I Won't Grow Up!

Last weekend, my friends decided to do something a little crazy. 

First, let me explain how this oh so unique incident came about. A few weeks prior to this decision, one of the boy's youth leaders passed around information about a 5k that was sponsored by the USO of Missouri. In the mud. As a group of 18 year-old boys, of course they jumped at the chance to do something in the dirt. Little did I know that they were going to include me too. The run allowed individual entries as well as team entries. Only teams of 5 were allowed. So, because I ran track and cross country in high school, they signed me up against my will. Words cannot describe how nervous I was to be on a team with all of these boys! I was the only girl and it was a little stressful. Luckily, Dustan's girlfriend Jaclyn signed up as an individual runner so that I wasn't alone. 

The day came and we all met at the Stanley's house with our tacky yet awesome team uniforms. We were "Os Abacaxis" ("the pineapples" in Portuguese). We put on our knee socks and headed out at 7:15 to make it there in time to register and duct tape. The flyer said that if we didn't duct tape our shoes to our feet, the mud would suck them right off. When we arrived, we met up with Brother Duke and Scott to take a before picture. We got our numbers and worked our way to the starting line. 

The boys decided that we had to be in first for some portion of the race, so they said that everyone had to sprint the first 100 meters of the course. I'm pretty sure everyone at that starting line was out to get us from that point on. The starter held the gun up in the air. We got into our starting positions (which was completely unnecessary), and BANG! we were off. Well...not really. The gun misfired, but we took off anyways. The boys had the lead for awhile but decided to wait for me and Jaclyn to catch up. After 4 mud pits, a water crossing, army crawling through the mud, and getting hosed off by a fire truck, Os Abacaxis finished THIRD out of over 25 co-ed teams!!!! We were awarded dogtags and everything! Even though the mud smelled like sewage and looked like diarrhea, we came out victorious. 

Dustan duct taping his shoes

Blake, Dustan, Yuri, and PJ

Before

After

It feels good to be able to play in the mud again. Who said we had to grow up right away?