Muddy Buddy - Partners in Grime

We did it! This was the most fun I've ever had in an athletic challenge. The Muddy Buddy is a partner race with 5 lags, 6.5 miles. You switch back and forth between running and mt biking and at each switch point there's some obstical to achieve, the final one is a mud pit you must crawl or waller through on your belly to stay under a row of flags. The following is Patricia's summary sent to her family and friends, beautiful!

"We had a great time at the Muddy Buddy Race 2009 in Boulder yesterday! We came in at 1:01, which is about 14 minutes faster than previous training times. An obstacle collapsed on Natalie and they re-routed her and that cost us 3 minutes. 2 minutes would have put us on the podium! Still, we came in 20th out of 52 teams of women in our age category...that would be 52 teams of very fit and very athletic women...the competition in Boulder is very tough! We had such a fun time and now we are determined to do it again next year. So there is history behind this adventure:

Our team name was "Peace CO Journ". Natalie and I met in college and we were the first group of students from LBCC to attend the International Peace Education Symposium that was held in Hungary in 1990. We were bunkmates on that trip and that's where the "Peace" in our team name comes from. After graduating LBCC, Natalie went to CU-Boulder and I went to Willamette University. We kept in touch over the years, periodically visiting when Natalie came home to Oregon to visit her family. Natalie never left Colorado and has been out here for 18 years. I got this job out here 8 years ago and immediately hooked up with Natalie. Within a couple of months of moving here Natalie invited me on a group mountainbiking trip to Moab. That's how I got hooked on mountainbiking! "CO" in our team name partly stands for Colorado...the state where we've reconnected.

Both Natalie and I seem to share many perspectives and paths. One of those common themes is the sojourns we've done...those temporary stays wherein we search and discover meaning. Natalie pointed out that we both set out on our own after the 1990 Peace Education Symposium to travel Europe. Perhaps that was our first real steps toward a path that would lead us to many sojourns. But here we are in Colorado together! So that brings us to our "Journ" part. If you add in the "CO" and use it with "Journ" you get to "cojourn"...and so you can now understand that we have forged a "COJourn" here in Colorado! Both us us are exploring, learning, growing, imagining and dreaming. We are here now, but who knows where will be in the next tomorrows! So that's our "Peace CO Journ". And as you can see, it's much deeper in meaning than appears on the surface. Attached you'll find us standing on the podium of the Muddy Buddy Race 2009....because that's where we belong! Cheers, Patricia"