The Mud Run Miracle

I just read an interesting thing on a blog. I don’t follow very many blogs, which is completely hypocritical since I love that people follow mine, but I do enjoy the PNWA (Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association) newsletter and editor Bill Kenower’s blog. But, the interesting thing I read on his blog was, actually, not something he wrote. It was the caption at the bottom that read This entry was posted on Monday, December 12th, 2011 at 5:30 pm. Assuming Mr. Kenower lives in Seattle, this caption implies that somehow he is living life 5 hours ahead of Pacific Standard time. Is he living in another realm? Or is it a computer glitch. Which is not nearly as interesting as a time warp.

Mistakes happen all the time. And sometimes they’re so small and insignificant, that I don’t take the time to find out the whys or wherefores. Take, for example, the mud run.

The Camp Pendleton mud run is held twice a year at the military base just off the coast near Oceanside. Wearing throw away clothes and old sneakers, runners wade through a lake, slog mud pits, and climb hills while marines squirt them with fire hoses. I paid money to do this. When I got to a wall I had to climb, a marine stood ready to help. The woman in front of me said, let me do it by myself. After watching her scramble, I said You can help me. He picked me up and literally threw me over the wall. I had imagined a friendly boost, not a heave. Asking for help was my mistake.

Thousands of runners participate in the mud run and I assume everyone brings a bag with a clean change of clothes. I chose to bring a rather funky bag I got from the PNWA that has Pacific Northwest Writer’s Conference, the sword is mightier than the pen written across the front. I told my running partner no one else is going to have a bag like this one. Thinking that it would stand out in the sea of bags and I’d be able to find it easily at the end of the race. And it did stand out and I did find it easily. But, when I opened it I also found 4 new mud run t-shirts from the spring run. (This was October)

Confused, I took my bag and shirts to the guy passing out the current run t-shirt and asked what gives. Don’t you want them? He asked.

Sure.

So, sometimes mistakes work in my favor and sometimes they land me face down in the mud and it really isn’t worth the time or the bother to figure out why.

So, I took my free t-shirt experience and turned it into a scene in the novel I was currently writing, Shells Charms, and gave thanks for not only the t-shirts but also the idea. I was given more than t-shirts that day and every time my husband wears the mud run shirt I gave him I smile and remember.