Photo Credit: © Can Stock Photo / inginsh
My 10-year-old twins chased the rest of the family down the deliberately slippery side of the mountain at Holiday Valley Resort in lovely Ellicottville, N.Y. We were participating in the first Mud Run—complete with crazy obstacles, lots of water and, as you would suspect, lots of mud.
As the girls neared the top of the hill just before the finish line, they decided to throw caution to the wind—launching their bodies off the top and sliding head first down the muddy slope—scraping their legs on rocks and gravel embedded in the soil and leaving cuts that turned into scars still visible three years later.
Even the short-term pain of making a bad end-of-run decision didn’t deter them from having a blast. As they headed to the outdoor “shower”—aka fire hose—to rinse off and then to the kid’s bar for food and drink, their smiles stretched ear-to-ear and their bodies swayed to the music of the live band.