The Mud Mafia

Trish, Dave, Kendall, Jim,
Tony, Melissa, Carrie, Chris

My racing team had a VERY exciting weekend!  We had our inaugural race as a team in the form of the 18th Annual Beer and Bagel Run in Ashland, NE. I had a really lucky start by landing the #1 bib number for the race.  It was a great sign for me and I was very excited to have it!  Our team has 11 members so far and 8 of us ran in the race on Sunday. 

I was really proud of how everyone did.  It was a VERY challenging course with lots of hills and mostly off-road.  I met some great people in the racing community and was excited to talk about the team and what we are up to. 

Nicknames



Kim Barnhart from Team
Nebraska and me



Starting this team has been a dream come true for me.  I've wanted to bring my love of running to the community and I feel like I am one step closer to doing that. 

Running a challenging course is like a story with chapters.  You can't think of the whole thing as one event, you have to break it down.  A lot of marathon runners say this is how they get through the daunting idea of 26.2 miles at one time. 



Jaimie and me



For me, mile one I got out fast, and averaged a sub six mile/min pace.  Unfortunately, after the first downhill, I hyper-extended my knee and spent all of mile two trying to work it out and recalibrate my stride which slowed me considerably.  Mile three plus was stronger and a I ended up finishing in 30:58 for the almost four mile course.  I finished in 132nd out of 1500 racers and 6th in my division.  I was happy with the finish, especially with the slight injury. 

After the race, our team hung out and talked with some other runners, ate bagels and had a beer, of course, and watched the results.  We then went to celebrate at Two Fine Irishmen for some lunch and a few drinks as a team.  It was a lot of fun!



After the run



The Mud Mafia



Our team is about running hard and then enjoying each other's company!  Our team is a lot of fun!  Everyone runs at different paces and has different goals, but we come together as a team once we are done and celebrate the individual successes and accomplishments as a group.



I am really proud of what we did this past weekend as runners and as a group.  Next weekend... we party!

Come out and meet the family! 

Hope to see you there!