Fisherman's Friend

This past Sunday, one of my students and her mom came to pick me up at my apartment, so that I could enjoy lunch with her family and then head out to watch the Strongman's Run Obstacle Course/ Triathalon hosted by Fisherman's Friend candies. EVERYONE came out to either participate or watch. The streets were lined, as you can see:















We managed to find a decent spot to watch the start of the race and get a good view of all the costumes before they got destroyed. I took a video but it won't upload so until I figure that out heres some pictures.

Gotta love the troup of dinosaurs! Don't know how they're going to run in those outfits tho...

And I have no idea how this group made it through all the obstacles when they were connected like that.

I also found Waldo!!!

After watching the start of the race we joined the crowd heading to where all the main obstacles were, as you can see there were tons of people, and being as short as I am I was lucky to get all these photos.

Finally after waiting for a little while some of the first runners started popping up out of those little silver tunnels in the background.









Look I found Waldo again! After climing through the small tunnels, racing down a slippery muddy slope, the contestants had to run through the tires, but be careful not to lose their balance, as those white strips you see will shock you with electricity if you touch them! One of the announcers seemed to find it super funny every time someone got shocked.

And back down into the mud again, only to climb back up a muddy wall.
Dart through here

Climb up part of the ski slope (yes this all took place on the ski Slopes in La Bresse), then climb down the same ski slope....

Wait your turn in line to climb up over the wall so that you can....












head back up the mountain again......

and back down....


climb back over the wall... again but going in the opposite direction this time...











... and face the dreaded pool of tires.

Before having to get low and crawl around in the mud.












And once you did all that, you had to run back up the mountain again (really high up this time) and do the entire thing all over again. They told me people do this for fun...










Finally after doing all that twice, you reached the finish line!

Where you jumped over the last few hurdles and then you were awarded your medal of completion, and given hot chocolate...

And the dinosaur troup does a dance of joy as they cross the finish line!

Yesterday, was a beautiful day. Sunny, cheerful, happy, warm. Then last night we had a bout of rain. And this morning I wake up to this:

My response in december would have been! Yay pretty snow! My response in October is NO NO NO NO NO, please no snow... as I don't have any boots or winter clothes yet... I decided that rather than go into town to send my OFII form... I'd rather stay inside and clean my apartment. Really hoping this melts asap, and we're back to sun tomorrow. Hope Chicago is nicer than this for all of you back home.