Down With Dirty Girl Mud Run!!!!

Last year in April for 2013 I happily joined a co-worker and a number of her sisters and friends when she suggested doing the Dirty Girl mud run. I had obviously just started for the most part on my fitness quest and I knew it wasn't a "real" race, it was more about togetherness and having fun, while getting dirty and a little exercise thrown in.

We had a blast, a great big huge blast, and we were filthy and it was awesome.

So pretty much as soon as Dirty Girl announced they were coming back to town for 2014, I signed up.  That was November of 2013, and the date was set for June 21, 2014.

Then they switched the date to July 26, 2014. No big deal for me, still on a weekend, still the same city 60 miles away. I remember how cool the mud was, so heat wasn't an issue.

Then came this Monday the 21st and news reports start flying that the event has been cancelled.....???? But Dirty Girl had been pretty good so far with email notifications of changes, so I figured I'd hear something, and I did, event was still on, they were working on some issues.

Well those issues starting coming to light http://www.wsaz.com/home/headlines/Charleston-Dirty-Girl-Mud-Run-Canceled-267950941.html and you can read the news articles there, but it boils down to, Dirty Girl didn't  live up to the contracts it had agreed to with various and sundry companies, the city and organizations and had not been paying for services to be rendered. One big issue was the transportation component, the busses hadn't been paid to get people to and from parking to the event not to mention the other groups that apparently didn't receive $.

This morning I receive this email:

Hi Dirty Girls,

It is with great regret we inform you Dirty Girl Mud Run will not be held this weekend in Charleston, WV. While the city of Charleston worked diligently and closely with Dirty Girl Mud Run to take all possible steps to put on the event, it can not be held due to circumstances out of our control. We would like to thank the city of Charleston as well as the city officials for all the assistance they’ve provided.

We apologize for any frustration caused by the cancellation of the event in Charleston, WV and we are disappointed that we won’t be getting muddy with you this Saturday. We understand that this cancellation is abrupt.  Per our policy and accepted waiver upon registration, we will not be issuing refunds under any circumstances. At this time, that is all the information we have and we are unable to assist any further in this matter.

-Dirty Girl Mud Run

Whoa, Whoa, Whoa! I'm sorry....circumstances beyond your control? You didn't pay your bills!!! Who else has control of that may I ask?

On top of that Dirty Girl was negligent in their end of the contract deal for all involved and now you are going to just run off with my money?!?! You canceled due to your behavior, not per your policy that cancellation can occur for weather or natural disaster with no refund.

YOU DID NOT DO YOUR JOB DIRTY GIRL MUD RUN!!!!

Not offering me, and every other individual who signed up to do this event a full refund amounts to thievery. You are stealing thousands of hard working West Virginians money. This is not a whoops there was a major flood, or tornado, or earthquake we can't hold the event as planned, sorry. Dirty Girl is 100% responsible for the cancellation of this event throughout their own incomptance.

If the money was the type where is was all donated to charity or something I actually wouldn't care about not getting a refund, but its not. Dirty Girl is a for-profit company, that only donates at most 3% of money gathered at each event to the charity.  3%.

You are dirty rotten thieves Dirty Girl, and you can guarantee WV will not take this lying down. Social Media is a very powerful thing and their Facebook page is already blown up with comments. They have already lost thousands of people across the country who will never sign up again, and word of mouth is spreading.

You offer such bad customer service, pretty soon you won't have to worry 'bout those customers anymore.

UPDATE: A company that was a middleman has now taken over the Dirty Girl Mud Run races, they in conjunction with an organization called Eventbrite, who started doing the registration process a few months ago have given refunds to those registrants that registered through Eventbrite. Unfortunately any of us who registered prior to Eventbrite coming on board are still out of luck and will not get refunds and the Better Business Bureau will not pursue our case because the former company no longer exists. A local lawyers office has put together a class action suit for us and is donating all of their fees to charity if we win the case. If I get my refund I also plan on donating my registration money to charity as well.

Why blog now?

Seriously. Why blog now?

The web is saturated with blogs. No one will read this I'm sure. I'm not even sure I want anyone too. I'm fairly certain my husband will kill me when he finds out. Not Literally...Do Not Call The Police.

He is just a very private person, does not have Facebook or anything, and it took him forever to get comfortable with the fact that I even had one.  So I will not use his name or my kids names for now. I will come up with some sort of nickname for them. Hopefully something that will not be too annoying to type over and over and over again.

I'm just....proud of what I've done and I still have places to go, and I've got experiences to share on all different topics and sometimes I feel like you can over saturate people in real life with the talk talk talk talk talk about these things. So i'll try writing about it. To strangers.

Plus about a month and a half ago I did something crazy. I signed up for a sprint triathlon...and it's in 2 weeks from now. I have a co-worker who is kind of an enabler when it comes to this exercise crap.

Then I started furiously googling, because I knew nothing. I HAD been a competitive swimmer, but hadn't swam a lap in at least 7 years. I owned a 10-speed road bike, with flat tires, that I got when I was 10 years old. She's a pink Peugeot. But yep, hadn't ridden that beauty in at least 10 years.

 The one thing I had been doing though was running. Yes, I did start C25k and find at least 10 damn minutes a day, but it was a process and it did not happen magically over night. I will get back to that story in my next post and my oh so embarrassing before photos.

I owe a lot of inspiration to Swim Bike Mom right now with even remotely thinking I can do this with out dying. I found her pretty early in my google searching. She is way younger than me, and I think has a bit more disposable income, lol, but she gets it. She gets the really important stuff I mean, the trying to balance it all..... family and work, and sanity, and the voices in your head that are occasionally cheering you on, but usually being really negative and mean and encouraging you to sit on the couch with pizza.

Her book is awesome.

So I've gotten in the pool and swam at least twice a week, including some open water swims. I took my bike in and got new tires, brakes, and saddle and I've ridden up to a 21 mile ride and done one solid bike/run brick session of 14.3/2.2 miles. On days I swim, I bike to the pool, swim, shower, then bike to work, then bike home at the end of the day. That's almost like a brick.

Shut up. It is.

I've also continued running and strength training. I don't think I'll be winning any medals, and I doubt I'll be setting any kind of records, but I will be finishing.

And I'm super excited to call myself a triathlete because I have an even crazier goal in mind.

The Beginning

I suppose I should have started this blog in the end of February 2013.........or maybe when I made the initial Decision when I was pregnant with my second child and insisted on getting a Baby Jogger Stroller after renting one in Disney in 2011.

Image from wowshopper.com

My husband scoffed at me when I told him.  I didn't blame him really, even though I was piiissssssed.

It really was kind of an insane statement to make given my usual typical daily physical activity level.


None.


"After the baby comes, within a couple months, I'm going to start running. I TOTALLY need this stroller! There is this program, couch to 5 k....I can do that, I will do that, I promise."


I did not do that.


What I did do was breastfeed my daughter exclusively for 16 months, including pumping 3 times a day after I returned to work full time when she was three months old. We did use that stroller for lots of walks and strolls in that time frame....but there was no running or any dieting. There was a lot of me figuring out how to have two kids and a full time job and keep my milk supply up, because breastfeeding exclusively was important to me, but my weight and my health took a back seat.


Then at the end of Feb 2013 I decided it was time to wean, I was ready to keep my promise, I was going to start C25k. I have a friend who was a Beachbody coach, and I bought some 10-minute trainer videos, figuring no matter what I could find 10 minutes, just 10 lousy minutes in a day, right?


New Sneakers, New Sports Bra, and an alarm set for 5 am....