Nudity, trail tumbles, and equipment malfunctions; Oh My!

Runners have been called crazy, they’ve been called overly dedicated, and they’ve been called masochistic. But after hearing a few of these stories, there’s one more word that you may have not thought of: comedians.

The following are a collection of stories from our SKORA Insiders and, from what they tell us, are all completely true.

Our first story has Mike Spangler attempting to impress his now-wife with his creek-jumping skills. Classic case of “hey watch this!” (he even said it!) and, well, let’s have Mike tell the rest.

My now-wife and I, dating at the time, were out jogging. We came upon a creek in the park and I thought to myself “I can jump that.”

So, trying to be cool, I say to my wife “hey, watch this!”

I get my running start, try to push off on a soggy piece of land and…didn’t jump. My one leg sunk and I fell into the creek, covering myself in mud and water. I’m very lucky she still married me after that!

We hope you didn’t ask for a hug after, Mike. Our second story may not resonate as well with the fellas, but we’re betting every lady knows exactly how Emilie Reas felt.

I was training for my first marathon and hadn’t learned about chafing yet. Halfway through my long run, I started feeling some pain on my inner thighs.

I made it through a miserable 16-miler, but only with blood dripping down my inner thighs. Let me tell you, this is a very embarrassing place for a woman to have visible blood!

Ouch, Emilie. We all feel your pain and a little over half of us feel your embarrassment.

Our last story is from Sarah Beth Houser, who managed to likely break a law or two, lose a few memories, and, well, we’ll let her tell the rest.

I did Warrior Dash a couple years ago. I was there by myself and it was a long way from my house, so I used GPS on my phone to get there.

I get there and the bag check line is really long, but I spot that my chiro had a tent and was doing ART and stuff for the runners, so I say hi. He works on my IT Band a bit, and before I head off to the race, I ask him if I can stash my phone and keys in his tent. He says ok, but laughs and says I better lock my phone or he will go through my pictures. I enable the password I always use.

I go do my mud run and come back to his tent, say bye, and get my phone. It was freezing cold that day, so I bypass the hose-down area. I am trying to unlock my phone as I walk to my car, but it won’t unlock. I try again and again until it locks me out. Awesome. I couldn’t even access the GPS to get home.

I get to my car and realize I didn’t bring a change of clothes. Um. Yeah. I didn’t to get my Mini all muddy, so I take a look around and see no one in the parking lot. I strip down naked and throw my muddy clothes in the hatchback. I run commando, so all I had to wear was the tshirt they gave me for the race and it was really tight and short.

Then I realize I had to pee, but I couldn’t go back to the port-a-potty since I only had a short shirt on. Not my proudest moment, but I squat down by my car to pee.

I am driving home —no GPS — hoping I don’t get pulled over because I’m naked. I get to my house and pull into my driveway, in front of my house. I make a mad dash from my driveway, across my yard, up the sidewalk, and to the porch. Naked.

I ended up having to have Sprint reset my phone, which wiped all my pictures, contacts, etc.

To recap: I was muddy. Naked. Had to pee in a parking lot. Had to run outside naked. And had my phone wiped out.

I haven’t ran another obstacle race since.

Photo courtesy Black Hills Trail Running Series.