That title was really redundant. I think everyone knows I am a Dirty Girl, and so is The Dog. On Saturday, though, I got extra dirty!

I mentioned the Dirty Girl Mud Run a few months ago in this post, and the day finally arrived. I snuck out of bed at 5:00 a.m. to meet Caroline and Raffi from the Tampa Bay Lady Bloggers before dawn, so we could carpool for the trek over to Dade City. I have never been on speaking terms with 5:00 a.m. or its ugly cousins (5:30 a.m., 5:45 a.m. …) and this morning was no exception, but I got up with no problem because I was excited about this run! We were getting close to the Little Everglades Ranch when the sun started peeking up.

A huge thanks to Caroline for jumping on this golden opportunity:

I am still grimacing from the port-o-potty’s lovely aroma.

I almost got my blogger status revoked by failing to bring a camera (who does that?!), but luckily all the girls had me covered, and I have a post chock-full of their photos. So disclaimer up front: the majority of these photos are not mine, but you can click on them to take you to the source. We ran in the very first wave, so the grass was wet, the course was pristine, and the mud was COLD.

I wore my standard racing gear (the pink bikini shirt from the Tough Mudder) and a new Bondi Band (complements of Raffi):

This shirt is best appreciated from behind:

Oh yeah. The Boy asked if he could come support me, and I told him it was “girls only,” so he stayed home, and supported me from afar via text:

Here we are pre-race:

Left to Right: Caroline, Caitlyn, Genna, Jenny, Denise, Raffi, Me, and Nicole.

Another shot with more of the group, including Mary, Meghann, Jess, and Margarita. It was very nice to finally meet some of the ladies whose blogs I love!

We got warmed up at the start line by a pep talk, and some zumba! That was definitely a fun surprise. The obstacles consisted of mud pits, water hazards, walls, a giant slide into a mud pit (Dirty Dancing), cargo nets (Get a Grip and Funky Monkey), mud tunnels (Utopian Tubes) and a stretchy rope thing (Amaze Yourself) that was actually kind of difficult to navigate.

Lydia’s husband practically ran the race with us, and was a great sport taking all of our photos. Here are a few gems he captured:

More obstacles:

3.1 miles later, and we reached the finish line:

Once everyone arrived, we posed for our “official photos”:

And a few “unofficial” ones:

It was a great race, well-planned, organized, and with excellent staff. A fantastic start to my Saturday!