Devil went down to Georgia ... because Salem was WAY TOO COLD!

Happy Halloween ya'll!

Hope everyone had a fun weekend amidst the SNOW and POWER OUTTAGES ... in OCTOBER. I'm really not sure why I still live here, its pretty unreasonable even for New England.

I should have known angry snow was coming because Friday morning at 6am it was COOOOOLD. And by the time the sun came out and I got to Salem, it was even COOOOLDER. That being said we 1500 devil's chase participants didn't let it stop us. People were out full force in costume which was good since I was decked out. Since I was a lone wolf for this one I only got one photo thanks to a lovely fallen angel runner ...

Yes, I ran in the cape and yes I held the stupid pitchfork the entire time ... and no I do not enjoy running in a costume for 6.66 miles haha.

I finished in 1 hour, 17 minutes and 59 seconds which puts me at an 11:43 mile. Pretty similar to my 6.2 miler the previous week. Two things I realized while doing this race ... people that do marathons and even 1/2 marathons need to have their heads checked and also people who run in the winter should see the same head checkers as their marathon/half marathon friends.

After the race I headed to Worcester for Lauren's dress fitting. Wait till you see her, folks, she look stunning. And after a nice lunch with Lauren, Matt, Aunt Marsha and Gram; I headed up to North Conway for the Ghoullog where I dressed up as a roll of sushi ...

Come on you can see it! After way too many hours in the car this weekend I am happy to be out of it and happy to have a whole 4 weeks until my next race, which will be the Whitinsville 5 Miler on Thanksgiving Day with my sister Emily!

If you haven't been able to check recently I am at $4,400 raised thanks to a handful of wonderful donators this fall, leaving me $600 to go by the end of the year. With that update, today will mark the beginning of 10 x 60 in 8 which is my final fundraising push to get 60 people to donate $10 in the next 8 weeks so that I can meet my goal come New Years Day. So if you haven't already, haven't lately or are just feeling extra generous today please click the fund page link to the right and donate $10 today!

Since it snowed this weekend and apparently Fall is over I'm going ahead in thanking my end of Summer/Fall donators today for giving my efforts a HUGE push:

The Boston Strike Out ALS Crew (which was 30+ strong)

Lauren w/ her matching donation from the Puma 5 Miler

Maria Baker and Andy Magarie with post even calendar purchases

The Strike Out ALS Worcester Crew (which was 35+ strong)

Lauren w/ her matching donation from her YMCA 5K

Tom Millet

Scott & Mel (and baby Hudson to be) :)

and Dad who put down anonymous but luckily I'm admin and can see it was him again :)

Here's hoping the next 2 months can bring in $600 to complete my mission. With 3 races to go and a potential polar plunge on new years day if I meet my minimum there's still plenty to read about!

Happy Halloweeeeeeeee ....

Well folks I did it. After a 5 hour bus ride, and an hour of figuring out the train system in Manhattan and an overnight in a creepy basement room in a dodgy Brooklyn neighborhood I ran the inaugural Rock N' Roll Brooklyn 10K. And my finish time was 1 hour, 12 minutes and 32 seconds which averages an 11.6 minute mile. Pretty darn good for this less than avid runner!

I would like to point out that I did this with no iPod which will have been my first foray into musicless running. It helped that there were DJ's setup at every mile blasting excellent jams for all us runners. Since this was their inaugural there was some serious disorganization (they need an event planner's assistance ahem ahem) but all said and done it was a great race in a great location.

Prospect Park is really gorgeous and certainly HUGE. Makes Boston Common seem like a back yard. Below are some photos of the day:

This was the T-shirt line. Those two tiny white specks in the distance are where 13,000 people were supposed to pick up their race T's. Hi, race crew if you're handing out bib numbers, bags and T-shirts it would save you lots of time to put the T-shirt in the bag and slap the bib number on it so we pick it all up at once. Just saying ...

This was the finish line, people began rolling in around 25 minutes or something totally ridiculous, damn overachievers!

 I couldn't resist a shot w/ my swanky new medal in front of the swanky finish line rigging.

And a second unintentionally near an ambulance which I easily could have needed.

After a 45 minute walk back to my hotel, yes New York you are officially way to large, and a looooooong hot shower I met up with a friend in Manhattan and ate a big lunch and trolled the city taking in a gorgeous Fall day. Then after missing my 5:30PM bus, followed by missing the 6:30PM bus I forked over a large sum of money for a train ride which was quite possibly the best idea I have ever had. I slept 4 glorious hours the whole way and crashed into bed around 11:30pm.

