Once upon a time, a group of 8 individuals, most of whom had never met before, decided to run Ragnar Trails West Virginia.

And despite Mother Nature's best attempts, they were successful in completing their adventure.

And adventure it was! 

I will tell you right now, I'm surprised none of my friends murdered me for convincing them that this was a good idea.

Especially after our campsite suddenly became waterfront property. ..

So guys, I dunno if I told you this or not yet... BUT!

Soooo...  where were we?  Oh right... 

Last "real" post was a re-cap of the Spartan Race Sprint in Indianapolis...

So, what have I been up to since then?

So, awhile ago, a friend of mine and I were talking about Obstacle Course Racing, specifically, Tough Mudder versus Spartan.

At this point in time, I had finished running my first ever Spartan Sprint in Atlanta and had run a Tough Mudder the previous year, so I felt like I could do an honest comparison.  My friend had only ever done Tough Mudder, but had done several of them.

I told him "You have to do a Spartan.  The two aren't even remotely similar."

And so it was that I convinced him to meet me halfway between Tennessee and Michigan to run the Indiana Spartan Sprint.

I recently had the pleasure of getting to run with Matt Davis from Obstacle Racing Media.  He invited me to tag along and run the St. Clair Scramble in northern Alabama. 

Anyways, after running the race, Matt asked me if I would be willing to write a review for their website...

UHHH...  YEAH!

Anyways, head over and check out my review and then be sure to leave a comment!   Who knows, maybe I'll see you at the event next year!  And check it, I even got a byline!

GO READ THE REVIEW HERE!

So, if you follow my twitter, you probably have seen me use #FranklinTNHalf.  And if you haven't, I'm going to tell you now.

I'm running the Franklin Half Marathon.

This is my very first half marathon and apparently, I have chosen a difficult one.

Typical responses to people who find out I'm running this race are as follows:


"Wow...  You must like hills."

 "You know it's going to be warm out then, right?"

"You must not like yourself very much."

In honor of #ThrowBackThursday and it being Thursday and almost time for this race to happen again this year, I thought I'd throw it back to my experience with my very first ever trail 10K, the Hurt the Dirt Challenge brought to you by Michigan Adventure Racing.

I had seen this race advertised on facebook and what initially intrigued me was the medals being given out for the half and full marathon distances...  They were pretty much the sweetest medals ever...

Obviously, the answer is YES.

But Jessica, what is so special about Ragnar Trail?  What makes it the best race ever?!?

Those are questions you might ask youself.  They are understandable questions. 

So let me answer those questions for you with the Top Five Reasons Ragnar Trail relay races are the hands-down best races ever.

If you've ever run a race of any kind, you know one of the biggest hassles can be putting on your bib.

I'm anal retentive about mine.  Making sure it's pinned on straight, that the safety pins aren't going to rip holes in my shirts and shorts, trying to avoid stabbing myself...

Ya know, the usual.

So when I found out about XRACEWEAR's line of shorts, tanks, and tees designed to help me avoid all that I was pretty excited.   Their whole motto is #nosafetypins.

Plus, once I got into running Obstacle Course Races (OCR) I kept coming across people who had lost their bibs in the mud, crawling through obstacles.  I mean, bonus for me, because those lost bibs had drink tickets attached to them...  (Word to the wise, ALWAYS grab extra bibs.  Seriously.  Free drinks guys.  GENIUS.)  But that definitely had to suck for the person who lost their bib.  Not only did they lose out on their free beer, but also the opportunity for pictures, since most races tag photos based on your bib number.

Not to mention all those lost safety pins in the mud, stabbing you as you try to army crawl under thousands of feet of barbed wire.  OUCH!

So a few weeks ago, I had the genius idea.  For my "Dirty Thirty" Birthday Celebration, I was gonna get dirty.

REAL DIRTY.

And thanks to some help from the nice folks at Spartan Race and some Georgia Clay, I did excatly that.  And I couldn't have thought of a better way to spend my thirtieth birthday.  :)

(And yes, I'm 30.  I know I look younger.  The guys at the office joked that I was finally going to be old enough to vote.  Or buy beer.  Real funny, guys!)