Yet Another Day at the Races

What's goin' on, America.

As some of you know, Abby has had some pretty impressive feats of prowess in Pinewood Derby (er, 'Powder Puff Derby,' if you're a Girl Scout) racing through her Girl Scout troops. 

She and Papa John have a definite system down for how they create their race cars.  First, she picks out the design by Google image searching race cars, then he creates the car in his workshop and coats the body in a graphite lubricant to create an air-tight, heavy aerodynamic exterior.  She the sands down the graphite to fill in any holes in the wood, picks a color, and together they spray paint it.  He then takes the car and adds weights to it, removes access wood, and adds on the wheels.  She then paints the finishing touches on it, and it's ready to go.

The first year they worked together on this, Abby's broke multiple speed records and captured the Gold Medal for speed in her designated category (they break down the top three in speed for each level of Girl Scouts - Daisies, Brownies, Juniors, CSAs, etc.)  This was pretty impressive, so we weren't expecting to hit this goal again.

Little did we know we'd surpass it.

Check it out. . .

These races were supposed to start at 2:00pm, with check-in/car-weighing slated to start at 12:30.  Abby and I showed up right at 12:30 in order to snag front-row seats for the afternoon races, and therefore sat around for quite a bit while the gaggle of moms who were running this shit-show bumbled through every step of the process.  We didn't get underway until nearly 3:00pm (yes, you read that right - I had to sit in a chair and wait for nearly two-and-a-half f***ing hours.)  Didn't help things that between each race they had to rely on a couple idiot boy scouts to fetch designated cars from an ill-placed table at the far end of the church.  This meant there was about five minutes between each of the 60-plus races.  This is the very definition of a clusterf***, folks.

Abby, racing in the Juniors Bracket, didn't actually start racing until an hour or so into the races.  They burned through the Daisies and Brownies first, which took a long-ass time because there's far more Daisies and Brownies than Juniors.  In the very first race, Abby laid waste to her competitors.

By the time the Juniors took the track, the top speed recorded that day was around 210 mph.  Right out of the gate, Abby's car showed promise. . .

Second race.

She set a new record for the day with her second race (I missed the pop up window that displayed this notification, sadly.)

Third race.

Her slowest race.  Still faster than nearly all of the other cars that had raced that day.  Just sayin'.

Ella and Abby, on the edge of their seats.  All of the chairs in the front row on either side of the race track had kids sitting in them, but I refused to move - I wanted my vantage spot.  F*** those kids. 

Yet another record set, in her fourth and final race of the afternoon.

Abby took 1st Place in Speed, yet again, this time for the Juniors bracket, but I kept track of race times throughout the afternoon, and she had the second-fastest car there (the fastest car belonged to some high schooler.)  I was pretty pleased with this.

Showing off her new hardware.  She's back-to-back Champion of her age group - second year in a row she's taken Gold.

Had to get a pic of these two BFFs in front of the sign. . .

The winning team, after the races (I didn't realize that she wore the exact same sweatshirt last year at this thing.)

- Brian

Warrior Dash '18

What's up, America.

So last year, my brother Chris and I ran the annual Warrior Dash, held down in Mt. Morris.  If you'll recall, this is more or less a glorified 5K, with a dozen obstacles sprinkled throughout the course, which runs through sand and forest, grassy flatland and mud pits.  At the end of the course, when you emerge from the pools of mud, covered in sweat and filth, you're awarded a medal, a fuzzy Viking helmet, a free t-shirt, and a complimentary drink.

. . . 'cause who doesn't like throwing back a cold, alcoholic drink after an entire afternoon of arduous turmoil under an oppressive sun?

Well, last year, shortly after we ran it, we decided that it'd be a lot of fun if our wives ran alongside us.  Nicole would have done so last year, but she was, well, growing two miniature human beings inside her at the time.  I managed to convince Kris that she should run it with us, and so all four of us pre-registered for the 2018 race last summer.

Fast forward a year - a year in which none of the four of us managed to get in shape, or train in any way whatsoever.  No, instead, Chris and Nicole had been pretty sedentary, shackled with two kids.  Kris spent five days of each week over the course of the last year sitting in an office chair in front of a computer.

Damn it feels good to be a gangster.

And me?  Well, I went ahead and broke my foot.

This year, unsurprisingly, was pretty rough.  Running on a broken foot isn't cool at all, and it was pretty painful.  Kris nearly passed out after the first mile - the sun was intense, and running without shade in the mid-80s through sand isn't as fun as you'd think.  Chris' shoes were rubbing him raw behind his ankles, to the point where they were bleeding.  Honestly, the one person who held up the most happened to be the same person who had carried and delivered a set of twins.

Still, we had a blast.  It was a rough go, but was definitely a highlight of the summer.  I think it can go without saying that we'll be running the sum'bitch next year, in the Summer of 2019.  Maybe we'll even train this time around so we can save ourselves some of the physical exhaustion. . .

. . . .buuuuut, who am I kidding.  We probably won't.

Here, check it out:

A screen shot of the following video, from MLive's article on this year's Warrior Dash (you can see Kris at right, with Yours Truly coming up behind her.)

(You can spot us at the 1:36 point.)

This is the Pallet Jacked obstacle, which I revisited here because you can see me at the 0:31 point, awkwardly attempting to cross those plastic platforms of death. . .

Approaching the fire obstacle (forget what it's called), towards the end of the race.  We didn't run into many photographers along the course, like we did last year, but they always have one camped in front of this one. . .

Kris makes some pretty rad faces when she's feeling 'hardcore.'

Hard.  Core.

We actually jumped over slightly ahead of Chris and Nicole, so Chris took both images from the Warrior Dash website and photoshopped it so it looks like we went over at the same time.

Kris sticks the landing.  You can see, at left, my broken foot.  By this point in time, it felt like it was about to fall off.

Yes, that's Iron Man walking behind Nicole.

Once we cleared the fire obstacle, we had to climb a wall and then slide down the other side.  For whatever reason, they didn't have a pool of water waiting for us at the bottom of the slide this year, just a pile of dry-ass dirt.  It sucked, as we were kinda looking forward to being cooled off again - the heat was ridiculous.  (That's my arm off to the right, fans.)

After crawling under the barbed wire, through a giant pit of mud, we crossed the Finish Line and were handed our medals.  Kris asked a stranger to take a picture of us and text it to her, and - thank God - the lady wasn't a complete b**** and followed through.

Post-Showers, we opted to snag one more group picture in front of the big ol' Warrior Dash rock, like Chris and I did last year.

The race had a few different sponsors - nothing new, there - and among them was White Claw, which makes fruit-flavored spritzer drinks that have a 5% abv.  Not my cup of tea - tastes like slightly-flavored club soda with a hint of booze in it - but Kris (and every female in the United States, apparently) loves them.  The girl working the booth, who was, like, 21, didn't mind giving out an endless supply of samples to Kris, who promptly took advantage of her generosity.

She soon started sending us out to pick some up for her.  I suppose she earned it.

Awwww.  Wives take the cutesiest pictures. . .

- Brian