The following morning I headed to Salem for the Witch City 5K. Following my amazingly smart idea the night before this was probably top five worst ideas I have ever had. Back to back races for the non-runner that is me, was hellacious. I was sore from the belly button down and thus this finish time was lacking as all get out. I finished at 37:50 which amounts to a 12 minute 11 second mile which is TERRIBLE even for me! That being said I survived back to back runs and I woke up and dragged ass over the finish line for both so I am proud of that!

Here's some pics from the Witch City 5K which ran through the heart of Salem:

This is Lauren and I freezing out tushes off at 8:30am, the shadow monster is Bert who came out as my chauffeur instead of co-runner due to some alcohol problems the night before :)

Random shot of the costumes ... which we lamely did not participate in.

Some punk rock broads ...

Pac-Man ... excellent

Lauren whipping across the finish line, as her birthday present I let her beat me in this race (HAHA)

And slowly rolling in to your far left in electric pink would be me ... emphasis on the slowly

And a shot of me dying ...

All in all it was a successful weekend! Coming up this Saturday is the Devil's Chase 6.66 Miler in back in Salem. Following that I'll be headed to Worcester for the Team 9/22/12 dress fitting with my Lo-Lo beans and then off to NH for my inaugural Ghoullog experience on Cranmore Mountain .. bring it ghosties! That will conclude my October races.  

October 31st will also begin the 10 x 80 in 8. What is that you may ask? Well I have $800 left to raise. I need 80 ppl to donate $10 each in order to reach my goal by December 31st and I am instituting 10 x 80 in 8 to make it happen on time for the year! I have over 600 facebook friends, loads of awesome family and tons of randos that can all spare $10 for ALS so expect to be hunted come 10/31!

I am still looking for a November race, if you know of any Worcester local T-Giving Day races please let me know, Em and I are desperately seeking one.

And December launches the final month of my year long quest to raise $5,000 for ALS and run 1 5K a month for the year in memory and in honor of Grandpa Hudson. This will be a big month so expect big things in the blog, keep an eye out for emails, fundraising updates, blog updates, and the final countdown ... yah Ash, this time it's happening!

As always thank you for reading and keep following, you only have 2.5 more months to have to listen to me ramble on and on so suck it up and thank you!

Drumroll please ......

Strike Out ALS Worcester raised:

one thousand and three dollars!

Thank you so much to family and friends that came out on a Sunday night to help raise funds for the ALS Association of MA in memory of Grandpa Hudson. This has bumped my efforts significantly getting me to $4,200 raised to date. This leaves me $800 to go to reach my goal by December 31st, 2011!

Bocado was an excellent host, our event liaison Jason was super helpful, our bartender Nate was fantastic, the food was superb the sparkly sangria was to die for. It is an amazing place to host an event.

Enjoy the photo montage below:

This weekend is the Rock N Roll 10K in Brooklyn New York on Saturday followed right after with the Witch City 5K in Salem, MA so there will be a whole lot of running going on!

If you haven't made a donation or haven't made a donation in a while and would like to please visit the website by clicking on the link to the right and help me raise $800 more dollars by New Year's Eve!

Check back end of this week for playlists and check back next week for race times and photos.

Thanks for reading!

Rugged Update

I'm official:

234       2009      MOLLY M HUDSON       1:11:57       28      F     BOSTON, MA

This puts me placing 242nd out of 234 people in my particular wave, 1478th out of 1680 women competing and 1415th out of 1608 women in the ages 19-54 category. All around not very impressive but I am more than happy to have competed, to have finished, and to have finished with a calf injury.

Here's a few photos that tell a better story that the cleaner looking ones you say last week:

http://digitalphotoconcept.smugmug.com/Adventure-Race/2011-Rugged-Maniac/1031-1100-WALL/19223683_jzcNqx#1500483010_ZbbWL6p-A-LB

http://digitalphotoconcept.smugmug.com/Adventure-Race/2011-RM-mud-crawl/1030am-wave-RMS-2011/19150367_GwfsWd#1498299603_5kLPPs8-A-LB

http://digitalphotoconcept.smugmug.com/Adventure-Race/2011-RM-mud-crawl/1030am-wave-RMS-2011/19150367_GwfsWd#1498303014_fLSxHz2-A-LB

October is going to be a busy month. Training commences today because in just 3 short weeks I will compete in the Rock N Roll 10K in Brooklyn, NY followed the next morning by the Witch City 5K in Salem, MA, followed shortly thereafter by the Devil's Chase 6.66 miler on Saturday the 29th. It's going to be a strenuous month and I'm ready for the challenge!

