Holy cow. Life is awesome. I FINALLY did a Tough Mudder. Remember a while back I did a Spartan Beast and it made me feel like a badass? Well, the Tough Mudder gave me those similar fluttery warm, iron feelings. Spartan and Mudder are definitely different events, but they both test strength, grit and endurance all while getting dirty in mud. I loved them both and happy I have another obstacle course race in the books.

The special thing about this particular Mudder is that it took place on the same course I pitted for Stephen last year at the World’s Toughest Mudder. The familiarity helped, and I was stoked I got the chance to run around the rocks and hills. I was super jealous of Stephen knocking out miles upon miles on such pretty terrain and happy I finally was able to experience the course firsthand.

Pre Mud, clean and sunscreened! Our friends Matt and Erin came out to Vegas for the race and all the other Vegas activities. It is so fun traveling with friends!

That sun got hot pretty quickly on the course…

Stephen

Me (and look at how proud Steve is) —————————————– >

Out of 10 miles and lots of obstacles, I completed all of them! Felt strong with my grip strength and even stronger with hill and trail running. Check out the elevation for our run! 2,320ft gain! (loss was 2,238)

Obligitory ugly face picture.

And our finishing picture. I earned an orange headband which i’m sure is the first of many more to come!

So we spent some time in Las Vegas where our hotel was, but about half our time we tried to get off the strip to do adventure/outdoorsy stuff. Hence the Tough Mudder. That night after the race we hit up Las Vegas Beer Fest, which was SO much busier than the local brew fests i’m used to back in Maryland.

We’re ugly photo professionals. If you need tips feel free to email me!

The next outdoor activity was hiking around the Valley of Fire (1 hour outside of Vegas). We did several short hikes on an incredibly beautiful day. I’m not going to narrate this, just take a look at these pictures and go the next time you’re near Vegas. It was SO WORTH IT.

These were called “beehives”

Stephen, Me, Matt, Erin

I felt like I was in Mad Max following behind Stephen, every picture I took made him look like an action star.

Vegas Part 2 is coming early next week! Hope everyone is enjoying these photo dump posts!

Ever Been to Valley of Fire?

What’s your favorite thing to do in Vegas?