.  I have really long hair.
2.  Houston is hot.  Hotter than any place on the planet that day.  I'm certain of it.
3.  Your calves are important.  If they stop working, you're kind of screwed.
4.  My manicure survived the mud.  I have a great nail guy.
5.  I already have a Tough Mudder sticker on my car, Tough Mudder tank tops in my dresser, and my signature bright orange Tough Mudder headband proudly displayed in my bedroom.
6.  My bruises are finally fading.
7.  There are some really tough people out there.
8.  I have the best people in my life.  Truly.
9.  I only had to go to the ER once after the Mudder.
10.  It was fun.  Truly.
11.  I liked crawling in the mud.  I did not like trying to climb over walls.
12.  I threw everything I wore that day away, and donated my shoes.
13.  I can't wait to do it again.

Now, in more detail, I want to share a few more thoughts.  First, anyone can do this.  I mean it.  It's long and tiring and parts of very hard, but really everyone is so supportive and encouraging, and you really can do what you can do.  I skipped stuff, I didn't run a lot.  I'm determined to train harder and do better in April, but I really do want anyone out there to know that it's fun, it's great fun, and I'm not saying that because I get a kick back for new Mudders that join the fold.  It's true--you're only competing against yourself.  And if you set a goal to survive, like I did, you most certainly will.  If you set a goal to kick a$$, you'll do that, too, with the right training.  The point is, it's not just for MMA fighters and military dudes and superfit athletes--anyone with the drive to keep going--and a team to give a hand up, or to help stretch out a calve cramp, or to pull you out of the muddy water so you don't keep getting stung by the electric wires hanging down in your face--can do it.

Next, doing this does not make you a bada$$.  I finally realized that before we took off that morning.  It was a challenge with mud and fire and electricity but no one's life depended on my finishing, or my time in doing so.  It was for fun. No, there are plenty of real bada$$es out there who don't do what they do for fun, or for a sticker for the car, or for an orange headband.  They do what they do because they feel a duty to protect us, to help us, to watch out for us. They risk everything.  They leave their families and they go out and make our world safer, better. Not because anyone is telling them they must.  But because they feel they must.  And some don't come home.  Too many don't come home.

At the beginning of our wave, this dude comes out and gets us all pumped up and excited about what we're about to do, and then he has us all take a knee while he gives a shout-out to all the military and law enforcement and first responders in the group and asks them to stand.  And there were a bunch.  (My very own Tough Mudder Partner is a firefighter, a pretty bada$$ one).  And it's then, when you're looking around at the people standing, the people who do what needs to do be done not because of glory or recognition or cute muddy pictures to go on their Facebook page so their friends think they're bada$$es...they protect us and help us, and watch out for us, and they are the real bada$$es.  And we are all so lucky that they are.

Finally, I'm not sure where that leaves me on my quest to be a bada$$.  I finished, I got my headband, I'm going to train harder to do better next time.  But that's all artificial in the end, right? It's just stuff and things.  It doesn't matter.  I watched The Help a couple of years ago and it made me want to leave the practice of law and do something better with my life, something that mattered.  I did leave the practice, I do love my new job, but I still haven't found that thing I need to feel like a I'm doing good, I'm helping others, I'm contributing.  Yeah, I'm aware that I can't go enlist in the military or join the local Volunteer Fire Dept. to earn my true bada$$ness, but I have to find some way to do it.

So keep your eye out for the next blog.  Not about how hard it is to build a pull up bar, killing snakes in the closet, or generally survivingTough Mudder training or the adventures of a Carrie Bradshaw wanna-be on her quest to find her Mr. Big.  This time we're digging deeper.

Until I come up with a new blog title, this is farewell.  Thanks for hanging in there with me on the journey.

Day 4: Breathe in, breathe out...

So how pitiful am I?  The last time I wrote anything on here was 151 days to the Mudder.  And now it's 4 days away.

