Thursday, August 23, 2012

The Answer

Hello! It's been a while, but it has been time well spent for me! I was preparing for the "Dirty Girl Mud Run" that I spoke about in my blog post "I'm Getting Dirty". I had more fun than I ever thought I would. I really, really enjoyed it! So much so that I've decided to keep doing them!

The next one is in October and it looks awesome. If I can get in a bit better shape (this one is 10k instead of 5k like the Dirty Girl) then I'm going for it. I bought proper running shoes last night, so I can get serious about it. My ultimate goal now is to do The Tough Mudder. it will take me years of training, and a lot of dedication, but I want to be able to look at myself and know that I did THAT. I want to look at things in life and say "Yeah, I got rear ended, and I can't really afford to lose my car... but this is easier than that time I ran through live wires to to get to the finish line after having run 11 miles."

I can do this.

Oh! I suppose you would like to see photos of the Dirty Girl? I can totally do that for you.



It was an absolutely gorgeous day for it, and thankfully not too warm, as I was about to put myself through more than I had ever done in my whole life.




August 19th, Delafield WI

We were dressed up in vaguely super hero costumes for the run, because why not? So as a nod to my friends, I will refer to them by their super hero identities. There were five of us, and we had a Supergirl, a Batgirl, a Robin and a Wonder Woman. I was, of course, Captain America. Yeah we were mixing up our comic universes.. shut it.


*cue dramatic music*
We called ourselves The Just-Us League. Robin is my sister-in-law by the way.

All of the costumes were pretty awesome. There were women competing in tutus, in angel wings, in wigs... you name it! The only thing I didn't see were ladies trying to wear high heels, which is a good thing as they would have quickly broken their necks. The best costumed team was (in my opinion) the Sumo Ladies. Yep, you guessed it. They were dressed up as Sumo Wrestlers.

GET IN MAH BELLEH!
Seriously, it can't get any better than this. Hilarious!


Sadly, because they want me to pay for photos of myself looking like a dork, they wouldn't allow my brilliant husband to follow us around the track. Which means my darling blog-stalkers are missing out on photos of me clinging to a cargo net two stories high, being dragged through the mud on my face by Supergirl, and the massive Just-Us League mud battle. It was EPIC! I would leave right now for a chance to do it all again today.

Batgirl and I celebrate having made it out of the woods, which were full of cords strung between the trees like creepy spiderwebs
The huge wall climb was, I think, the hardest one. We'd already been jogging/walking for about 3 miles at this point, and I wasn't blown or anything but that was a really tall wall. I ended up twisting my ankle a little on the up-and-over portion, but I was fine after a while.

Captain: Ah damn... can I just.. like, stay here? Robin: WHEEEEEE!

It was an amazing feeling to finish. I wouldn't have bet on me completing the whole course, but I did! I felt simply fantastic afterwards too! I honestly felt like a super hero.

Only clean spot on my face: under the goggles.
We're some dirty mother.. shut yo mouth!


The experience has highlighted for me the need for taking my health more seriously though. Looking at the photos makes me realise that I cannot continue to be in the shape I am currently in, and still respect myself. It's not a matter of "Oh, I want to be skinny so people think I'm pretty", it's a dawning realization that the things I enjoyed doing are very difficult when I'm out of shape. I love camping, and hiking, and I've always wanted to take kayaking trips, but it's more difficult when you're out of shape. I also love to swim, but I'm self-conscious in a swimsuit, so I don't do much swimming anymore. I don't want to continue like this any longer.

I want to feel like this more often is what I'm saying. 


And The Answer Is!

I listen to a few different music apps while I'm at work, mostly because I get bored fairly quickly if one of them gets stuck playing the same tracks over and over. Lately I've been listening to a lot of hip-hop, dubstep and as much Die Antwoord as I can get. I doubt many of you have heard of Die Antwoord, so I'll explain briefly. They're a South African group and though I would say they're rap, it has a lot of techno and tribal music involved. I pretty much love it. Some of their lyrics are in Afrikaans, but that's not much of a barrier for me, as I have a friend who talks to me in Afrikaans so I pick up some of it and the rest I just look up. The interesting thing is that they're so very different in interviews than their stage personas. Apparently they don't drink, or do drugs, despite what they sing about. They're pretty interesting. Die Antwoord translates to "The Answer" by the way. I wonder what the question was?
My husband says my fascination with them is weird, but I like them anyway!

I apparently just missed out on them in concert in Chicago, which is disappointing.

Jy moet luister na 'n paar vreemde kak.





2 comments:

  1. That run looked like a blast!

    I'm always interested in hearing some new music, so I had to listen to your Die Antwoord video. While watching the video, Andrew sits down next to me to watch it. After about 10 seconds of it, he states "This is stupid." But then proceeds to continue watching the entire music video. Change if heart? haha

    P.S. I love it. :)

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    Replies
    1. I have to admit, the weirder or "stupider" something is, the more likely I am to love it. I have a whole Spotify playlist of songs that make my husband shake his head slowly at me. Some of the hot tracks on that list are Jonathan Coulton's "Re: Your Brains" and The Lonely Island's "I'm On A Boat".

      If you like awful music, I will totally share the playlist with you. Or maybe I'll just share the whole embarrassing thing with the world, on my blog.

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