Happy Birthday Wade, who's your buddy?

Wade's birthday was back in October. Since we've done triathlon's together my present to him for the big 40 was to enter us into the Muddy Buddy race. It's a 5 1/2 mile, 2 guys, 1 bike race where teams trade off running and riding, then crawl through a mud pit together.

Here we are ready to go... unaware of what we're getting into.


I started on the bike, Wade with the run. On the first leg there was one excellent downhill that I saw a guy go over the bars.

Obstacle 1 was a climbing wall with rope ladder on the back, then I was off for the run. When I finished the run and did my climb over obstacle 2, an A-frame I didn't see Wade yet. He soon followed on the bike and traded off. Soon after I came around a corner to see the road flooded out and a big mud hole. Most everyone was circling around it on the edge where it was dry. I was following someone that stopped and put their foot down so I quickly made the choice to go through the mud. About 3/4 the way through the bike stopped, my foot went down, and the bike went down, now it would be covered in mud for the rest of the race. I heard someone yell, "right on!!" There was then a lot of uphill riding.

The next obstacle was walking across a beam. Normally easy but with wet, muddy shoes a different story. Then I was off running again. Somehow Wade ended up with the long downhill ride on pavement and passed me going pretty fast. Actually good for me because I'd rather run that part than the part Wade had just finished running.

The last obstacle was the bouncy house slide. Again, wet, muddy shoes made climbing the rope ladder a little more challenging.


Then I was off on the bike. A lot of uphill again and I never caught up to Wade until the end where he had to wait for me to go through the mud pit together.


Who's your buddy? Wade going to give Tanja a hug.


The kids were pretty scared that I would give them a hug. It was great to have them there and hear Junia yelling "Go, Daddy Go!"


Right before Kerrianne got her hug.


It was great fun. Happy Birthday Wade!

Is it a sign?

Well, Wade and I have the Muddy Buddy race in the morning. On the positive side it's the time change tonight so even though the clock says it's 11:34pm that I'm writing this it's only 10:34pm... that's where the positive side ends.

I went out to the garage a few hours ago to get the bike loaded into the truck and get things ready... I started rolling the bike and flat tire! I know I have a tube around somewhere but I haven't seen it since we moved 2 years ago. The only place I could think of that would be open at 9pm was Target so off I went. I picked up 2 tubes so we'll have one on the race tomorrow and while I was at it got a new pump for on the bike. Back home, change the tube... all good. Then I went to start the truck, it's been sitting for a couple of weeks, battery dead. I think the jumper cables are with that tube, haven't been seen since we moved. About that time work called with 3 different problems they wanted me to look at. (Bad planning on my part being on-call the weekend of a race.) I spent the next hour fixing problems for work and decided I'd try to fit my bike in the other car for tomorrow, as I was moving stuff to put it in I came across the emergency kit my wonderful wife got me for Christmas last year.... in it were jumper cables. Gave the truck a jump start and let it run for a while while I got the rest of the things together.

Right now things look OK, except when I look at the clock and see that it says 11:42pm.......