4 DAYS AWAY.

Not sure why I took a sabbatical from writing.  I love writing.  Maybe it allowed me to let the Mudder slip far back into my subconscious where I didn't have to think about it.  And worry about dying and all.

I used to proudly tell people no one had ever died doing the Mudder, but tragically, the self-proclaimed "toughest obstacle course on the planet" claimed a life last year.   http://www.runnersworld.com/general-interest/witnesses-report-slow-response-in-tough-mudder-death?page=single

It's the first death in the three years the Mudder has been around, and estimates are that there have been 750,000 participants in those events.  The article above points out that marathons average one death per 100,000 participants.

So chances are good that I won't die.  Better than good.

I confess I was on the fence about going through with it.  Probably more than on the fence--you could say I had already climbed back over the fence, packed my bags and was headed home, but I have really great teammates who reminded me that we're in this thing together, and that's exactly how we'll get through it.

And I also did what I do when things seem overwhelming and scary:  distracted myself with something fun.  I find this works pretty well in all areas of life.  Maybe it's not the most grown-up way to deal with stressful situations, but hey, whatever works, right?

So my Mudder Death Distraction came in the form of a pair of angel wings, a fluffy white tutu, and a halo.  I picked up my angel costume to wear on The Day Of, and it's supercute.  Sure, it won't stay white for long, and will most likely be shed not long after crossing the start line or fall victim to some terrible obstacle course barbed wire or pit of mud.  Either way, it's easier for me to think about how cute we'll look in our pre-race pictures than how much grit it's going to take to make it to the finish line (which is on the other side of one of the most brutal obstacles:  Electroshock Therapy.

I don't know what possesses most people to run through live wires, or jump into a container of ice cold water, or crawl under barbed wire through the mud, or run the 10 miles in between.  I can say that most of the Mudders or Mudders-to-Be who I know are bada$$es, through and through.  The kind of folks who can just wake up in the morning and decide to go do this thing, or even to go kill this thing.

Not the kind of person who worries and frets and whines via a blog for a year (actually more!) about the the possibility of dying facedown in The Mud.

So why?

It started out as a way to get through a really tough time.  If I can run through fire, I can survive anything, right?  That was the thinking anyway.  I needed a bandage for a very broken heart, a guidebook for surviving in a new reality, and a distraction from all the voices in my head that constantly questioned how I'd make it.

Along the way, though, it changed into something much more.

I've never had to do anything hard, and aside from fairly recent events, have never had anything bad happen to me.  I'm a lucky girl for that, but I've also never been called on to be tough, to prove my worth, to push beyond my limits, to show myself and everyone else what I'm made of.  I've never had to.  Life has bee pretty easy, mostly.  Easy is relative, yes, but I have a loving family, a wonderful daughter, amazing friends, a good education, a job that I love.  I've never had to work too hard for anything, and while I certainly appreciate that, I also feel like something's missing because the path has been easy.

I have said from the beginning that I want to be a bada$$.  And I know some certified bada$$es who've earned that distinction for various reasons.

When I get home from Crossfit complaining about being sore, my kid asks "well, why then do you do it?"

Because I was the kid who quit everything when it got too hard who grew up to be that adult who quits everything when it gets too hard.  I'm tired of being that kid.

So for me, the measure of BadA$$ness isn't that I make it up Everest on the first try (yeah, right!), but that I show up, and I finally follow through on a promise I made to myself  over a year ago.

I get sappy a lot; folks who know me know that.  And I have no trouble sharing the sap.  Well, I caught up on my season premiers this weekend, and I was struck by something the wonderful writers of Grey's Anatomy said:

"We're all gonna die. We don't get much say over how, or when. But we do get to decide how we're gonna live. So do it. Decide. Is this the life you wanna live? Is this the person you wanna love? Is this the best you can be? Can you be stronger? Kinder? More compassionate? Decide. Breathe in. Breathe out. And decide."

So you just have to decide.  To live the life you want, to be the person you want to be.

And I've decided.

See you on Saturday, Mudder.