 

Thanks for reading ... Worcester Fundraiser is in 2 weeks, hope you can make it!

I am Rugged, Hear me ROAR!

I feel more sore than rugged today but yesterday I felt all kinds of rugged! I am officially a RUGGED MANIAC!

After a restful night's sleep and a sweet waffle and fruit breakfast in Wales at Tom and Krissy's place we headed out to Southwick, MA; which is further West than anyone in Mass should have to travel. Pulling into the Motocross track, it looked more like we'd be participating in a rodeo than a Marine Corps race. After checking in and situating the gear we took a few pre-run photos for posterity.

Some of the 10am race crew:

Lauren and I before getting muddy:

My "I'm about to be rugged as all hell" pose:

Around 9:45am we headed over to the starting line and did some stretching and mostly some laughing about the poor people coming in from the wave ahead of us all muddy and injured looking. The DJ did a countdown and at 10am we were off.

The first mile was a slow jog through wooded terrain, I was immediately winded which made me realize that forest running is VASTLY different than the concrete paradise I usually train and run on. The amount of muscle you use to stabilize your body as you trek over wet, muddy, sandy, tree branchy ground is astounding. There was a 5ft dirt mound to leap over just after the start and coming down off that I felt my left calf tighten up weirdly and shortly thereafter (BEFORE we hit a single obstacle mind you) I felt my calf muscle pop and/or pull and S-H-I-T was the only word that came to mind.

Now mind you have I have been running a race monthly, sometime more frequently since January of this year. And while I don't train as much as I should I certainly was running in the weeks leading up to this race. I have been injury free outside of blisters this entire time and in mile 1 of the Rugged Maniac before any obstacles I pull a muscle. Bound and determined to finish I decided it was better to be slowed down than to push it so hard I couldn't complete the race. And from there on it became more of run and less of a race.

We went over obstacles like a log pile, tall and taller barricade walls that involved all 4 of us to get each other over, water slides into mud pits and or water traps, rope climbs, cargo net climbs, etc and we all completed every single one. It's unfortunate that I wasn't in the mindframe to take a shot of the course after we finished but we did snap these photos after the race. Let me explain since we don't look at that muddy, the very final obstacle was a cargo net climb, onto a platform from which you took a water slide down into a huge pool from which you had to vault over long buoys that slid with your body and emerge a little less muddy but SOAKING WET and FREEZING haha ... so we look more damp and less dirty but believe me we WERE GROSS ...

Here's a group shot post race, I lost my headband somewhere in the mud pits and my number was dangling by a thread after the first set of barricade walls:

Donate Your Shoes Pile to Support Autism:

The pink and black ones were mine, they deserved a photo moment after what they carried me through:

When our wave was complete the timing system was down so beyond the guess of 1hr 10mins we're not entirely sure yet what our finish time was. Results are supposed to be posted online within the week so there will be a follow up blog post with the official time. In all honesty, my goal was just to complete this without incident so whatever time is it I will be totally happy with!

Gregg, Tom and Krissy, Nicole and John and Colleen and Mike were off next, we watched them cruise through and took some group shots after pre and post crappy outdoor shower that did not a whole lot beyond shifting the dirt around to different areas:

Lauren, Tommy and I waiting for a shower:

The 11am Crew ... and Moose:

Gret and Greg

Lauren, Mike & Colleen



So after an awesome, muddy, ridiculous day I headed to Oxford so my parents could take care of me haha. I am a little banged up, a lot sore and beyond tired but I am castless and not sporting a black eye so my bride is pleased that I can walk down the aisle for her next weekend and so am I :) It was one of the coolest things I have done and I look forward to finding out my finish time so I can crush is next year! If you have a chance to participate in one of these do it, so much fun and makes you feel so kickass!

Check back next weekend to see my race time and some pics from the wedding which have nothing to do with the blog or the races but I think they'll be fun to share.

Thanks for reading and be ready to do some intense reading in October where I'll be throwing Strike Out ALS Worcester followed by a (probably crazy) attempt at a 6.2 miler, a 3.1 miler and a 6.66 miler in a span of 8 days. Let's hope the calf muscle is healed up for that because training commences Monday the 3rd of October HARDCORE!