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I got a package! Miss Jes sent me a few things, some or all of which she picked up when she went to St. Croix:
Thanks, woman!
*I may or may not be talking about myself. Who doesn’t like to get up at 5 AM on a Sunday to run around the woods in a helmet, bike some trails, run again, bike again, run again, and then crawl through a mud pit? Nobody, that’s who!
Muddy Buddy has been an annual tradition for me since 2003 (minus 2008 when Mark and I were busy moving to TX), when I first learned of it and informed Jes that we would be participating. One year she went so far as to break her collarbone to get out of it, but my good friend Dan stepped in and wore our ‘Tough Broads’ team name proudly. She came back the next year under threat that I would personally break the other one if she got hurt again, or something like that.
Then Mark came on the scene and became our cheering section:
Until one day Jes moved to Colorado and passed the torch to Mark. We did our last (well, his first) VA Muddy Buddy in 2007, skipped 2008, and did our first TX Muddy Buddy in 2009, in Austin. We pretty much decided that 2010 would be our last Muddy Buddy for a few reasons. Most importantly, I just don’t look forward to it all year like I used to. Maybe I am getting old, but I have several other ways I would like to spend a Sunday morning (hint: they all start with ‘sleeping’). Also, I kind of made a resolution to stop doing things that stress me out. See: 10K runs. There’s also the cost. I think when Jes and I entered in 2003, it was something like $80/team. Now it’s almost twice that. For a crawl through a mud pit and a t-shirt? And there isn’t even a swag bag anymore, even though the sponsors get bigger and bigger? You need $100,000+ per event for ‘race development,’ when the course is almost exactly the same every year? I love you, Muddy Buddy, but I’m starting to feel used. So we decided this year would be our last hurrah, which was the primary reason for our Hill Country trip and pretty much the only motivation that pulled us out of the warm bed at our rental cabin at 5 AM. And when it was over, we cleaned up, chowed down, and took a nap.
This is my best friend, Jes:
I met Jes at my first retail job when I was 16, and we became fast friends. I credit her with my love of cycling — first she taught me to mountain bike, and then she taught me how to ride in a city. (Lately I only ride in a spinning class, but I’m trying to fix that!) She’s one of those rare people who are good at everything they try and can turn any stranger into a friend in seconds, everywhere they go. Being an extreme introvert, I regard the latter ability much the way I regard the ability to run a five-minute mile. Jes got laid off recently from a job that she was too good for anyway. She’s taking some time to try running her own business, selling handmade aprons and such. If you were here for Thanksgiving, you may have seen a terrible picture of me wearing one of her aprons. She’s just launched her site and is busy sewing her butt off, but check her out. I’ve put a link in the ‘artists’ section of my sidebar, so you can always come back later when her inventory is full, but she does custom work, too! |
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