Piglet Plunge

 Here we are nice and clean before the race. Linc is pointing to the first muddy hill we had to run up.

Aaron's brother Ryan and Ryan's wife Melissa started their own photography business called Flo Foto. They have recently teamed up with a race called the Dirty Dash, which is a 10k run through mud, to take the pictures of the runners doing that race. Aaron has been doing the website for them. Last week they went up to Idaho to do a Dirty Dash race. After the Dirty Dash they do what they call the Piglet Plunge, which is a smaller race for 2-12 yr olds with a lot less running, but still a lot of mud. When we saw the pictures of it up on the website, I knew I wanted to sign Lincoln up for the Utah race.

Krystal and Lincoln going up the muddy hill

Aaron said my punishment for signing him up for the race was that I had to run it with him. (Adults were allowed to run with their kids.) It wasn't much of a punishment though, since I was secretly hoping I'd be the one that got to run it with him. They gave us a small Dirty Dash logo to stick on Linc's forehead, had us sign a waver, and we were good to go.

The night before the race, I was telling Lincoln that he and I were going to run a race. He was really excited about it. I told him it was a mud race so we were probably going to get a little dirty. He thought about it for a minute and said, "But not in my eyes. And not in my ears. And not in my nose. And not in my hair." I told him we'd do our best to keep it out of his eyes, but I couldn't promise anything else.

 On the way down the hill we saw Aaron and Ivan and Adelia and stopped to wave at them.

First they had us run up a big hill that they were spraying a giant sprinkler onto to make it muddy. Once we'd touched the sprinkler we had to run back down the same hill, and then up the mountain side where they had set up a huge inflatable four-lane slide. They were spraying a fire hose down the slide to make it wet and slippery, and then at the bottom was a ton of mud.

Krystal and Lincoln and the viking standing behind us in line. Not too dirty yet... 

Because there were a lot of kids and their parents running in the Piglet Plunge, and not very much ground to cover, a line built up on the mountain side of people waiting to go down the slide. While we waited we got our picture taken with the viking standing behind us. People dressed up in all sorts of crazy outfits to run this race. Lots of people were in shirts and ties, we saw Tarzan and Jane, and one group of girls even had on long white formal gowns.

This video is of us going down the slide. When we got to the top of the line, and Lincoln realized that the fire hose was going to spray on us, he kind of freaked out. He was too scared to get on the slide by himself, or to even try running/sliding on it by himself. So I had to half carry half drag him, which made it a little hard for us both to get down the slide. Uncle Ryan was at the bottom snapping pictures, and he got some really great shots. When I get a hold of those ones, I'll post them.

We got soaked, and then came down into the mud. The mud was really slippery. I kept trying to get Lincoln to slide on it, but he was still a little apprehensive. I ran and slid on my bum to show him it was fun. And then tried to get him to come to me. He still didn't want to try it though.

He tried walking to me instead, but slipped and ended up sliding down on his bum anyways. :)

Here we are at the bottom of the muddy part after the slide. The next step is to run down the mountain side and over to the big mud pit. Now that we were done with the big slide, it suddenly became Lincoln's favorite part of the race. He kept telling me it was so fun, and he'd point to it and say, "I goed down the big slide!"

This video of Aaron and I interviewing Lincoln right before the mud pit is one of my favorites. The next video is of us getting into the mud pit. Linc was a little nervous about this one too, but I told him I'd hold his hand the whole time, and he seemed to be ok with it after that.

We walked over to where Aaron, Ivan, and Adelia were watching from the side so Aaron could take our picture. The mud was about as deep as Lincoln's waist in most places, sometimes a little deeper, sometimes a little more shallow. And it was uneven along the bottom, so you never knew if your next step was going to trip you up or not. I assume it was this way on purpose, so people would come out even more dirty. :) I was glad I kept a hold of Lincoln's hand though, to keep him from going all the way under.

The flags were put in as an obstacle I'm sure. They were draped just right so that you either had to lift them up and go under them dripping gooey mud on your head, or you could possibly try to jump over them. We opted to go under.

At the end of the mud pit was a big hill you had to climb up, and then slide down the other side to the finish line. The hill was pretty slick, and I had to push Lincoln up most of it.

Here we are at the top of the hill. I tried to talk Lincoln into sliding down head first, but he opted to go on him bum. I on the other hand, decided that it's not every day you get to slide down a mud slide, and since I was already dirty anyway, I went head first. :) I thought Aaron would approve.

We finished! While we waited in line to get our pictures taken professionally in Ryan and Melissa's photo booth, we showed Aaron our big strong muscles.

We went through the photo booth and Ryan's friend Garrett took our picture. I'll post those when I get a hold of them.

When we came out of the booth, we found Aunt Melissa, and Lincoln and I gave her a hug to get her all muddy. :) Linc thought that was funny.

I thought maybe Ivan was feeling a little left out and that he'd want to play in the mud. So we stripped him down to his onsie and I stuck him in a mud puddle. I was very wrong. He wanted absolutely nothing to do with the mud. At all. He stood there whimpering with his hands up in the air for me to pick him back up.

In this picture we are all standing in a large mud puddle, and a kid ran by and it splashed Linc in the face, and he was pulling such a funny face about it that I couldn't help but crack up.

Next we had to take the kids to the "showers". Which were just a bunch of pipes you could stand under that had ice cold water spraying out. I felt bad, both my boys screamed bloody murder the whole time I was washing them off. But there was no way they were getting back in our van as filthy as they were. Once we all got rinsed off and changed we loaded up and headed home. Such a fun day!

Of course both boys crashed about 10 seconds into the drive home. :) And they actually got descent naps out of the deal because coming out of the canyon we got stuck in football game traffic and spent the next 45 minutes going from the mouth of the canyon to our apartment. (Usually a 10 minute drive.) Gotta love Provo on a fall Saturday.

But really, we had such a good time at the race. I hope we get to do it again next year. And if anyone is interested in the professional pictures, check out Ryan and Melissa's website at flo-foto.com the pictures should be up by Wednesday.