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Getting Dirty in May I racked my brain for a theme but came up short. So I'm just gonna say it as it is. This challenge is about getting muddy, getting dirty and getting filthy and, hopefully, not dying in the meantime. So here is what is coming up this time round: Tough Mudder!! On Week 1 We have Tough Mudder. My team consists of the totally badass @Rhovaniel and I think we are both quite keen to tear up the course. But Tough Mudder is the Warmup because coming up on Week 3 we've got the 'biggest obstacle course race in the world' Rat Race Dirty Weekend! You might have heard a few of the Rangers talking about this one recently. It's been in the work for a whole year and will become an epic Ranger Meetup. OCR, beer festival, camping trip and after party with some of the finest Ranger's in the guild this side of the pond in attendance. We've got @Mr_Willes, @Rhovaniel, @Jarric, @iatetheyeti, @Charlie_Quinn and myself. This one event promises to be a massive heap of fun and excitement. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that I'm very, very excited about this race. To Round Things out Week 4 as a 'recovery' run. Nuclear Rush (incase you don't know, the magnificent flying ass on the right hand side is me) If I'm honest, this race is just insanity. I'm only doing it so that I don't end up running a hard 10k road race instead. It'll be interesting to see how my body copes with it. So as you can see I've got a lot of stuff coming up and a lot of it is going to beat me up and leave me staggering around. Because of this I'm going to take a break from my own convention and not promise a damned thing in regards to workouts. Instead this challenge is all about recovery. I'm going to try to maintain 4 runs a week because I still have a marathon coming up in the summer but I will skip runs if needed after Tough Mudder if I feel like I need the recovery time. I'm pretty stubborn about that so don't expect many skipped runs. I'm going to try to lift 4 times a week but I will skip sessions if I need to before and After Tough Mudder. My aim would be to do at least 2 per week but I'm very much playing it all by ear. So here are my actual goals Update Every Day Update the forum every day. Report on workouts, recovery and calorie intake for each given day. That'll simply help me from taking this challenge as an excuse to go haywire. Obviously there probably won't be much updating on the days that we're camping at RRDW. Do Something for Recovery Every Day There are no hard rules here. It can be anything. Stretching, yoga, a bath, meditation and even swapping out a run for a walk because I ran 20 miles the Saturday before. Just something to keep me mindful about recovery and report on what I'm doing. The idea is to make me actively focus on it a bit. That's it. I'm really excited for this challenge even if I'm being very nebulous about the whole thing.

Around a year ago, after a little persuasion from a few people on here, I signed up for Rat Race Dirty Weekend. A 20 mile obstacle course race with some of the biggest, craziest obstacles you can imagine. Worlds longest monkey bars, anyone? Or how about an obstacle four shipping containers high followed by a slip and slide? I can't believe that how quickly it's come around and that in less than 3 weeks I'll be attempting these nutty obstacles and so much more. Thankfully, I'm not running this race alone or competitively. I'll be doing a "fun" lap with the Mudstacle crew, who I'm certain will look after me and help me round this epic course. But because I'm a glutton for punishment, I'm not just doing Dirty Weekend in the next few weeks. This is my schedule for April and May: 22nd April - W.A.R (OCR) 1st May - 10k trail run 5th May - Dirty Weekend 14th May - Nuclear Race 12km 21st May - Tough Mudder So yeah, I've got events before and straight after the biggest run of my life. As @Maigahane has just said in her challenge, you don't have to be crazy to be a Ranger, but it certainly helps. Main Challenge Goal: Stay In One Piece, Don't Die After a normal 10-12km OCR, I'm usually recovered in two or three days but I'm not sure what 20 miles of running, obstacles and an after party is going to do to me. I've got 7 days between Dirty Weekend and Nuclear Race, and Nuclear Race and Tough Mudder, so my main focus is recovery. Foam Rolling: Minimum 10 minutes a day Stretching: Warm ups before every activity. At least 10 minutes after an activity & mini stretches during the day Recovery Runs: Go out for at least 2 miles at recovery pace within 2 days of an event Other Goals: To be decided weekly As I don't know how I'm going to feel after each event, I'm going to take each week in turn and set goals as needed each week. If I'm feeling capable, those goals might be running or strength training related. If I'm completely destroyed, they'll be additional recovery goals such as yoga. Bring on the Madness!