I had forgotten about the race until I received an email last week. “ONE OR MORE OF YOUR TEAM MEMBERS HAS NOT SIGNED THE WAIVER. You are responsible to find out which team member(s) have not signed. You’re receiving this email because one or more of your members have not signed.”

One of Emily’s brother’s friends had mentioned the race to us at a barbecue several months ago. We enthusiastically proclaimed it would be fun. We would do it! I must have signed up that evening, then promptly forgot about it.

I had three weeks to get three additional people to commit to being on our team, the Mud Pies. To commit to flying down to San Diego and driving an hour or so to Camp Pendleton. To commit to rising early on Saturday morning to run “a challenging 10K run with hills, tire obstacles, low sand crawl, river crossings, two 5-foot walls with mud on both sides, tunnel crawl, slippery hill climb, and the final 30-foot mud pit.” I think I found a team.

I mentioned to my BART buddy that I was doing the race. He asked me how I was training.

“Hmm. Well. I run a couple of times a week. Maybe a couple of miles.”

“Lori, isn’t the race 10K? That’s more than a couple of miles.”

“Yeah. Well, I swim a couple of times a week.”

“What? So you can breast stroke through the mud?”

“Good point. I lift weights. That will help, won’t it?”

I’ve never really trained for a race before.

“You need to start doing push ups. Not the girly kind. Real push ups. That will build your upper body strength faster than anything.”

I committed to doing push ups, the manly kind, every day until the race. With 10 days left until the race, I’ve reached my personal best. I can now do five push ups. Somehow I don’t think that’s going to get me over the wall.