Getting Dirty 2008

Now that my oldest is in X-C (cross-country) he gets to partake in the annual Trask Moutain Run. This is an event put on by the McMinnville High School's track team as a fundraiser at a ranch about 20 miles from here. It is basically a muddy, creek-crossing, uphill / downhill dirt run. The purpose is to get completely dirty and exhausted (and raise money).

Ben and I went up the night before and camped at the ranch. (The top picture is our truck (tent) at the campsite). Many of the high school teams that participate go up and stay in the bunk-houses on the ranch the night before the race. We parked the Suburban on a big grassy area by a large creek as our "camp". There is old log resort a couple minutes walk from there where we had a great spaghetti dinner (also a fund-raiser) and after dinner lounged around on leather recliners - he reading, me watching my iPod.

We slept well in the back of the truck, and got up the next morning and had another delicious meal (breakfast) at the main lodge.

A couple hours later was the run. Ben did a 3 km run with the other 7th and 8th graders and had a great effort. I did a 5 km "open" run after that, filled mostly with high schoolers not on official track teams, but also with some of us old farts. The course had several deep mud bogs, a few creek crossings, and some uphill and downhill muddy channels that necessitated sliding down on your butt (yes, that's mud on my posterior in the photo, the bowel evacuation was a previous post) or grappling up on hands and feet holding onto shrubbery to keep from slipping backwards. Great fun.