I’m a dirty grrrl

There’s something unexpectedly liberating about throwing your inhibitions out the door and letting yourself get so dirty you don’t even recognize yourself. About dragging your chest through a slimy muddy mess. About washing your socks in the river with the hope you’ll find a mile’s respite from rocks and twigs between your toes.

There’s something inexplicably satisfying about chugging a couple of beers at mile 4.5ish then running through the urge to get said beers out of your belly. About wiping mud off your teeth with a finger so filthy you definitely do not want to know where it’s been. About joining 100 people in a communal cold shower and trying, ineffectively, to rid ear canals, nostrils and butt cracks of an unrelenting amount of filthy ooze.

There’s something shamefully gratifying about waking up the next morning aching in muscles you didn’t know you had. About finding a new bruise and considering it a badge of honor. About comparing scrapes and gashes with your partners in crime.

There’s something legitimately cool about having run, slogged, flopped and hobbled through the Dirty Dash. I know. I did it.

Saturday I joined more than 4,000 other Dirty Dashers (including 12 of my filthiest friends) in what will, no doubt, become one of Spokane’s most-anticipated summertime events. Despite the unfortunate and frazzling parking situation; despite the fact that the course could have used more water stops (of the mud-free variety); and despite the fact that many people unwittingly participated in a race that was more work than play – I can’t wait to do it all again.