Challenge Accepted.

About a month ago, I challenged my mom to several things that we would do this year. I gave her a list of a marathon, the Dirty Girl Mud Race and the Tough Mudder. A marathon for those of you who don't know is 26.2 miles that one can either complete by running, jogging, walking, or crawling (most likely during the end of the stretch). The Dirty Girl Mud Race is about a three miles race for women that benefit the Breast Cancer society. Along the race there are different obstacles to challenge the physical and mental ability of the participant. Such obstacles include Wall Climbing (of roughly 6 to ten feet high), mud pits, tire sprints and more mud. Finally the Tough Mudder is like the Dirty Girl but intensified. This is an 11 mile obstacle course with 20 obstacles instead of the 11 obstacles at Dirty Girl. These obstacles currently seem harder than those of Dirty Girl and include crawling under barbed wire (in the mud), jumping off a 15 foot high plank into water that most likely will be iced for our enjoyment to swim in, running though an aisle of fire that reaches 4 feet high, a mile dedicated to running in knee high mud, monkey bars where some are greased and others are loose (and a drop in cold water if you let go) and finally ending in what they call electroshock therapy where one runs through a field of live wires (some containing up to 10,000 volts).
So I let my mom pick which two we would do this year in 2012. She picked all three. So this year, I will need to first build up my mileage and train for our marathon (to be in June ~ yikes, only 6 months away!), then I will get a taste of mud on August 18 and then two weeks later, I will be drenched in mud and shocked with the Tough Mudder on September 8. It seemed all fun and games when I challenged my mom and I'm sure we will have a blast doing this (the first two just the two of us as a team and the Tough Mudder open for friends to join in...or laugh from the side lines). 
Today I leave you with the Tough Mudder pledge: 
As a Tough Mudder I pledge that: I understand that Tough Mudder is not a race but a challenge; I put teamwork and camaraderie before my course time; I do not whine - kids whine; I help my fellow mudders complete the course; I overcome all fears.