Mud Run

Well, my first week in LA turned out to be just an extension of EuropeTrip, thanks to Captain Kevin Downs that is! Kevin (House!) is the captain of our Mud Run team and flew in to LA the first day we were back so we could prepare ourselves for our race on June 11th. We officially had one week to show the Captain everything there is to do in LA. Throughout the week, the race team (Downs, Dirty, Pat, and I) endured some heavy training while the captain was in town, including the most rigorous pong games and beer bongs i have ever endured. But between games of poker, we managed to hurt ourselves more than helping our chances of even being able to participate in the race. And as it turned out it seemed we did everything we could to make sure we wouldn't make the race - one infected foot, one twisted ankle, Dirty Mark, and a day at Dragon would hurt the chances of any team.
Anyway, this probably means nothing to anyone except the team (Pant's ninjas) because our weekend was too long to explain. But to make things short and to the point - Kevin's arrival killed any chances we had to running this race respectably. After the first two days of training, i was unbelievably sore from not running in a full month, but i was well trained for all the drinking Kevin had us doing.
But still, Saturday (the day before the race), was a day none should forget. After an early morning start for the rest of the team, i drove us down to ATP tournament at Hermosa. So, we parked it up at Kelly and Pant's place and, to my surprise, skipped the volleyball and headed straight to...Dragon? Mark's friends Richard Jefferson, Luke Walton, and Brian Cook met us there. As a team, we perfected our cheers in the bar as usual, pounding just enough to have P-Dog and Dirty get asked to leave, and as a true captain, Kevin followed and ate five pieces of pizza, one for all of us.
And after wandering around the trails, and Aunt Pants refusing Pat and friends to go into the house, Kelly and Uncle Dan rounded us up in the truck and took us to the beach. How nice of them. Then, burritos magically appeared, and we ate them! So, it was a good thing Kelly was there to watch over us on the eve of our race, otherwise we may not have had the energy we needed to finish.
But we did eventually make it down to Camp Pendleton, home of GymNasium, for the Mud Run the very next day after staying the night at Crazy Tim's place. And after Tron8000 twisted my ankle in a game of basketball, Kevin's foot was twice its normal size from a strange bug bite, a fire alarm fiasco, we still managed to make our 7 am wake up. And once again, we defied all odds and made it to the race site...and finished!
The Mud Run was actually really cool. It's a 10k run at the marine corpes base near San Diego and even though the trail wasn't too big (hence, the slow time) they had plenty of obstacle to test the health of the team. There were plenty of mud pits, walls, ponds, and steep declines to test our ankles. And then again, Dirty was there trying to make it even harder for us by throwing huge chucks of mud. But, we did finally finish..in a dismal 1:09. But it was still good for 10th best out of the mens teams and 38th overall. Not bad considering our circumstances. Now...only 365 days until we win it..